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Look, if PRT proponents want to be taken seriously, they need to stop showing us silly proposals that suggest we ought to build elevated rail lines above every street in the city, and start figuring out how to integrate the idea into our existing city infrastructure. Infrastructure is expensive. Elevated infrastructure even more so. Nobody wants to abandon their existing infrastructure to build an entirely new duplicate elevated version. That's stupid, and it's why PRT is stupid.

The reason we all know PRT is pie-in-the-sky nonsense is that PRT proponents are so hung up on the futuristic renderings, they aren't thinking about actual implementation alternatives. For example, a public bike-sharing system that makes use of bike lanes and cycle tracks is a PRT system in almost every definition of the term. That's something lots of people could support, and indeed are supporting. If PRT advocates latched on, they could claim it as proof of concept. Unfortunately, nobody in the PRT world wants to because low-tech bikes on existing surface streets isn't kEwL enough. It IzN't LiEK, tOtaLLy ExTEmE tO thE MaXXX!

Show me a proposal for taxicabs on a series of HOV lanes, and I'll buy that as a serious idea for omething that could theoretically be called "PRT", with potentially practical applications.

Show me a proposal for completely unnecessary elevated lines all over everywhere, and I'm sorry, but it just ain't going to happen. It's a waste of money, and everybody knows it.

by BeyondDC on Mar 12, 2010 5:23 pm • link • report