See him blow the call

Mock Journalist

Guten tag, gadgetbahners!

When is ball four a strikeout? When the blind umpire is the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist!

ATRA & Personal Rapid Transit Strike Out (Again)

How pathetic that Larry Fabian and ATRA went on a pilgrimage to the hills of West Virginia to praise the Nixon-era gadgetbahn boondoggle, the Morgantown PRT.

ATRA's Fabian poured the PRTista Kool-aid.... [ellipses in original]
. . .
but, the guy in charge of the troubled WVU PRT wasn't drinking it:

“That is a possibility, but it is an expensive proposition,” said Robert Hendershot, assistant director for PRT operations at WVU.

A more scaled-down "feeder system" might be more practical, Hendershot said. That could use small cars to transport five people or less. PRT cars seat eight, but can fit many more.

There you have it from the guy in charge... "too expensive". [ellipses in original] Source

Not only does Ovendoor misquote the quote he just quoted, but he chooses to ignore the rest of the content: the feeder system Hendershot is describing as "more practical" exactly describes the current generation of PRT designs!

Far from being a flat refusal, this is in fact in no way a refusal.
Read an accurate report about the ATRA seminar and local news coverage here. The university is sticking with its old PRT, and there is demand to expand it.
Update, PRTistas! (5/8)

The Daily Mail quote attributed to Larry Fabian,

Lawrence Fabian, treasurer of Advanced Transit Association and a member of the Committee on Major Activity Circulation Systems of the U.S. Transportation Research Board, calls the feeder system cars "glorified golf carts."

was taken out of context, but Ovendoor is treating it like gospel.

Fabian says he was applying the "golf carts" term to Automated Guideway Vehicles (AGVs, like the ParkShuttle at Schiphol Airport) in order to differentiate them from PRT. Thus, PRT used as a Morgantown feeder system would be PRT, not an AGV.

How do I know this? I asked Larry Fabian. Labridor cannot ask Boston-based Fabian, because -- well, let's just say the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist needs to work on his telephone manners.


gPRT
Don Imus also called the Rutgers women's basketball team "Ken Avidor s"