Fact-Checking the "PRT Boondoggle" Blog
A project of the PRT NewsCenter

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Low on toner

The Human Xerox Machine has been busy again, with largely identical anti-PRT letters to a British rail industry trade magazine, and the Detroit Metro Times weekly.

Are you ready for today's experiment? Ken's Metro Times letter is below. Click on each highlighted phrase, and you'll get a Google search of the phrase or key words. Thrill to all the other times Ken has used a talking point! Chuckle when his claims don't materialize! Try it, it's fun!


PRT a techno-scam

Except for the quote from Professor Vuchic, Mr. Guyette's story was very one-sided. As I once pointed out in an op-ed in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, personal transit is still a techno-dream. PRT proponents are masters at making extravagant claims and promises; however, it's important to recognize that PRT does not currently exist in successful public operation, and, in all likelihood, never will. PRT has a solid 30-year record of controversy and failure. Its main purpose in recent years seems to have been to provide a cover enabling its proponents to spread disinformation about real, workable transit systems.

The unsubstantiated claims of PRT proponents are always presented in the present tense as if the system is a success — which, of course, it certainly is not. Promoters never seem to fail to bash real transit, such as light rail (LRT), as "old-fashioned technology."

Sad to say, the media rarely check the veracity of PRT publicity and propaganda.

Basically, PRT is a stalking horse for the highway construction industry. PRT proponents can say things that the highway boosters could never say, such as "People don't like to ride with strangers." This anti-transit propaganda divides and conquers the opposition to highway projects. PRT bamboozles and confuses citizens and lawmakers about the real, workable, off-the-shelf transit solutions that can help communities free themselves from gridlock, pollution and dependence on foreign oil.

Don't fall for the scam. —Ken Avidor, Minneapolis, Minn.
Source

There you have it, all in one letter. Since 2003 he has simply repeated the same unsupported or disproven talking points over and over.

Related post: Puppetmaster (9/13)



gPRT
PRT allows anyone to climb aboard, drunks, prostitutes, Ken Avidor, drug dealers and do what they want in the privacy of the PRT vehicle... leaving behind vomit, used needles, condoms, grafitti, odors...

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