The Turd Stirs

Phil Krinkie, a Republican who cares so much about PRT that he hasn't said anything about it in seven years, has entered the race* to succeed Michele Bachmann in Minnesota's 6th congressional district.

So out of all the important issues facing the district and our nation, what is the ONE thing Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist (semi-retired) Ken Avidor decided to tell his Twitter followers about Krinkie?

You guessed it:

Ken seems to think that there are simply no remaining issues in this race other than -- what a coincidence -- Ken's obsession. 

gPRT


* "Phil Krinkie joins GOP race to succeed Bachmann," St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 20, 2013

Non-video video

It's 2013!

The Laffable Luddite is so desperate to find bad PRT news, he's posted audio of a Minnesota legislative meeting with new transportation commissioner Charles Zelle. The remarks are actually neutral and do not result in any policy statements about PRT in Minnesota (i.e., pod transit is still going nowhere in the state). But it's not negative toward PRT either, so Ken has to call it "PRT rears it's [sic] ugly head", complete with obligatory Ken typo.  

LINK

Also: Ken's blog post on the topic, slamming both of the transportation commissioners (Zelle is second) appointed by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton. PRT continues to exist for Avidor only in a conservative Republican bubble he has constructed, ignoring nonideological PRT activity around the world.




gPRT

Important question marks

Yesterday I answered a tweeted question from @JN_Seattle ("John Niles") about Vectus PRT:

Pretty straightforward.

Yet this a.m. the Laffable Luddite ignores the question marks in Niles's tweet, and jumps to the conclusion:

Which is a good example of the basis of the Hail Mary (Business Plan, Jan. 21, 2012): Ken Avidor needs the reader to NOT click the link, read the referenced tweet, and learn that Niles is just asking me questions, and reveals nothing about his position on pod transit.

The only ways Ken can know Niles's position on pods is -- a) ask him or b) read his mind. We know he hasn't asked him.

The actual purpose of Ken's tweet is a Hidden Ball (ibid): he is repeating his phony linkage of PRT with the Discovery Institute (Today's Provocation, Apr. 15, 2006).

The Deconstruction

1. I don't know John Niles except by reputation. He worked at the Cascadia Center, the Urban Issues think tank housed at Discovery.

2. Wacky Discovery promotes Intelligent Design; wonky Cascadia promotes high speed rail, commuter & DMU rail, Portland-style streetcars, and plug-in cars.

Where Discovery is The Munsters, Cascadia is Marilyn.*

3. We can make an educated guess about Niles: he is either conservative or doesn't care a whit about politics. Political contributions by him in federal or Washington state elections are: zero.

Today Niles is working on an EV-based project at CATES, another Puget Sound-area think tank -- hardly what a drill-now/drill-here Republican would do. And the number of writings on the Web by John Niles on subjects not related to transportation politics is exactly:  zero, plus or minus zero.

4. Niles's position on light rail is well known. He's been openly against it, based on the size of the investment and operating subsidy. This can be researched at his website, Global Telematics. Instead, he is for Bus Rapid Transit.

On these stands we part company, since I believe the public nature of transit means The People ought to be able to authorize and subsidize anything it wants, if an electoral majority decides it is worthwhile.  And readers of This Week In Precipitation know my distaste for BRT.

5. Niles's only connection with PRT is that his site archives papers written in the 1990s by then-State Rep. Dick Nelson (D-Seattle, an engineering PhD) and Berkeley economist Don Shakow, funded in part by the Bullitt and Medina foundations (extremely reputable Seattle foundations). Nelson and Shakow mention PRT along with a host of noncontroversial proposals.

Ken will say this is enough of a connection. But that 1990s activity did not arise from a vacuum. The concurrent Raytheon PRT program had created expectation of availability of a PRT system to act as a circulator-feeder for light rail.  So much so that Sound Transit nee RTA brought PRT under its umbrella, culminating in a $30 million Innovation Fund which, among other things, was to conduct a PRT demonstration. This is the landscape in which the Nelson-Shakow work took place.

6. It is true that Cascadia, and therefore Discovery, sponsored a 2005 public workshop in which PRT was discussed (no policy statements resulted). But if that makes Niles a 'pod person,' then he is also a commuter rail person and a passenger ferry person, since those were the subjects of other meetings in the series. Hardly disreputable.

Conclusions

Update 1:

ALSO TODAY:

Feb. 4: Nathan Koren states his opinion (see first Feb. 4 post) that bureaucracies plan and purchase transit systems without much regard for public input.

Feb. 5: Ken Avidor claims Koren dismisses the importance of public involvement in decision-making.

gPRT

* I suppose I have to note that I would not date Marilyn, lest Ken try to imply something.

Intolerance

Luddite fires his loose cannon, Part II

It was so predictable. No sooner had I alerted Ken Avidor to the existence yesterday of the Richmond Confidential's human interest piece on Cybertran's Eugene Nishinaga, than the Laffable Luddite picked it up. And today he blogs about it: "Faith-Based Pie-in-the-Sky Boondoggle Cybertran Partner's Right-Wing, Anti-Abortion Tweets"

Now, we know Ken shares our distaste for fundamentalist Christians, since it is a fixture of his work with Dump Bachmann (motto: "Dumping Bachmann since 2005 or possibly 2004").

But "Faith-Based Pie-in-the-Sky Boondoggle Cybertran Partner's Right-Wing, Anti-Abortion Tweets" takes him into smeary territory that is darker and intolerant. Because the Richmond Confidential article isn't about the right-wing partner (Allen Payton), the focus is on Eugene Nishinaga:

CyberTran: Small start-up has big dreams
By: Alexis Kenyon | October 31, 2011 – 4:05 pm

For Eugene Nishinaga, the chief technical officer at CyberTran International, ultralight rail is nothing short of a spiritual awakening.

"I was actually driving on the highway, right outside the [Richmond] field station," he said, "totally coincidence — and I felt the call of God."

The call was the impetus for a major shift in Nishinaga's life. At the time, he was a respected research and development manager for BART with nearly 40 years experience in transit. But in 2008, Nishinaga, 58, quit his job to take a position at CyberTran International -- an ultralight rail start-up based out of UC Berkeley's Richmond Field Station.

Avidor needs to discredit Nishinaga because the man is an expert in conventional transit who is now trying to make innovative technology a reality. Therefore Avidor uses the old bait-and-switch -- in the headline promising Payton, but leading with Nishinaga. Equating them.

I don't know what Nishinaga's political views are, but the way his religious views are characterized in the story (he felt a 'calling', he wanted to become a pastor and join the ministry) is so neutral as to reveal nothing that is inherently fundamentalist OR liberal.

The point is that Avidor doesn't know what Nishinaga's ideology is either. But because of Cybertran, Avidor goes ahead and smears Nishinaga anyway, because he needs Nishinaga to be just like Payton.

Today we also see Ken attempt to practice the journalism basic known as 'establishing a pattern':

It is not surprising to find faith-based jargon among supporters of Personal Rapid Transit. PRT is essentially a faith-based concept - check out Higherway PRT brought to you by the inventor of the Savior Cycle.

But the pattern here is that the person is religious, not how they are religious. Avidor is just indiscriminately (or discriminately) putting all religious people in the same basket.

He doesn't know anything about Higherway inventor Tad Winiecki, he just sees another Christian like Nishinaga who, in his mind, must be just like Allen Payton. And, presumably by extension, just like Michele Bachmann.

Except I happen to know that Tad Winiecki is definitely not like Bachmann:

On March 21st, 2007, Tad Winiecki said:

I have noticed what I consider far too much name calling, attributed motives by association, and denigration of opponents in most public forums and especially blogs related to partisan politics. I was trained to be a scientist so this is against my usual way of thinking. It bothers me when Republicans refer to the "democrat party" rather than the "Democratic Party". It makes me want to call them the "publican party"...

---

On June 19th, 2007, Tad Winiecki said:

"He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich – both come to poverty." Proverbs 22:16 (NIV)

Corporate welfare – gifts to the rich – bothers me. A bad example in Washington State (and many similar cases elsewhere) was tearing down the Kingdome in Seattle and building a new stadium. It cost us poor taxpayers and benefitted rich team owners and players. Uneconomic deals with extraction industries such as oil companies are also giving to the rich. The Republican Medicare prescription drug plan was a gift to rich drug companies. We could go on and on, couldn’t we?

Ken could have known this too. But he is not duly diligent.

Religious intolerance. Somewhat ironic for someone who is waging a holy war against new transit technology.

Earlier:
The Luddite Veto (September)

Luddite fires his loose cannon (October)

Update 1:

PRT Consulting reports Nishinaga has left CyberTran

gPRT

On the occasion of the approval of an Amritsar PRT

Today we take note of the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board's approval of an urban PRT for the city of Amritsar, India.

Let's see what Ken Avidor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist has said about Amritsar. Please welcome back Mr. Side By Side Comparison:

Avidor sez:	Meh:
With only "revenue service trials" at Heathrow completed, ULTra has teamed up with Fairwood India to propose building an ambitious PRT system in Amritsar, India. "The Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) – developed by our ULTra PRT, UK – is a revolutionary new transportation system, which has been operationalized in London (Heathrow airport) after 20 years of development." "Operationalized"?	Yes, Ken, "operationalized." It's a word, the past participle of operationalize, meaning to make operational. I know what this is! This is like that one time, when your only comment about the M.I.S.T.E.R. PRT was "Polish PRT?" -- isn't it, Ken? They speak English in India, Ken, English is one of India's two official languages. You might have heard of a little thing called the Raj?
The map for the Amritsar PRT is here. There is no indication that the citizens of Amritsar had any input in creating the route and the proposed destinations on the map. There has already been criticism that the PRT project "would harm historic Walled City of Amritsar and would hamper tourism in the city.	He's pulling it out of his butt. He has no idea what public input had occurred or was planned, or what Indian law requires. We can pretty much count on it being different from how we do it in America since, you know, it's a different country. Actually, the whole purpose of the PRT project is to serve some of the 100,000 religious pilgrims a week who visit (some might say tour) the city's world-famous Golden Temple. How could a low-profile transit system possibly get in the way of that?
One reason that PRT never goes anywhere is the PRT guys never engage the public in any meaningful way. Source Dec. 4, 2010	It's not the job of "the PRT guys" to engage the public, "the PRT guys" don't make the decisions. Officials of the various state and city jurisdictions are the ones who lead the process, they are answerable to their citizens. I'm going to assume whatever public input regulations they have were followed, since India is the world's most biggest democracy.

We know what kind of public engagement Ken likes. He likes it when the citizens are angry about PRT, because that's the output of his international Luddite propaganda campaign, waged in website comment forums and in the op-ed pieces he has gotten published from time to time.

Ken loves when citizens get angry about PRT, and I'm sure he's helped stir it up. When the District government of Daventry, England was planning PRT, Ken gleefully posted and reposted the public's negative, "pod off" reaction to the project (See? Governments do engage the public about PRT). When I was doing background research on the Daventry planning process, I communicated with a District official who said they had received anti-PRT cartoons. Gee, I wonder who sent those.

An angry populace is also no doubt what Ken was hoping for when he was agitating against the PRT initiative by the municipal government of Winona, Minnesota. A centerpiece of his campaign involved drawing attention to local Teabagger opposition to PRT, in the form of Teabag city council candidate Joshua Chasco. Nobody disrupts a town hall meeting like Teabaggers.

Teabaggers disrupt town hall meeting on health care reform, 2009

gPRT

Stöøl

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 Ken needs PRT to complain about, so he has bought one at Ikea -- and he is going to try to put it together all by himself!

1. Tools needed:

• 2004 Starting Line Foundation proposal, for PRT serving a new Minneapolis stadium.

2. Identify component parts:

• @SaveTheVikesOrg on Twitter

3. Assemble!* (Twitter goes from bottom-up)

 

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?

Also today:

Avidor doesn't know what Capita Symonds does

gPRT

poo-poo head!

* Or in his case, 'dissemble'

The Down Low

Ken Avidor hates Personal Rapid Transit to such a degree that it was pretty much inevitable he would eventually link PRT to Krazy Eyes Bachmann's just-launched campaign for the Resmuglican 2012 presidential nomination. That moment has arrived  -- four days ago.

Just ONE blog post (http://goo.gl/SxykI), Ken? Just ONE tweet (http://bit.ly/lg8kJq)? Still obsessed but, basking in the retweets of your sensible Bachmann news, you know you have to keep your PRT smears on the down low -- so you blog and tweet it on a Sunday afternoon?

Smart for once, Ken, since this is how many retweets it has received: http://goo.gl/tsxSq

Which is none.  People don't buy your anti-PRT disinformation war, not even with a 140 character limit.

Of course, the official PRT Is a Joke IS A JOKE! response is: "Will reporters ask Michele Bachmann why she & 4 other GOP agreed with 13 Democrats on PRT? (http://goo.gl/jGPEq)"

Also in that post: Ken Avidor scored a Double-Ego!

Alsø alsø wik:

Peter Muller (@prtguru) transcribes tweets about Heathrow pods at http://is.gd/s4tMZL.  How can that be called "breathlessly"?

gPRT

http://bit.ly/prtnews

Wanted: used copy of the DSM-IV

Because there are some symptoms I want to look up.

By this time it's pretty much established that personal rapid transit is neither Democratic or Republican, right? Considering -- among others -- the greens backing the Ithaca program, the European Commission, and now the state of Punjab, it would be insane for anyone to continue to insist that PRT is only the domain of ultra-right wing Resmuglicans -- wouldn't it?

Yet that is what Ken Avidor does once again over at the PRT Moondoggie blog.

We've long since established that during 2003-04 (the legislative session when Michele Bachmann sponsored the PRT-related bill that Avidor keeps yammering on about) Democratic sponsors of PRT legislation outnumbered GOP sponsors 13 to 5.

But Ken doesn't like talking about that session anymore. Today he switches to the 2006 Mark "Slappy" Olson bill which went down 26 to 107; it's much friendlier to Avidor's propaganda needs, because the Yea vote was 24 GOP and 2 Democratic.

It's as if, in his mind, the facts from 2003-04 don't exist. What do you call such obsessive pigheadedness?

And the three members from 2006 vote he chooses to mention by name? All GOP. All of whom are in some way extremist or notorious.* This allows Ken to claim, "Minnesota's Worst Politicians Supported Personal Rapid Transit."

Totally ignoring that over the years it has been supported by a lot of good ones as well. Klassy as always, Ken!

* And list those items - police-blotter style - he does, not that they have anything to do with transportation. It's just more of Avidor's guilt by association

gPRT

Short & Stout!

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 posts and a Tweet promoting Chasco's candidacy, Tea Party bona fides, and anti-PRT stance, MUST mean that Avidor 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.

Update: What Avidor has already said about Ollie Mikosza's "MISTER" PRT design:

"Polish PRT?"

Ken Avidor (@Daily Kos)
read the PRTJJ coverage

*Motto: "Dumping Bachmann since 2005"

gPRT

The PRTista-In-Chief

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.

Source

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

Sources:
4/30/2009
5/8/2009
10/15/2009

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:


Oh wait-



gPRT

Still waiting

There's been some movement on the Winona, MN federal funding request for its PRT Lab project with Taxi 2000.

And we're all still waiting for the dark, scam-my, pork-y backroom deal Ken Avidor had practically promised reader of his PRT Moondoggie blog. Remember?

Who are the "Possible Private Donors" for the Winona PRT Project?

The Winona Post has an article on the pods of Winona... I wrote about a similar pitch for a PRT resolution back in December 23, 2005...

...The PRTers have pulled variations of this scam in Duluth, Minneapolis, and Rochester. They convince some well-meaning councilmembers to vote for a resolution saying they are "considering" or "studying" a PRT project for their city.

The anti-LRT/anti-Northstar bunch (Bachmann and Mark Olson are prominent Northstar haters and PRT boosters) in the legislature use the resolutions to convince DFLers to vote for their anti-transit PRT bills because a PRT project in their district smells like pork. That's the Democratic Party for you, the Dems will eagerly hang themselves if the rope is made of pork.

Source

Ken is always going on and on about how PRT is Republican and right-wing, and yet did you just notice what he did? He says "PRTers" "convince" local councils to support PRT -- but doesn't specify how the convincing happens.

It must happen like magic. He just needs it to be taken as read -- meaning he can explain away any support for PRT by any government jurisdiction and by any official, whether liberal or conservative. That's how Avidor's conspiracy theory works.

And notice how Avidor slams Democrats who secure federal funds for their districts -- even though for nearly three decades Minnesota has received less federal spending than taxes paid.

This is the reality of the funding process:

Walz listening on earmark requests

U.S. Rep Tim Walz has received requests for more than $280 million in earmarks for Winona-area projects, including $25 million to test transit technology in Winona and $26 million for preliminary work on a high-speed rail route along the Mississippi River.

Walz, DFL-Minn., last week posted on his Web site the nearly 100 federal funding applications from local governments and nonprofit organizations throughout his district. The earmarks target money already appropriated in the federal budget.
...
The congressman submitted 44 projects from his district last year, and his selections this year will be posted March 19 on his Web site. "He is looking for projects whose requesters share his commitment to transparency and accountability," [spokesperson Sara] Severs said.

Source

One funding application, in competition with nearly 100 others, with criteria that includes "transparency and accountability." And reported in the media!  Where's the beefy scam, Ken?

Yes, the request to Walz (and also insurance proposals to Sens. Franken and Klobuchar) is an earmark -- now. As we can deduce from the cover letter of this package, the request to Walz is the backup ask, therefore the original grant request was rejected. So it's still a fact that when Avidor was claiming Winona was seeking an earmark, they weren't.




gPRT

Mock Journalist, Part VIII

Snow Job

©MMX PRT Is a Joke IS A JOKE! and Get On Board!PRT NewsCenter


Ken Avidor's recent postings (1 , 2) about the Vectus test track technical problem in the snow reported by media in Uppsala, Sweden, are just so quintessentially Avidor. Because they bear the hallmarks of his 'reporting'--

• The broad, baseless generalization ("FAIL")
• No value-added: clipping news written by others, adding no substantive comments of his own
• Going to an expert for an opinion that just-so-happens to be PRT Moondoggie-compatible

As readers of PRT Is a Joke IS A JOKE and the Mock Journalist series know, Ken never goes directly to the source to get the facts first-hand. He (and this time his expert) just engages in guesswork that nurtures his predetermined, PRT-is-a-Joke, buy-my-book objective.

He leaves that grunt work to me -- Mr_Grant, PRT NewsCenter editor, and Perhaps The New Leading Skeptic of PRT^®. In this case, it meant the arduous task of sending an email to a public Vectus address. Read my exclusive ex-po-zay of this (it turns out) non-story here, at The NewsCenter.

Was it ghosts? (March 4): "'bump' in the night": Avidor ally Michael Setty needs problem to stay unknowable, disbelieves Vectus' explanation

UPDATE (March 30): Michael Setty's candidate* for Napa supervisor is a property-rights activist and founder of the Napa Valley Taxpayers Alliance 

* in a Letter-To-The-Editor in which Setty also attacks public employees and public employee unions.

Behold: Vectus test track glitch explained

Read: the "Mock Journalist" Series

gPRT you're welcome AGAIN, Ken. What do you say--?

Missed Again

Desperate in his continued attempts to politicize transit research and development, propagandist Ken Avidor has returned to trawling (or trolling) for controversial messages at the Transport-Innovators discussion group on Google.

Let me say some things here about that group: many if not most of the active members in the group are highly opinionated inventors, engineers and scientists. So looking there for controversy is the lazy person's research, as difficult as looking for moisture in the ocean.

I try to avoid reading Transport-Innovators unless absolutely necessary. The group often seems less about discussing transportation so that it can be understood by an ill-informed cartoonist, and more about who's right about a laundry list of issues. Or wrong. Some of the "Innovators" have political views that can be characterized as libertarian, others positively neanderthal. It takes all kinds to make a world.

But Ken Avidor has decided to take two persons' extreme views and cram all PRT proponents in that pigeonhole.

1. Jerry Roane of TriTrack, who apparently doesn't care much for man-on-man love:

I did some more study on why Portland has an affinity for little bicycles and why they resonate with Washington DC money givers. There seems to be a naked bike ride they do and they had the first openly homosexual (male on male) mayor. This money is being passed out to the constituents. It has very little to do with mobility. The naked bike ride looks more like a men's locker room than 800 randomly chosen citizens. Portland is not even a metropolitan city. It is in a metropolitan area but the city is only 1/2 million.

Jerry Roane

Ehhhh whatever, Jerry. Like I said, it takes all kinds.

2. Jack Slade of god-only-knows, who wants to draft Halal dietary rules into the global war agin terr':

If you really want to put the fear of Allah into these terrorists, you should make it be known that ALL your bullets have been dipped in pig blood. All the Military bullets, too.

Jack Slade

I think that misspeaks for itself.

If these cries for help prove anything, the first is that PRT has a right wing (as well as a left, e.g., Donn Fichter, Joan Bokaer, World Wildlife Fund, Debbie Cook, me) -- just like light rail had Heritage Foundation founder Paul Weyrich, and high speed rail has the LaRouchies. The second thing is that the world of PRT advocates doesn't have a single centralized messaging apparatus. Unfortunately.

Not that such an apparatus would have kept Roane and Slade's mouths shut, because they were expressing their opinions about world events. PRT is a technology. PRT doesn't have opinions.

Which brings us to an interesting concluding note: Roane is not a PRT designer, his Tri-Track system is Dual Mode -- private road vehicles that can be placed on a guideway. The words "personal rapid transit" aren't even used on Roane's website.

+

Not all Transport Innovations are PRT -- you missed again, Ken. Stop calling Roane's system "TriTrack PRT."

And what of Jack Slade? His technology is shrouded in mystery; even a source of mine who is regarded as the leading archivist of transportation technology isn't sure what Slade is working on. My source guesses it might be passenger cabins on a conveyer belt. Which wouldn't be PRT either, since the definition says no moving parts in the guideway.

gPRT

Just a bill

Earmarks vs. Pork (Ken Avidor goes to school)

Earmarks are products of the legislative process. They are part of the overall appropriations process, but unlike a tax exemption or bond there is no requirement for an earmark to pay for it itself.

The name earmark comes from the legislature specially designating money for a specific project -- like turning down the corner of a page in a book -- as opposed to an executive branch agency funding a project through the budgetmaking process.

A legislator adds an earmark to a spending bill, and it becomes one of the legislative body's spending priorities. This is not horsetrading -- a quid pro quo in which lawmakers agree to vote for each others' measures. That is termed 'logrolling.'

Appropriation is another way earmarks differ from grants, which are awarded to projects based on objective evaluative criteria. This lack of objectivity (and publicity by good-government and anti-government activists alike) has caused earmarks to be conflated with 'pork,' which traditionally is understood to mean spending intended to buy the support or votes of a group of constituents.

Politics can affect how an earmark gets approved. But one person's earmark is another's wasteful spending.

In contrast, a grant program is set up through a legislative process, but legislation only establishes the top level goals and objectives. The recipients are chosen by an executive branch agency through an open call for applications; grants are awarded to projects that are judged, based on the objective criteria, the best able to achieve the goals and objectives.

The current Winona 'PRT Lab' funding request is to a grant program.

Reading:

Richard Shelby's $35 billion Northrop-Grumman earmark
(1,400 times the size of the possible 'PRT Lab' grant for Winona)

1981-2005:
Federal spending in Minnesota
LESS THAN federal taxes paid

gPRT

Middle-age Wasteland

(Meet The New Lies -- Same As The Old Lies)
In case you haven't noticed (or, more likely, haven't cared), anti-PRTeabagger Ken Avidor has been blogging a lot about the proposed "PRT lab" in Winona, MN.

1. He's claiming PRT will blight historic buildings, presenting a Photoshop:

+

This is like his famous fake "Ugly PRT" photo, which depicted a PRT design no one is making, at a location no one was proposing installing it. Hey Ken, you know what happens if citizens don't want PRT on a certain street? Build it on a different street.

Here is the real initial guideway route.

+

If Ken is concerned about PRT spoiling views of the Target, Wal-Mart and hospital, then I invite him to say so.

2. He's wondering whether the City jumped through all the legal hoops in creating the proposal--

Major projects have major costs. [Duhhh! -Ed.]

It is unclear whether the anonymous designer of that route engaged citizens, businesses and public officials in a public discussion as required by law (NEPA), particularly when it comes to cost and who will pay.

The city won't put local tax dollars toward the [PRT] center and is unlikely to seek state funding, city officials said... [ellipsis in original]

There is an established process for determining the cost of transportation projects like the PRT project proposed for Winona.

That process is outlined in this Federal Highway Administration document - (MAJOR PROJECT PROGRAM COST ESTIMATING GUIDANCE PDF)

--and asking "What was the level of citizen participation for this plan?"

News flash -- if they haven't followed the rules, then the "PRT lab" won't happen! How stupid does Ken Avidor think Winona's government is? As stupid as him?

3. About ULTra, he's claiming its stated 3 second headway is "hokum.*"

Part I of this claim*
He quotes from the intro to a presentation from an Advanced Transit Association conference.

Note: Slide #10 of the presentation mentions a shuttle application with a "5 second minimum headway". This only refers to the headway along the guideway. The small end-of-line stations shown in the shuttle graphic on slide #11 could not operate with headways below about 15 seconds.

Hmmm, let's see. Avidor is agreeing the number of PRT vehicles that can use any one station is less than the number that can be carried on the main guideway. Congratulations, Ken, you've unintentionally gotten something right!

Ken's objection is only a problem for PRT if all vehicles traveling on the line have to stop at every station. But they don't, since stations are all offline, and pods don't stop until they reach their rider-selected destination station. This is one of the basic principles of PRT -- that Avidor doesn't know it shows how unknowledgeable he is.

Furthermore, by 'exposing' this issue in his blog Avidor creates the impression ULTra has hidden it. Except for a table on this page:

Far from hidden, it's on page 13 of this document on the ULTra website.


Part II of this claim*
He quotes more from the presentation:

This is because all vehicles have to reverse direction at a single point within the station, and furthermore the limited number of berths would not give time to deboard and board passengers A larger station with more berths and multiple turn-around locations would be needed to process a vehicle every five seconds.

Ken links to the presentation in question, but doesn't disclose an important thing about the bolded passage: it applies only to one-sided, parallel ('sawtooth') berths at end-of-line stations (and it's a consultant's generic example, not even specific to ULTra). Avidor again reveals his lack of PRT knowledge: if you want to avoid having a reverse-single-point, then you don't put stations at ends of lines and do design your stations in one of these ways:

4. Winona wants to seek a federal grant for 80% of "PRT lab" funding, but Ken Avidor claims "PRT Guys Want an Earmark [i.e. "pork"] for Winona Pods." He doesn't know the difference between a grant and an earmark! Or maybe he does, and this is another smear -- people hate pork, they don't hate grants.


You choose: either Ken Avidor is purposely misrepresenting the facts, or he's ignorant of them. Before deciding, you should know he claims "I have the facts, I know my stuff", "I have proof of everything I say about PRT", and to be "perhaps the leading skeptic of Personal Rapid Transit".

Also: The building in #1 above isn't on the "PRT lab" map:

View 2 places in Winona in a larger map

NEW:
1981-2005: Federal spending in Minnesota
LESS THAN federal taxes paid

gPRT Ken Avidor is wrong again -- how many chances does this guy get?

Look at who's a mindreader

First, read my Wednesday post and decide whether I am "[Insisting] on Misrepresenting Congressional Candidate's Position on PRT", as Ken Avidor 'insists' on claiming.

I have corresponded with Ms. Winograd, and what she told me is, "Until I know a lot more about the PRT, I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline to support it."
That is a far cry from Ken Avidor's extreme claims, such as 'PRT is a right wing scam' as well as being 'impossible.' In fact, Ms. Winograd's position is perfectly reasonable, because I don't want people to support PRT either until they know 'more' about it! Just like I don't want them to oppose it until knowing more about it.

Ken is claiming to know what's in my head! The headlines he has written for the relevant blog posts are:

1. "PRT Promoter David Gow Spreads More Misinformation"

2. "PRT Promoter David Gow Insists on Misrepresenting Congressional Candidate's Position on PRT"

He's claiming I have the intention of misleading. Takes one to know one, Ken!

Dear readers, tell me if this is unreasonable: I get a Google Alert on PRT; it links me to a webpage that quotes Winograd praising the 1970s "Boeing" PRT (Morgantown), citing it as an example of how we should be putting aerospace workers to work. Isn't it then reasonable to assume she would support PRT today? Of course it is. But not if you're conspiracy-minded Ken Avidor.

I'll conclude my Winograd-related remarks by wishing her luck in the primary, we need fewer blue dogs and more true progressives in Congress.

Let's move on to the main part of the discussion: Ken Avidor's latest postings provide us material for another installment of--

What We Learned

What we learned this time is that Ken Avidor is so desperate to recover from the drubbing he took at Democratic Underground that he reverts to pattern -- he goes looking for another thing he can distort, in order to divert attention from his defeat. I won't just claim this, I'll provide evidence.

For example, after this defeat at Daily Kos, he constructed the "PRT = torture" lie.

After he failed to prove that only right wingers want PRT, he claimed persecution by a PRT company.

This time he decided to go after my list of pro-PRT people and organizations at Get On Board!PRT.

My mention of Winograd's documentable praise for "Boeing" PRT is notable because she is the only one on the list not making a specific, affirmative endorsement of the current generation of PRT technologies.

That Ken is picking on my listing of Winograd shows how desperate he is for cheap 'victories.' How about the others on the list, Ken?

• Are you going to claim World Wildlife Fund's pro-PRT video doesn't mean they support PRT?
  
• That the California Democratic Party didn't mean to put PRT in its 2004 platform?
  
• That Congressman Hinchey was talking about something else when he said government should focus on PRT?
  
• That Joan Bokaer's participation in the Podcar City II conference doesn't mean she's for PRT?
  
• That when Debbie Cook wrote"large-scale ramp-up of PodCars can significantly mitigate the impacts of climate change and peak oil, transforming ground transport from polluting fuels to clean solar energy," she didn't really mean it?

Want a good laugh? Imagine Avidor writing to everyone on the list, trying to grill them about PRT!

I hope you get a lot of comfort out of cheap 'victories,' Ken. They're the only kind you're going to get.

Also today: A grant is not an earmark, Ken! (and why is he surprised the Winona "PRT lab" is about economic development? It's what the city's Nov. 2009 pdf was all about!)

In the news: Minnesota Republican senate candidate Paul Ibisch is not on board with Winona PRT plan!
(and Democrat Steve Murphy of Red Wing "welcomes funding for PRT development in Winona or elsewhere.")Ken Avidor's biggest meme is wrong again

gPRT Imagine! - "Dear Rep. Hinchey: Why do you support Michele Bachmann? Sincerely, Ken Avidor."