[Mpls] Fwd: Dean Zimmermann in the news

[Steve Nelson]

> Barbara Lickness wrote:

> In reality PRT has never worked despite over 30
> years of research and development.

PRT has never worked because PRT has never been tried.  Every time a system 
was to be built those who were going to fund it called in the "experts" from 
mass transit who made the same mistake time and again.  They were hooked on 
the "capacity" issue and so they would demand changes in the size and, 
consequently, the weight of the vehicle and what came about was closer to an 
El but definitely NOT PRT.

>Combining the small
> carrying capacity of a small car, with
> the expensive infrastructure of mass transit, PRT
> offers the worst of both worlds.

Both assumptions are in error here.
A) It is not the "capacity" that is important DESPITE the fact that PRT is 
perfectly capable of matching bus or LRT capacity, it is the FLEXIBILITY 
combined with the fact that it interferes with no ground traffic and no 
ground traffic interferes with it along with the off line stations that 
permit freeflow from destination to destination.
B) Because TRUE PRT is lightweight the infrastructure is very INEXPENSIVE 
compared to LRT and it can be manufactured right here in Minnesota creating 
much needed jobs.

> 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.

Utterly wrong!  PRT grew out of research at the University of Minnesota. 
Taxi2000 was formed by investors who believe in the technology and continue 
to believe in the technology.  Unfortunately they have been doing battle 
with the oil companies of mass transit--bus companies and LRT backers with 
massive amounts of public subsidy money to throw into lobbying to keep a 
real PRT system from being set up.

> 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.

$100,000?? OOoooooo!!!  That would have been what---5 minutes of lobbying 
time for LRT?

> 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.

Raytheon.  Interesting choice.  One of the companies intent on building a 
heavyweight El instead of lightweight PRT.  They could never get their heads 
around a small capacity vehicle capable of handling high capacity movement. 
A problem that seems to be evident in this post as well.

> "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.

In spite of the fact that Cincinatti rejected PRT based on Raytheon's 
erroneous figures, many of the local luminaries who actually looked at what 
PRT is SUPPOSED to be became and continue to be investors in Taxi2000. 
INFORMED investors that is.

Steven M Nelson
Willard Hay
http://citizenshipchronicles.blogspot.com/
Get UP! Get OUT! & GET INVOLVED!!!