[Mpls] Fwd: Dean Zimmermann in the news

[Barbara Lickness]

http://www.counterpunch.org/frank01032005.html
 
Strange Bedfellows
 
Greens and Republicans
 
By JOSHUA FRANK
 
You probably haven't heard of it. It goes by the
name of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), and it is fast
becoming the latest fad of the Green Party and others.
 
So what is this PRT anyway? As Aaron Naparstek 
recently wrote in NY Press, "PRT is a computerized,
driverless mass transit system. The passenger enters a
sleek, four-person pod that is guaranteed to be 
waiting at the station, swipes a fare card, punches
in a destination and goes. The pods run on a web of
elevated tracks 16 feet above street level with
stations every two or three blocks apart.

PRT advocates promise transportation with no wait, no
traffic and no smelly strangers."
 
Even David Cobb, the anointed leader of the GP, has
touted PRT as a "Green Technology" and trumped its
potential benefits while "campaigning" in Minnesota
last year. Dean Zimmerman a Minneapolis, Minnesota
city councilman and GP member says that PRT "is going
to be a major breakthrough in how people move around
urban centers." Zimmerman has even spoken publicly
with right-wing Republicans to make a case for 
more public funds to study the technology.
 
Sounds odd. Are Republicans turning green on us? Or
is the national Green Party losing its marbles? Sorry
to say, it's the latter.
 
In reality PRT has never worked despite over 30
years of research and development. Combining the small
carrying capacity of a small car, with 
the expensive infrastructure of mass transit, PRT
offers the worst of both worlds. Plus, it's the
brainchild of Ed Anderson's private corporation Taxi
2000, who has already made a bundle of cash by 
convincing city and state governments that it is in
their best interest to hand over phat research checks.
 
Although Los Angeles and Santa Cruz California have
voted down proposals to allocate money to study the
futuristic transit system, New Jersey, which has
already appropriated $75,000 to PRT, plans to up that 
by $100,000 this coming year. While out in 
Minneapolis and Duluth, Greens and others are hoping
their government will pony up the needed cash to go
through with the PRT study.
 
Despite the past failures of PRT, hopes among its
boosters remain high. Perhaps their hopes aren't for a
green public transit system; rather they hope PRT can
continue to swindle even more loot out of government
accounts.
 
"PRT is really a stalking horse for the pro-highway,
anti transit lobby," claims Ken Avidor who has kept a
watchful eye on PRT in his home state on Minnesota.
"It is supported by highway engineering firms,
right-wing Republicans like [Minnesota] State
Senator Michele Bachmann and Tom Delay."
 
This new marriage surely makes for strange bedfellows,
as Greens and Republicans seem to see eye to eye on
the PRT boondoggle. Plus, Greens should know the
history of those they are jumping into bed with. 
 
The state of Illinois and Raytheon, the maker of
"Bunker Buster" bombs, Tomahawk, Patriot missiles, and
other assorted weaponry -- has invested 
over $38 million to study PRT in the Chicago metro
area.
 
"Though it all sounds very gee-whiz innocent, PRT is
a major scam," writes Naparstek in NY Press. "In
Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Seattle, Chicago and
elsewhere, PRT has burned through tens of millions of 
dollars of public and private investment. The only
tangible result has been to clear the way for highway
construction and make legitimate mass transit projects
more difficult to build. In at least a few cases,
after finally running PRT out of town, citizens
learned that the public officials most enthusiastic
about PRT had financial stakes in the companies
developing it.

"--------------------------------------------------
 
Joshua Frank is the author of the forthcoming book,
Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush,
to be released in early 2005 by Common Courage Press.
He can be reached at: frank_joshua at hotmail.com


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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead