Jim Mork Cooper
wrote
My trouble with PRT is that it sacrifices the increasing returns to scale that accrue to forms
of transit that carry more people. It is simply a fact that a vehicle that carries a maximum
of four people cannot be as efficient as one that carries forty.
Also for a system to be reasonable, it cannot drop PRT riders any closer to home than
LRT or buses. Making PRT more convenient would require building a whopping rail
system, which would make a lot of neighborhoods less liveable.
Really? Picture a crowded event at Target Center coming to a close. A group of seniors from Horn Towers has attended and plans to return home. These patrons can choose to cross the street and go down the block to catch LRT which, theoretically, runs 8 - 9 minutes apart and can haul 190 fully loaded. Of course they also get to stop at every stop along the way and make their wait for their bus connections on Lake Street.
Or they can go to the attached station at the Target Center where a continuous stream for 4 passenger PRT cars are moving through the station. No waiting. As the patrons leaves the station paralleling the LRT they do not have to stop at the same place as the car in front or the car behind as cars are free to exit at any station without making everyone else go with them.
Assuming part of Dean Zimmermann's model has been built, when the car reaches Lake Street it turns west and continues on to Horn Towers where an attached station allows them to disembark without ever having to set foot outside.
Now if that was a group of 40 people they have used 10 cars. With cars continuously flowing through the station at Target center and an average loading time of 2 minutes they are all on their way home in 20 minutes. Assuming they all stand in line at one gate. If that station is a 5 gate station and they spread out among the 5 gates then they are all on their way in 4 minutes.
Never having to go outside--non-stop service from door-to-door--capacity equal to or greater than the LRT behemoth------guess there's no efficiency there!
Steven M Nelson
Willard Hay
http://citizenshipchronicles.blogspot.com/
Get UP! Get OUT! & GET INVOLVED!!!
REMINDERS:
1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
