Bacon's Rebellion

Partial to PRT

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by

James A. Bacon
in

In my column this week, “Rail Rip-off,” I tout the benefits of the heavy-rail transportation option in Northern Virginia, as long as it can pay its own way. Were the planning process not so far along, making it politically impossible to consider an alternative mass-transit system, I would urge the Kaine administration to take a close look at Personal Rapid Transit, or PRT.

In his column today (“The Problem with ‘Mass” Transit“) Ed Risse takes a detailed look at the PRT option. In theory, PRT would be less expensive to build and far more flexible than rail. Because it’s so new and relatively untested, PRT is not a political option for Northern Virginia, which is demanding answers right now. But other metropolitan areas no so deeply committed to heavy rail — e.g. Hampton Road and Richmond — should consider it.

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5 responses to “Partial to PRT”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    PRT has been around for years… youcan check out WVU’s failed PRT…

    go with rail even if it doesn’t pay for itself… the benefits are redundancy in transportation systems and capacity to take the peaks off the rush hours…

    in addition, if passenger rail has it’s own right-of-way it can be alot safer and therefore more reliable than driving….

    80,000 injuries and 900 deaths last year tells me we need some other mode where the driving is not left in the hands of teens… 20% of those injuries and deaths were teens…

  2. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    6:06 Anonymous

    You would not make a fool of yourself if you took the time to read our column with care instead of just parroting the Business-As-Usual Heavy Rail line. You could hurt yourself jumping to conclusions.

    What you say (and Kenton Ngo’s comments at 750 Volts) have some relevance to historic RRT advocacy but not to our column.

    You are right about teen drivers. See our column from 1 November 2004 “Dying Young in Traffic” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

    EMR

  3. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    There are what, five or six PRT systems and none are really personal, but group transit. The one in Miami seems to work OK and it is free. Maybe that is what it takes to get new technology adopted, and used. Seems that the banks did the same thing with ATM’s: they were free when you got charged transaction fees at the counter, eventually the fees migrated to the machines.

    I can see places where such systems will work, but again, they will be in addition to autos and not instead of. How many choices of mode can we afford to offer, especially if we have to offer them for free?

  4. Avidor Avatar
    Avidor

    There are no “true” PRT systems in operation anywhere.

    Morgantown is actually an automated group transport or AGT.

    PRT is not worth wasting time on.

    Learn more about PRT at the PRT is a Joke web site.

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    check out the Denver Airport baggage handling system that dumped hundreds of millions of debt onto the public for a PRT for suitcases. Never worked.

    PRT is dead end tech like the Zepplin.

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