...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!!!
The holiday season is such a hectic time, isn't it? Why, I'm so busy with various preparations that I have to save my blogging for late at night. This very post -- despite being published at 8 am Pacific time -- is being written a little after 1 am Pacific time.
Which is inconvenient, since for the past couple weeks I've also been working on a sorta-investigative piece over at This Week In Precipitation, the PRT NewsCenter blog. Go check it out, it also published at 8 am.
The research for the story required a little more time than I had. So last week I sent out an SOS on Twitter:
...and so on.
My intention was to get Ken Avidor to help me out by doing some research into @cymply -- the Twitter handle of Graham Cockroft of MaglevMovers.com -- for me.
I had to retweet the same group of tweets several times before Ken picked up on it, but eventually I was rewarded with this post at the PRT Moondoggie blog.
Thanks Ken! I just want to give you full credit in this space for ferreting out that salacious item. I knew it would be right up your alley.
Ah. You know Personal Rapid Transit is having a good week whenever a loud NNNNNNNNNNGGGGG sound comes from the direction of Minnesota. That's the sound Ken Avidor gets whenever he starts up the totally analog, hand-cranked calculating machine on which he hammers out his PRT Moondoggie blog attacks against anything resembling transit technology innovation. And here it is now:
For many years, I've had to listen to the PRTistas claim Personal Rapid Transit was "faster, better cheaper" compared to conventional modes of transit. The so-called Heathrow PRT project was supposed to be the proof of those claims... [sic] and it has failed miserably.
…
NNNNNNNNNNGGGGG. The core of this offal is taken from the same tired, old, made-up talking points as always* -- so instead of another dissection, this time I want to make some observations about Avidor's strategic direction. Let's turn to our debunking friend who's fun to be with, Mr. Side-By-Side Comparison:
Ken Avidor blog/claim
Fact check
After many years, delays and enormous piles of hype, the pods of Heathrow are now "officially unveiled"(Reuters):
Traveling at speeds up to 40 km/hour (25 mph), after an average wait of just 34 seconds, the system looks like something straight from a science fiction film.
25 mph? Not exactly "rapid". And the 34 second wait? That pretty much dooms their oft-repeated claim that you never have to wait for PRT. Also, a 34 second wait eliminates the possibility that PRT could operate at "nano-second headways" in order to match the capacity of conventional transit. With those pathetic stats, the ULTra pods cannot be seriously considered a viable transit mode for urban areas.
The first PRT study for Heathrow was in 2004, and the go-ahead was given almost exactly 6 years ago. Six years from greenlight, through design, planning, construction, manufacturing, and testing is not a long time for a major civil engineering project that includes the first of a kind product.
25 mph is plenty fast when the vehicle doesn't have to stop until its destination; that speed is close to average speed.
Also, no respectable PRT designer says there will be no waiting -- they say 'little or no waiting,' or 'on-demand or brief waiting.'
In ULTra, the control system is synchronous, meaning pods are inserted into virtual 'slots' that circulate around the guideway network. Each slot is as long as the minimum interval allowed between pods.
What this means is that there is room for roughly 113 slots on the network's 2.36 miles of guideway. There are currently 21 pods, so the system has plenty of unused capacity, which if needed would be met by adding more pods.
The current ULTra ridership record is 164 trips in an hour using 18 pods, or a capacity of 656 people moving among the 3 stations. The designed capacity is 500,000 riders per year for this phase. Guideway, pods and riders served will increase should the system expand to the rest of Heathrow.
According to ULTra, the company behind the technology, the 30 million pound ($47 million) development could transport up to 500,000 passengers each year and replace 50,000 shuttle bus journeys.
...
The cost of the Heathrow pod project proves that the infrastructure is expensive to build. There are no real-life figures on what it will cost to operate and maintain the pods of Heathrow for a year.
Waaaaait. One of the things Ken is supposed to be showing is that PRT is not "cheaper."
$47 million is a lot, but no one ever said PRT would be dirt cheap. Just calling PRT expensive doesn't prove it's not cheaper. To do that he has to compare it to something else. Which he does not do.
There is a control room and presumably people who have to monitor the pods. How much that all costs - 3 or 4 million dollars a year for a simple two mile stretch, it's certainly not "cheaper" than taxis or jitneys.
He just pulls "3 or 4 million" out of his butt. But even if Ken's in the ballpark, doesn't that money represent money for jobs rather than hardware?
Taxis and jitneys burn fuel,Ken. And each one requires a driver -- presumably not working on a volunteer basis. What's the economy in Avidor's universe based on?
It could be argued that the Heathrow pod "system" is not a true PRT system at all. It has a heavy "bi-directional guideway" that would not fit on the average city street. The Heathrow pod system do not have the elevated stations that are pictured in countless visuals on the web- for example, the enormous, hideous station festooned with advertisements on this webpage. The Heathrow pods have rubber tires and do not circulate like taxis, but instead must be berthed separately so they can charge their batteries. The pods must also back out of their berths - requiring plenty of room.
Sure, you could argue it. But if someone argues that something they oppose isn't a "true" example of that something, it's usually a sign they know they can't win the argument. Ken is defining ULTra as not-PRT in order to be able to continue to claim PRT doesn't exist and is unproven.
And for the record, "bi-directional guideway" (2 guideway, one for each direction, on the same support posts) is used at Heathrow where it does fit, and because it would be stupid to go around the end of the runway by more than one route.
That last Ken Klaim™ is what I want to focus on. As I noted, he's trying to parse ULTra, basically nitpicking it. He's hoping the casual reader will take his ULTra-as-outlier argument at face value.
This is the approach he has taken for years when opposing ULTra. Sure, it looks like a car on something resembling a footbridge. Compared to the even-more-futuristic designs of Taxi 2000 and PRT International (which Ken is more familiar with because they are being developed in Minnesota), ULTra looks downright present-day.
Which is the problem for Ken . Because looking present-day, existing and functioning translates into feasibility. Which makes a joke (appropriately enough) out of Ken's Number One Talking Point: "Personal Rapid Transit is an infeasible transportation concept."
Keeping PRT looking infeasible is why Ken Avidor continues to panic-bash the Heathrow transit-pod project. Heathrow is shaping up as the smiling, telegenic poster child for feasibility.
But don't take my word for it. Let's compare ULTra to the official definition of PRT by the Advanced Transit Association:
ATRA sez:
ULTra?
Personal Rapid Transit has all of the following characteristics:
• Direct origin-to-destination service with no need to transfer or stop at intermediate stations.
Check.
• Small vehicles available for the exclusive use of an individual or small group traveling together by choice.
Check!
• Service available on demand by the user rather than on fixed schedules.
Check-a-roony.
• Fully automated vehicles (no human drivers) which can be available for use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ULTra is fully automated, but -- Oops! ULTra is only available 20-22 hours a day, depending on day of the week :( But this is more hours than the Heathrow Express train from London (no service 11:30pm - 5am). So we'll call this one... 'Chec.'
• Vehicles captive to a guideway that is reserved for their exclusive use.
There are no off-ramps from the guideway, so Check!
• Small (narrow and light) guideways, usually elevated but also can be at or near ground level or underground.
Check, check and check!
• Vehicles able to use all guideways and stations on a fully connected PRT network.
Check!
Note that these bullets define characteristics of service and safety only. PRT is technology independent, and manufacturers are free to use any technology they choose.
Note that last thing: "PRT is technology independent, and manufacturers are free to use any technology they choose."All this Avi-steria -- about FROG, little rubber tires, kinds of guideway and stations, everything -- is just a lot of smoke.
He's saying Don't use ATRA's definition of PRT to evaluate ULTra, use MY definition.What is known as a straw man.
ULTra is Personal Rapid Transit. ULTra works. Which is more than you can say about Ken Avidor's arguments.
the fine print in the BAA press release says that the [Heathrow] project depends on "agreed milestones being achieved.". [sic] It is highly unlikely that ULTra-as-PRT will pass these milestones.
Things must be really slow in the cartoon biz, because now Ken Avidor is actually trying to generate support for PRT so he can have something to attack.
It's as though Kenneeds PRT to complain about, so he has bought one at Ikea -- and he is going to try to put it together all by himself!
Sure, one leg of this stool is shorter than the others, and there are parts left over. And the Starting Line proposal that he's desperately trying to get SaveTheVikesOrg to read is in no way connected to the Vikings' current Arden Hills project. Plus the readership-of-one couldn't figure out what Ken was talking about.
But SO WHAT, accuracy and low traffic never stands in the way of the PRT Moondoggie Blog -- right, Ken?
If there's one thing PRT Is a Joke IS A JOKE!is known for, it's our disdain for people hiding behind obviously phony sciencey-sounding nameplates. And the other thing is our hatred of skewed polls.
Fer crying out loud, what is THAT about? I was going to mow the lawn. Oh, all right.
Ken wants us to see the end of the URL, that there is a poll attached to Eric Britton's World Streets piece on the commissioning of the Delhi Personal Rapid Transit feasibility study. It's an OK piece, insofar as it is well-written and Britton did us all a favor by not hiding his disdain for PRT.
Which is fine! He's entitled to his opinion. Only... on what are his conclusions based? Where are the many years of analyses to which he refers? I don't -- no, they don't appear to be in the article.
Hypothesis:There are no analyses.
Notice how I couch that as a positive, active statement? It'll look good in the abstract. Also, I can't be accused of making the experiment easy, since you can't prove a negative.
DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT POLL ON THE PAGE? IT TAKES UP SO MUCH SPACE! THAT'S -- (sorry) -- that's because it's not a poll, it's an editorial. Let's categorize those selections, shall we?
PRT for Delhi? Yes, No, I don't know
Selections
Label
Category
1
Excellent idea. Do it now
Very positive
2
Looks promising. Let's give it serious study
Positiv-ish
3
Hard to say at this point. Need more info before making a decision.
Neutral
4
You have to know the specifics of Delhi to have an informed view on this technology solution.
Neutral
5
Looks rather weak. Probably not a priority at this point.
Negativ-ish
6
Probably not for the Global South, but maybe a winner for other parts of the world?
Negativ-ish
7
A bad idea for Delhi and most certainly a bad idea for any other city in the world
Negative
8
Too uncertain, too expensive, too slow, too unproven and too marginal to make the needed contribution.
Negative, with assurances of years of looking into the matter, take my word for it
9
Quite an old fashioned idea really. Looked bad if naively tempting in 1970, but after years of endless discussion looks simply stupid today
Nose up, nostrils flared
10
This is a truly shameful, bizarre, irresponsible idea flaunted by interested parties and should be consigned to the trash heap of irresponsible proposals immediately.
Flame on!
Six out of ten choices are negative, only two positives. 'Skewed' is an understatement -- how can anyone take this seriously?** It is what's known in politics as a "push poll," such as:
1. Do you support John Smith for Mayor?
2. Would you be more or less likely to support John Smith if you knew he had shot a man in Reno just to watch him die?
Methodology: The objective is to get Britton to talk about his analyses of PRT. But I don't have the patience for all that vamping that PRT critics like to do. How can I use the poll to draw him out. Yes, it's not a question.
The placebo: This is the closest I can get to a control group -- unless anyone has a spare Eric Britton? No?
I decided just to let him know I was coming, in really obvious ways. First, I tweeted it.
In this poll about #PRT in Delhi http://is.gd/GV6WsW pollster has helpfully provided 2 positive options, 4 neutral & 4 very neg options
and
#PRT poll; skewed http://bit.ly/jZeQm6
Second, I gave him my real DNS address by posting a comment, with my real first name, which is on my Twitter account, and my real email address.
Third, I decided I would re-skew the poll in a really blatant way, not hiding my DNS behind proxies or anything. I wasn't hacking. Any administrator would be able to tell what I was doing.
The Testing Series:
Every so often throughout the day, I would go to the poll and vote in the positive, neutral AND negative categories,*** but in a way that made up for the scarcity of positive choices.
I even sent Avidor friendly tweets updating my progress, such as:
@Avidor "shameful" now =10.8% http://is.gd/GV6WsW ___ #WahWaaahhh http://bit.ly/cX3zWu
Results:
You know what? I hate to say I knew it would work, but -- I knew it would work.
Hi Mr. Britton! Thanks for posting your followup 'editorial', in which you equate (seriously, it seems) personalized, last-mile rapid transit with two-wheeled Global South equivalents of the four-wheeled Private Travel Appliances we have in the North. One of these things is not like the others.
Sorry, but I still believe anyone should be able to get around a city without having to drive. Biking and walking are preferred for short distances and the able-bodied; telecommuting and living close to work and shopping are also ideal.
But our cities can be huge. Why live in one if not able to freely access all of it? As I commented elsewhere, every square mile should have multiple rapid transit stations of 1 or more modes. We should maintain existing rail systems, expand them as feasible, and add other modes such as PRT, BRT, and GRT. Mode selection and application should use a formula that balances service and quantitative as well as qualitative costs.
It's just a vision.
In the spirit of the example of Excellence In Polling set for us by Eric Britton, please consider participating in this poll:
Also Last Weekend:
The logic-absent 'anti-PRT conspiracy' again: Avidor thinks governments (at least ones in Minnesota) are so stupid
they would 1.grant PRT companies rights-of-way concessions without indemnifying themselves against lawsuits, and 2. grant the rights-of-ways willy-nilly, hither and thither, rather than along specific routes so as to complement, and not compete with, existing transit infrastructure. Ken Avidor continues to be the Anti-PRT Boobdoggle.
Ken Avidor may be joining the Tea Party! It's true! If you read Ken Avidor's blogs, you live in Winona, MN, and you hate PRT as much as he wants you to, then Ken wants you to vote FOR the Tea Party's Joshua Chasco in the race for city council!
It is the only conclusion a reasonable person can draw. Avidor's been writing for the Dump Bachmann blog*, and he wants voters to Dump Bachmann. Avidor has also written the Dump Mark Olson blog, which was devoted to the goal of dumping Olson.
Therefore, the three recent PRT Moondoggie postsand a Tweetpromoting Chasco's candidacy, Tea Party bona fides, and anti-PRT stance, MUST mean thatAvidor wants you to vote against PRT by voting FOR the Tea Party candidate.
Ken Avidor: he's a little Tea Potty, short and stout (and a little bit rock & roll)!
Fellow progressive Democrats: feel free to oppose Personal Rapid Transit, but please base your position on all the facts, not Ken Avidor's slanted, cherrypicked propaganda. Consider the source: Avidor likes the Tea Party just fine -- if it is against PRT.
Keep in mind Ken Avidor probably knows absolutely nothing about you or the Indian culture. So don't be puzzled if he says that 'weird stuff happens in India,' as he once said about Dubai. Or he might write 'Indian PRT?' as if being Indian is funny -- just as he once wrote about the Poles.
There is also a very real possibility that he thinks you are American Indians, and is busy searching the bia.gov website for Amritsar. So don’t be surprised if you see a post at The PRT Moondoggie that says something like 'there is no Amritsar tribe recognized by the U.S. government.' I mean, this is the guy who wrote to Houston trying to reach the Kuwait Arab Times.
Since Ken Avidorbelieves PRT is a scam perpetrated by right-wing politicians, he will also be accusing Indian politicians and urban planning officials of being 'gadgetbahners just like Michele Bachmann.' So don’t say 'tea party' if you really mean 'chai party' (although Avidor seems to be supporting the Bachmann-loving Tea Party. Go figure). So, India, you might as well prepare yourself for lots of these from Avidor:
But be not downcast India, for forewarned is forearmed. And good luck with your PRT project!
Anti-PRT propagandist Ken Avidor has come up with another way to be repetitive.
It used to be that Ken would have to string his talking points together with linking phrases and, occasionally, punctuation. This takes time and effort.
But now Avidor's come up with a new timesaving blogging technique -- instead of repeating talking points, now he's just reposting whole sections.
For the past few months, a major part of every post on his "The PRT Moondoggie" blog has been the same thing: a cherry-picked list of negatively-spun PRT nooz; calling it 'news' would be a disservice to actual news (for non-propaganda PRT news, see the NewsCenter).
The nooz items are:
• "No $25 million earmark for PRT pork project in Winona, Minnesota"
• "The Swedish/Korean PRT prototype malfunctioned recently in front of the media."
• "The Masdar PRT (more computer-guided golf carts that follow magnets imbedded in the roadway) has been scaled way back, This setback got a mention in the NY Times and confirmed in this Bloomberg article."
• "The much-hyped PRT project in Daventry ended in fiasco."
• "The so-called Morgantown PRT (it's a mundane people-mover) was the subject of a student newspaper editorial after a malfunction created a "fireball" and filled a vehicle with smoke. The cost of fixing the Morgantown boondoggle is $93 million."
And lately
• "Mall of America Says No to Jpods."
This Luddite catechism has appeared in The PRT Douchenozzle on March 25, May 25, June 10, and June 15, as well as Dump Bachmann on June 10 and 30 (note that in the title of the June 30 post, ULTra PRT has become "Bachmann's fantasy transport system" [italics added] -- which should annoy Dr. Martin Lowson, ULTra's inventor).
I think Avidor might be onto something here -- a system that automatically blogs, RSS's, Tweets or e-mails the same thing, over and over and over again. It could save people millions of person-hours and billions of dollars worth of time.
Such a system could be called-- oh I don't know -- a Kenbot. Or Avispam. Doucheapp? It seems familiar, somehow.
Hey peeps, guess which anti-transit gadfly also opposes Personal Rapid Transit? It's Randall O'Toole.
That's right. The unshakable opponent of planning -- who calls himself "The Antiplanner," and whom every light rail-or-nothing opiner has a voodoo doll of in their sock drawer -- has a new piece in which he vents gallons of sniditude on podcars.
I've read comments by PRT-haters who just assuuuume O'Toole's anti-LRT stance means he's a PRT-lover. But as O'Toole himself notes:
...I've argued since 2003 that driverless cars are the reason why PRT, short for personal rapid transit, will never happen.
...PRT has attracted a fanatical following. Even though no PRT system has ever been built, they are convinced it is cheap, fast, convenient, energy efficient, and everything else that ordinary transit is not. ... While [ULTra PRT] may save Heathrow the cost of bus drivers, this is hardly cheap considering freeways cost as little as $2.5 million per lane mile plus right of way (which probably isn’t included in the $41 million Heathrow cost). ...
While ordinary PRT vehicles are captive to the system, the PRT cultists attracted to my driverless cars article focused on a variant known as dual mode... The problem is that every dual-mode (and PRT) proposal requires a massive investment in new infrastructure.
"Fanatical"! "Cultists"! Klassy. Hey, who does that remind me of? Oh yeah: Ken Avidor.
Advanced Transport Systems Ltd. has rebranded the websites for its ULTra PRT system. For years ATS has had the British domain URL atsltd.co.uk, which is not exactly memorable. Then, after the start of the Heathrow project they started a parallel site, ultraprt.com, mostly serving as the site for ATS's California office.
ATS's Steve Raney announced the rebranding last week on March 22:
atsltd.co.uk content will soon move to ultraprt.com. We are attempting to support some of the old ultraprt.com pages on the new ultraprt.com so that web sites that link to us won't get too broken.
This will all take some time and some links will break. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Got all that? Pretty straightforward. And how do we know it's a rebranding? An ATS staffer tweeted iton the 23rd. And yet-
-on March 24 Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist Ken Avidorproudly announced his discovery that Raney's 'broken links' was just a cover story! As well as a new mystery: who owns ultraprt.net? And why?
Great discovery, you discoveryer! Except for one thing: ULTra's Minnesota PRT concept is now at ultraprt.net Yup, totally scrubbed. No one will ever find it. And no one will ever find out that ULTra PRT owner ATS Ltd. owns ultraprt.net.
Next week:Ken Avidor discovers ULTra's Minnesota PRT page at ultraprt.net -- and it's owned by ATS Ltd.!
President Barack Obama's Department of Transportation has decided on an upgrade for the Personal Rapid Transit system at West Virginia University, that institution has announced:
WVU has been awarded a Federal Transit Authority [sic]grant that, along with allocated student transportation fee monies, will pay for a portion of the upgrades to the PRT.
...
"The overall goal is to erase intermittent problems through new and upgraded technology in order to provide a more positive passenger experience by making the PRT more dependable," said John Jeffrey, PRT project manager.
...
The VCCS, or brains of the vehicle, will be the first system upgraded. These onboard computers communicate with electrical systems on the PRT guideway and at the passenger stations about vehicle movement all along the system.
The VCCS has been redesigned by Azimuth Inc., a Morgantown engineering firm, and is currently being tested by Lea & Elliot, a third-party independent validation and verification firm.
"At present, we are about halfway through the verification process and hope to have the initial VCCS arrive at the PRT in mid-September," Jeffrey said.
Eleven new VCCS will be installed during the first phase of the project, with the remaining 61 to be replaced during the second phase with an overall cost of $3.6 million.
Another two-phase design, build and install project a will be the upgraded PRT Propulsion System. Like the VCCS conversion, the propulsion system will switch from analog to digital control and communication to improve reliability.
"The PRT has just signed a contract with Bombardier of Pittsburgh to build a prototype, and we hope to have an initial propulsion system by August 2011," said Jeffrey.
This is not the action Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist Ken Avidor has recommended for the world's first PRT. In fact, the FTA has done exactly the opposite:
"Time to pull the plug on the WVU PRT boondoggle." -Ken Avidor
If Ken Avidor is going to be consistent, he's going to have to call Barack Obama a gadgetbahner. He's going to have to say Obama is a PRTista just like Michele Bachmann. And we won't have long to wait until Avidor puts this on the web:
Because "PRT Is a Joke" IS A JOKE! and Get On Board PRT are objective news sources, I report both sides of Personal Rapid Transit developments, the negative as well as positive. And I beat Ken Avidor to it. In order to get material for his PRT Moondoggie blog, all he has to do is scoop up the negative news from my Twitter feed and discard the positive.
One strange meme to which Ken Avidor has tried to impart momentum is his opinion of the inadequacy of wheels used in PRT vehicles, specifically:
the Cardiff ULTra was essentially Frog/2getthere with its dorky wheels covered up to give it a futuristic look
--Avidorat Daily Kos, 5/21/09
the Cardiff ULTra was essentially Frog/2getthere with its dorky wheels covered up to give it a futuristic look
--Avidorat Dump Mark Olson, 9/10/07
Taxi 2000's PRT pod is supposed to run on futuristic-sounding "linear induction motors" (The pod actually rides on dorky, little rubber tires).
--Avidoron Dump Mark Olson, 6/15/06
The only difference between FROG and ULTra that I can see is that the ULTra vehicles have wheel covers that hide their dorky, un-futuristic-looking wheels.
-- Avidorat WellUrban, 6/9/06
Lately, he's been at it again:
That's just an error within an error -- ULTra uses 13 inch diameter tires, and everyone knows golf carts have 18-22 inchers.
What's dorky about small wheels anyway? I guess we have to do what PRTJJ does best: examine the facts.
How are small tires foolish or stupid? Not only have they been standard equipment on some compact cars for decades, they are also used in custom cars. Such as lowriders.
I invite Ken Avidor to go to East L.A. and tell the first lowrider driver he sees that his car has "dorky little wheels."
Little (li-təl), adjective
1. Not big
2. Not much Merriam Webster
What does wheel diameter have to do with strength or reliability? Not much:
I doubt four 13 inch wheels will have trouble supporting a 800-ish kilo PRT vehicle.
Plus, in today's eco, bio, lower consumption, smart-energy, compact walkable urban village world, isn't smaller better? Next to a Hummer, is a Zenn a "dorky little" electric car? Which is better, Ken -- a Range Rover or a Smart fortwo? Which happens to be the same size as a --
Of course, one person's dorky golf cart is another's Neighborhood Electric Vehicle.
But to be consistent, Ken Avidor must support the bigger and therefore less dorky wheels. And we all know what guys who love the BIG wheels are compensating for, don't we?
(IT ANNOYS THE MINNESOTA ANTI-PRT PROPAGANDIST WHEN HIS NAME ISN'T MENTIONED. So we don't. Exactly.)
"One of the best ways to address it, honestly, in all seriousness, is to mock the people who are making these allegations." -Rachel Maddow
"There's no way to debate liars." -Randi Rhodes
"What I do isn't propaganda. What I do is taking what they say and using it against them. What I do is jujitsu. They say something ridiculous and then I subject them to scorn and ridicule. That's my job." -Al Franken
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