...is what Ken Avidor might have shouted, if he is familiar with Becket, upon reading this Avi-adoring reader comment on the recent Mountain View Voice article, Pod Cars have new champion in Silicon Valley (highlighting added):
Posted by Bill Hough, a resident of another community
on Sep 5, 2013 at 11:31 am
"Podcars or "Personal Rapid Transit" is an idea that's been around for decades yet never seems to actually get built or solve any real-world transportation problems. It basically combines the worst of both worlds: low vehicle capacity of the private automobile with the expensive infrastructure of a fixed guideway transit system.
This topic has been discussed at length. I recommend a couple of articles on the Light Rail Now website.
First, there's "Let's Get Real About Personal Rapid Transit" by Ken Avidor at Web Link
Avidor points out that, "PRT has a solid 30-year record of 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. Except for the occasional laboratory-scale prototype, PRT actually "exists" largely in computerized drawings, in promotional brochures, and in cute, ever-successful animated simulations on the internet."
"The unsubstantiated claims of PRT proponents are always presented in the present tense as if the system is a proven 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". Sadly, the media rarely check the veracity of PRT publicity and propaganda."
A longer, more technical article is "Personal Rapid Transit – Cyberspace Dream Keeps Colliding With Reality" and can be found here: Web Link
"Despite the persistent and fervent claims of its promoters, repeated attempts to implement a working PRT system, even in very small-scale scenarios, have invariably failed. Not a single PRT plan, during these promotional efforts over the past 40 years or more, has seen successful implementation even in a small test application, much less a major, heavy-duty, citywide rapid transit application. Early would-be PRT installations, such as the AirTrans system at Dallas-Ft. Worth Regional Airport, and the PRT at West Virginia University at Morgantown, eschewed any attempt to provide true PRT-style, small-vehicle, customized origin-destination service, and were implemented in effect as line-haul automated guideway transit (AGT) peoplemover systems with some innovative features (such as offline stations)."
And finally, the good folks at Light Rail Now have put up a helpful list of links to various Monorail, PRT, AGT, and "Gadget Transit" Analyses at Web Link
Council member Mike Kasperzak and the rest of the City Council need to realize that "podcars" are the latest manifestation of the PRT fad which has been around for decades yet never seems to get built.
Ken must have been so upset. I mean come on -- poor guy. Look at it from his perspective. He hides all of his hateblogs from the general public and enjoys a summer of peace and quiet, only to have this "Bill Hough, a resident of another community," remind everybody of the anti-PRT propaganda he helped write, but posted on websites not under his control.
"Hough" does make for fun reading though. It's as if zero time has passed since those execrable documents were written -- 'Heathrow Pod? Masdar PRT? Suncheon Ecotrans? What are they?'
Obviously the guy doesn't read the Laffable Luddite Chronicles or Get There Fast.
gPRT
Leave Ken Avidor alone! You're lucky he performs for you bastards!!!
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