At 03:13 PM 9/25/2000 -0500, timothy connolly wrote:
>
>I might be wrong about light rail; It might do fine. i
>hope I am wrong given its cost. I can only speak for
>myself when I say that I would be just as happy with a
>bus as I would with light rail. One is Bush, the other
>is Gore. Give me a Nader.
Now that's what I call an invitation....
I'm a supporter of a system called Personal Rapid Transit,
PRT. PRT is an idea that's been around since the 50's,
but has yet to really be implemented anywhere. It consists
of a network of elevated guideways - small, about a 3'x3'
(90cmx90cm) cross section - carrying small, low-occupancy vehicles.
Because the vehicles are light weight (1000 lbs = 450 kg), the
guideway is small, light, and inexpensive to build.
All the stations are "offline" - that is, on a separate switching
from the main track. If you don't need to stop at a station, you
just roll by. And the computer-controlled vehicles can switch
between lines, delivering you to anywhere on the network.
So to ride this thing, you would walk into a station anytime, day or
night, and buy a ticket to another station anywhere on the network
(using an electronic ticket machine). Then you get into the next
available vehicle and you're on your way. (During rush hour, you
might have to wait a couple minutes.) You get a non-stop trip at
a constant speed of, say, 30 mph.
No schedules to worry about. No transfers. 24-hour on-demand service.
Faster than your car for many applications. And no traffic hassles.
This is an innovation that will get people out of their cars.
Professor Ed Anderson of the University of Minnesota pioneered a complete
redesign of PRT from the ground up. This technology was spun off from
the U, forming the Taxi 2000 corporation. They have a thoroughly
engineered design - they know where every cog would go, and they have
complete and independently audited cost estimates.
Because of the lightweight design, the total estimated cost per mile
of construction is less than $10 million - for the guideway, all vehicles,
and 2 stations. This compares to $45 million (and counting?) per mile
in the Hiawatha Light-Rail project.
Also because of the light weight and the lack of unnecessary starts and
stops, these little electronic vehicles would get energy efficiency
equivalent to 85 miles per gallon. The operating cost, per passenger,
per mile, is estimated at 15 cents.
We could put a system like this in downtown Minneapolis - 9 miles of guideway
in a couple big loops, putting a station within 4 blocks of any location.
Cost: $90 million. But the benefits! There could be a station leading
directly into the skyway. Workers, shoppers, whoever could park their cars
on the outskirts of downtown and get an immediate ride to their office -
thus reducing the stress on more central parking areas. Buses could link
up with the PRT system on the outskirts as well, and not clog downtown
streets. Such a system could pay for itself in less than a decade - without
any subsidies for rides.
You can find out more about this proposal at
http://www.SteveAnderson.org/issues/prt/minneapolis.html
(Complete with a map of the proposed guideways.)
We could do a similar system in downtown St. Paul. See a map of that on
the "Citizens for PRT" site at
http://www.cprt.org/page4.htm
(Citizens for PRT is a small charitable, educational organization.)
Once that's a success, you could expand into neighborhoods near downtown.
Many of these neighborhoods have low-income residents who could really
benefit from a reliable, on-demand, 24-hour transit service. If the
system works as well as I think we would have every reason to expect,
we would continue to grow it from there, adding trunk lines out along
major freeways (like 394 and 35W). Within the next 30-50 years we could
cover the entire metro area with a reasonable density of lines, so that
PRT would be a practical way to get from anywhere, to anywhere.
Other possibilities:
- Use it for (small) cargo! Build stations directly in to factories
and warehouses to ship materials around the Twin Cities and to the airport.
- Build a PRT line designed to go 80-100 mph between the Twin Cities
and places like Duluth and Rochester. (Imagine, a fast, nonstop ride
from your neighborhood to downtown Duluth.)
- Privatize, if you like: since the system could realistically operate
without a subsidy, one option for constructing it would be for the state,
cities, and counties to grant right of way and for a private company to
build and run the system at a profit. (Such a company would probably need
to be regulated like a utility, as it would have an effective monopoly.)
Democrats like Carol Flynn have been blocking PRT because it would
"distract from" their plans for light rail. Republicans are focused
on preserving the "freedom to drive". Neither rail nor more freeway
lanes offer any long-term hope for substantially reducing our dependence
on the automobile. PRT is a new idea that could make a real difference,
and this Bipartisan legislature refuses to even pass a bill to study it.*
And that, in a nutshell, is what got me into the race for Minnesota
Senate, District 62, with the Independence Party of Minnesota. :)
PRT isn't my only issue - check the web site for much much more -
but it's an issue where I hope to make a real difference in the
quality of life of Minnesotans for decades to come.
Relevant disclaimers: I am in no way financially connected with Taxi 2000
(http://www.taxi2000.com), I just think they've got a really solid idea.
And (*) I should acknowledge that individual legislators, like Senator
John Marty (DFL) and Representative Torrey Westrom (R), have been very
open to the idea of PRT, even though their party leadership has been very
closed. "Credit where it's due."
And finally I would like to mention that this system is such a "Nader"
compared to the Bush and Gore of conventional transit systems, that Nader
actually expressed his support for it at his speech to the National Press
Club.
--
Steven C. Anderson 612-722-6658 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The Independence Party Candidate for Minnesota Senate, District 62
http://www.SteveAnderson.org/
