I believe they responded to me instead of the list because they don't want to get roped into yet another discussion about it. Thus, I summarize the links and info I got.
***** Links skeptical of PRT:
- Personal Rapid Transit – Cyberspace Dream Keeps Colliding With Reality. http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_prt001.htm
- Conventional Rail vs. 'Gadgetbahnen'. http://planetizen.com/oped/item.php?id=73
- Professor Vucan Vuchic. http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/vuchic1.htm, http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/vuchic2.htm
- "The Road Less Traveled: The pros and cons of personal rapid transit. " by Troy Pieper. http://pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1056
- http://www.roadkillbill.com/PRTisaJoke.html
***** The open-minded person's story (edited):
"In my view, the PRT movement is driven by the engineers who created it, and their Public Relations efforts have been so inept that it's never going to happen around here. The article you posted [actually Barbara posted it, not me --Dan] was so similar to the anti-PRT hysteria that has flown around this list that it seemed like just a rehashing of old fears and anxiety about new ideas, and didn't add anything new to the discussion.
"I'm not an active PRT proponent, but just happen to be a person who thought it is an intriguing idea. A friend of mine used to work with the engineer at the U who developed the PRT concept and filled me in on
a bit of PRT history: What happened, and it was rather unfortunate, was that Raytheon bought the development rights for the PRT concept 10 or more years ago, but tried to redesign it using off-the-shelf Raytheon parts and technology. That didn't work and eventually the Raytheon rights to develop PRT expired and went back to the inventor.
"That happened about four or five years ago and spawned the latest efforts by it's designers to get things off the ground. As I mentioned, their Public Relations efforts have been rather amateurish and
ineffective. In my opinion, the PRT folks need to hire professional public relations pros to get things going. But, I don't think that will ever happen."
Dan Frankowski, CARAG -- http://cdbaby.com/cd/antonanddan My crazy jazz duo http://cdbaby.com/cd/mpjs My jazz sextet
Dan Frankowski wrote:
Barbara Lickness wrote:
Barbara,
PRT is called an "epic boondoggle" by the New York Press:
http://www.nypress.com/17/52/pagetwo/newshole8.cfm
I have a friend who is way into the idea of PRT. I am suspicious of it since I believe in mass transit, and fear PRT could siphon dollars and attention. However, I haven't heard concrete arguments against it (e.g., its carrying capacity is too low, it costs too much, etc.). Anyone know something about it?
Dan
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