PRT LITE

Mass ownership of cars surged after WW-II causing massive congestion and urban flight in the US. Eisenhower sealed the problematic deal in the 1950s in the deteriorating Interstate Highways that put down a continental network. It ripped apart cities. Transit use declined dramatically. Urban cores were almost abandoned. Some were.

In the 1960s the principles of PRT were understood, many seeing them as quite effective. Urban leaders baulked at the ugliness of widespread elevated guideways and stations. USDOT dabbled with R&D in the early 1970s, but put the option on ice for the 1980s and beyond. What was good for Detroit was judged good for the country. We become the Asphalt Nation that we are, now in a melt-down car world. 

The Morgantown PRT operated in hilly isolation. Transport engineers and urban planners ignored it.  They are still largely ignorant of it.

Three modest PRT shuttles opened in recent years outside the US. Despite fanfare and bravado from suppliers and fans, nothing has happened. Vectus and Ultra seem moribund. 2getthere - whose driverless vehicles are not locked into a guideway - has a brighter prospectus.

It’s the Elevated Spaghetti, Stupid!

PRT doesn’t make any sense without an extensive network. The more destinations served by it, the more attractive its non-stop service. Unfortunately the extent of the infrastructure becomes pervasively intrusive (and costly). 

Think no small plans!  The problem is that big PRT plans are scary. The inventor of Skytran recently said cities are ugly, so the ugliness of spaghetti-in-the-sky PRT isn’t a problem.  The proponent of TransitX is similarly oblivious to the issue. PRT promoters don’t really like to deal with it.

An urban mode needs to have extent
coverage to be effective.

Creating a network that puts tailored transit service portals into scores of urban nooks and crannies has appeal.  Eisenhower made it the post-war assumption that cars and other vehicles do it all. To be a viable urban citizen, you need a car.

In the multi-stations PRT world of the future, you will prefer to be within a quarter-mile from a PRT station.  Location, location, location!

But the guideways? Not down my street! Not in my neighborhood!

Robocars Rule!

Enter autonomous vehicles and the dozen labels already stuck on them -- automated, driverless, self-driving, i-cars, e-cars, etc. The onset of robocars is scary to many. Can they be safe? Will they solve or intensify congestion? Are they affordable?

The answers are:  yes, depends on planning, and yes.

Good links need good coordination with land management.

The even better news is that smart vehicles in smart districts can provide PRT-like service without guideways and stations. That massive fixed infrastructure is reduced to hundreds of devices, each smaller than a fist, no more intrusive that the thousands of security cameras now laced throughout our buildings. PRT devices will be embedded into curbs, sidewalk, utility poles, and buildings.

Vehicle-to-infrastructure communications will go both ways. Data from thousands of sources will come together to inform network operators. Each robocar will get guidance (control) enhanced by real-time routing informed by network traffic conditions. 

Multiple points - everywhere, almost - will have access to driverless, taxi-like services for trips rarely over five miles. 

It’s PRT without the spaghetti!

ENVISIONING ADVANCED TRANSIT

Some twenty professionals and enthusiasts at the Technix workshop organized by ATRA at the University of Maryland on January 9 engaged in a charrette for several hours divided into three teams, each assigned to think out to 2040 and modern mobility in three different settings. Beforehand ATRA president Peter Muller described elevated guideways as one of the basic advantages of PRT but they can also be a problem.  He added, “There is no silver bullet,”. Chair Alain Kornhauser spoke of the potential of ride- and road-sharing. Curiously none of the teams saw classic elevated PRT as a significant solution for the following three scenarios. 

Environmentalists, alarmed at the effects of the rise of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, are pushing harder for sustainable cities.

WHITE OAKS 

A MD Growth Zone in Megalopolis

Near I-95 just north of the chronically congested DC-Beltway, White Oaks may  more than double in size. Two BRT lines are in early  planning stages, unlikely to be quickly built nor effective. Uncertainty clouds investment. The Technix team recommended an Uber solution. (Curiously, no mention of R&D with guideway section to expand if and when justifiable was made.)

HISTORIC ANNAPOLIS

A dense, walkable district hugging MD's Capitol and US Naval Academy

Not much will change in terms of density and infrastructure, although freight issues demand improvement. Elevated guideway would meet strong opposition. The Technix team envisioned street-level PRT (“automated taxis”) and a gondola over water.  A circumferential PRT with car intercepts (parking) and transit connections might be possible outside the historic core.

Elevated transit can be part of the solution.
- courtesy of Ecolvia

DOWNTOWN DC: 

A 10 Block X 7 Block Growth Hub North of the Capitol

As a national and global district, significant densification seems likely, anchored by several metro stations and restricted in height. It has great potential to be a “trendy, spendy” zone with strong international dimensions. The Technix Team prioritized rehab of metro performance and capacity, and programs to tame and reduce vehicular traffic and enhance pedestrian and bike circulation. Bus enhancements also will help, and maybe in the future PRT networks can fill gaps.

January 9 within the DC Beltway

Something extraordinary is happening, and you have an opportunity to tap into it at the University of Maryland on Saturday, January 9, 2016. ATRA will have its annual technical information exchange (dubbed Technix) structured to engage you to Envision Advanced Transit (EAT). A modest registration covers breakfast, lunch and materials. The fellowship, learning and networking are free.

What is your concept of a mobility hub anchoring an urban neighborhood?

What do driverless cars mean to us? What are connected cars? What urban infrastructure do they need? Can they operate on streets and special guideways? When and where? What are the planning dimensions? The costs? Most importantly, how can we identify the benefits?

A new USDOT Smart City initiative is raising the intensity of discussions around such questions. Interest and investment have been stimulated by the upsurge in technology-enabled mobility -- Uber, Lyft, Bridj, Vulog, etc. Millions of dollars are pouring into such smart undertakings, overwhemling the tradition outlooks of transportation policy-makers. As former Pennsylvania DOT Director Biehler recently put it, "Ten years ago we could forecast travel demand out 20-25 years with some confidence. Today, we can't."

Trends are reversing. Never-ending suburban out-growth has slowed, and infill in older urban districts is on the rise. Young people are trending away from car ownership. The reality of Climate Change are bringing new pressures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as vehicles burning fossil fuels.

On January 9, Technix Teams will engage in solutions in a variety of specific urban settings. People with different backgrounds and outlooks with exchange civic and professional views. ATRA invites you to come EAT with them. Visit www.advancedtransit.org for more information and to register.

BIG OIL OWES US

According to the Wall Street Journal, CEOs of big oil companies averaged almost $14 million in 2010. That’s “total direct compensation” for each one. Not bad for a day job. In 2013 Marathon blessed its Executive Chair with $22.5 million. He probably felt no guilt.

For the rest of us, this is obscenely unjust. Big Oil is sucking up huge profits while Big Carbon is intensifying the Earth’s weather system to increasingly destructive levels. This is happening today. What will happen when Greenland and Antarctica ice caps break off, lifting ocean levels a meter or two?

How do we get carbon numbers down?
It's a little like lowering high blood pressure.

It makes sense for oil executives to deny the scientific reality of climate change. They are accumulating huge profits. How easy for them to subsidize dubious research to deny the problem and delay corrective actions. This explosive situation will all come to a head in Paris at the COP21 talks to be held by the UN in December.

Transport Numbers

Podcars are but one tool for governmental policies and programs to reverse course to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the USA, transportation (all modes) accounts for 27 percent of GHG emissions. Industrial uses are a bit more at 28%. Residential and commercial consumption are 17% each.

Forty-three percent of the transportation carbon volumes come from cars, 22% trucks, 18% light trucks, 8% aircraft and 3% boats. Urban mobility is a big chuck of the whole. How much can be shifted to green modes -- walking, biking, rail, electric buses and podcars? Traditional rail won’t go away. In fact, it will be fortified by sound podcar interfacing.

These numbers can be questioned, but the ballpark that emerges is the same. In the long run, a 50% carbon reduction from transport is possible if strong climate protection measures are taken around the world.  Podcars can be key in a 13 percent reduction of the world’s carbon problem.  But that if is a BIG if.

The spacious control center at the
privately built pod system
 in Las Colinas outside Dallas.

Such as shift will hit Big Oil hard. No wonder oil CEOs and managers need huge salaries. They’re saving up for the difficult years ahead.

Exxon Exhortation

It recently came to light that ExxonMobil executives knew of causal links from carbon emissions to climate stability and public welfare back in the 1970s. Influential environmentalist Bill McKibben got himself arrested at an Exxon gas station in Vermont last week to call media attention to it.

The disclosure is being compared to corporate memos in the 1990s that forced Big Tobacco to pay out big - financially and politically. What can we expect from Exxon, Shell, BP and other carbon-pushers when McKibben and friends work it through our courts?

Elaborate are the ramps at this station of the Morgantown PRT.
Shouldn't Exxon be assessing this 1970 gem for a greener future?

Given Big Oil cash flows, assigning a faction of a percent to sustainable mobility infrastructure would do a lot to jumpstart the podcar industry. Come explore the possibilities at PCC9 in two weeks.

METRO DYSFUNCTION

BRT in twenty years -- or maybe ten if we get funds from DC.

Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) across the USA propose LRT or BRT for long-term infrastructure development. Heavy rail is too expensive and fits only in exceptional places like Manhattan and Honolulu. Elsewhere in areas of more modest size and easier geography -- Albany, Northwest Arkansas, Austin to start and all the way through Zanesville -- BRT/LRT plans are out there in irrelevant isolation.

MPOs are searching for relief in all the wrong places.

“It just won’t do it as an answer,” argues Fred Payne of Greenville SC. He seeks relief from growing highway congestion -- with all the accidents, pollution, noise and avoidable health problems of who seldom walk.  We need to encourage pedestrian and cycling, but better mobility options are needed.

Why don’t MPOs produce creative solutions? Well, truth is that MPOs across the US should be really called MCOs. They aren’t set up to produce creative plans for the future. Their primary function is to coordinate the needs and desires of dozens of governments into a coherent whole. They really are metropolitan coordinating organizations.

A Norfolk Nightmare

The stupidity of MPO dysfunction is coming into focus in southeast Virginia - the Hampton region that includes Norfolk, Newport News, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach sprawled around waterfronts with historic military importance. Norfolk spent about $300 million on a 12km (7mi) LRT dubbed The Tide that opened in 2011. An abandoned railroad now owned by Virginia Beach runs straight and level some 25km through a sparsely developed corridor that ends in the dense coastal stretch of beach hotels and resort properties that is Virginia Beach.

Does a fast, reliable transit connection make sense? Do VB residents and visitors want to mix with Norfolk types? Do they want to go to Norfolk? Do people in Norfolk want easier access to VB? One option is an extension of Norfolk’s LRT. This had gelled into a plan to extend it some 5km (3.1mi) to a growing development hub known as Town Center. Cost is estimated about $250 million.

At-grade LRT can run into accidents.

Why don’t they let PRT promisers come in to establish a PPP to build a whole self-financing network in return for long-term income streams from fares, ads and development around stations?

For now, two VB City Councilors recently voted against spending Virginia DOT funds to buy LRT vehicles (somehow jointly with Minneapolis: details are not clear). The price for four is reportedly $17.2 million! How gilded can a $4.3 million vehicle be? Former VB Treasurer John Atkinson ran ads against these LRT absurdities and has set up a fund to fight them.

What does the MPO say? What might a MCO recommend?

HOLY PODCARS

The Pope recently raised global consciousness to respond to the intensifying climate threats that science tells us are real. This month international Muslim group declared that there are serious flaws in way we use natural resources.  This should be helpful in gaining support for podcars from mosques and churches -- synagogues and temples too.  

Cities are living organisms.  
- courtesy of Ethel Vrana of Ithaca NY

With more than half of humankind now urban, increasingly concentrated in huge metro, regions, the Pope admonishes city planners and transport policy makers: Awkwardly translated from Latin, here is a quote from Pope Francis’s Laudato Si:

The quality of life in cities has much to do with systems of transport, which are often a source of much suffering... Many cars, used by one or more people, circulate in cities. … This makes it necessary to build more roads and parking areas which spoil the urban landscape. Many specialists agree on the need to give priority to public transportation.Yet some measures needed will not prove easily acceptable to society unless substantial improvements are made in the systems themselves.

Papal Perspectives

Those who see civilization in terms of millennia, not centuries know that mass ownership of cars, trucks and planes is new. Abraham, Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus and Mohammad didn’t have to deal with highway issues. This came as the 20^th century began. Car culture became widespread after World War-II. It became global as that century closed. This and other factors -- aviation, power generation and sloppy agriculture -- have made Mother Earth quite sick.

Will Sikh leaders now embrace a PRT
proposed in Amritsar, India?

Billions of carbon-emitting vehicles operating daily have adversely affected our climate. They kill and maim millions of people every year. They poison our lungs. The Pope, the Dalai Lama and countless other religious leaders around the world have declared this -- if not criminal -- immoral.

Deeply feeling the pain to the poor, the Pope goes beyond good words. Last month he invited sixty mayors from around the world to Rome. One of the eight from the USA was Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges. She had an epiphany there, stunned that outside the USA climate issues are actionable.

Minnesota Leadership

Minnesota has a long and deep history in PRT technologies -- from the 1970s, off and on over the decades.  It is home to Ed Anderson’s PRT International and the independent Taxi 2000 led by Mike Lester. It is also home to PRT Minnesota and Jpods. Twin Cities debated PRT, and PRT issues sparked into state party politics spawning virulent attacks from a Luddite blogger. Mayor Hodges last year won with a platform to bring 21^st century solutions to create a 21^st century city.

Highways make for ugly walkways.

So far Hodges is not known to favor PRT projects. Will her new climate transformation launch a round of podcar initiatives? With calls for modern mobility being voiced in Austin, Greenville, Ithaca, Los Angeles and now Minneapolis, a podcar breakthrough is looking eminently real.

Power brokers in Boston, New York and Washington are taking note. They're collecting beans to count. Many will come to PCC9 in Silicon Valley Nov 4-6.

WHO ARE THE CARBON PIGS?

According to UN data, the most profligate producers of carbon dioxide are in oil-rich Trinidad. Annual emissions there work out to almost 38 tons per person. That’s more than double the US rate of 17.5. Of course there are 320 million people in the USA compared to 1.3 million in this Caribbean island nation. France annually produces less than 6 tons of carbon dioxide per person.

CARBON DIOXIDE  per capital (2010)
Country		Tons/year/person
Trinidad-Tobago		37.8
Kuwait		34.2
UAE		22.3
Luxembourg		21.3
USA		17.5
Saudi Arabia		16.9
Germany		9.1
UK		8.0
France		5.8
Source:  cotap.org                            (UN data)

Also at the high end of carbon pigfulness are other oil producing countries Kuwait (34) and the UAE (22). Saudi Arabia is sixth with 17 tons per year. All these figures are per person.

Weighing in the Total

If we look at total volumes of carbon dioxide that are responsible for heating up our one-and-only planet, we get a very different perspective. Because there are so few living in Trinidad, Kuwait and the UAE, they don’t weigh in too big in the global picture. Considering only the top ten world carbon emitters, the World Resource Institute informs us that the USA (in WRI data closer to 20) and Canada (close to 25) clearly have the highest per capital rates, with Russia a distant third.

WRI says North America is in the lead in destroying our ecology.

North America gets the Pigland award!  Canada and the USA carbon-pollute at more than twice the rate of the next four -- Japan, Europe, Indonesia, China and Brazil -- all hovering between 7 and 9.

Transportation accounts for 20-25% of carbon emissions. We have our work cut out for us. Podcars, if nothing else, will be electric. We can make a difference.