Sanitized (of relevancy) for your protection

Apparently, the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist has never before heard of a private company (of any type) trying to keep protesters (of any type) off of its facilities. No, I guess PRT invented that too.

Using Kenmore's logic, if a company is pro-environment, it ought to allow environmental protesters to gather and possibly disrupt its operations. If not (and especially if it also has a PRT program), then the company must be anti-environment. Who cares if the EU and Swedes see PRT as a tool for urban mobility and reducing oil dependence -- that's an inconvenient truth Mr. L'Avitory flushes down his memory hole.

What we really need to know is what's the Mark "Slappy" Olson connection? Has Olson ever flown into or out of Heathrow? We need the facts!

Also today: Heathrow's new Terminal 5 will be served by surface rail and the London Underground -- obviously, trains must be part of the Airport Expansion Conspiracy too.

Update: the Propagandist singles out PRT as 'greenwashing' (9/4)

Dec. 17 -- BAA's Heathrow Corporate Responsibility Report cites multiple modes and methods in its surface transport strategy:

Paddington-Heathrow local train
Piccadilly express train extension
Heathrow Express extension
Heathrow-Staines "AirTrack" rail link
Public transport interchange
PRT
Improved bus and coach service
Employee car trip reduction
Employee public transport commute discount
No change in parking strategy
Limit construction worker car trips

I challenge the Propagandist to be consistent, and denounce all of these as greenwashing!

gPRT
Ken Avidor is a stalking horse for Garry Trudeau haters

Now Jill Clark has cooties

Today in Cooties

Would you be surprised if the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist attacked a liberal for participating in making sure an extreme right-winger gets due process? No, it's not the ACLU and the neo-Nazis again, it's--

Rep. Mark Olson has spent nearly all his political career excoriating liberals, but when he went shopping for a lawyer, he hired Jill Clark.
. . .

...Attorney Jill Clark has tirelessly and fearlessly defended people of color and poor people who have been targeted by the criminal justice system...

. . .
Jill Clark also ran for Judge in Hennepin County a few years back. Among her list of endorsements, is Ember Reichgott Junge, Brian Melendez, and Dean Zimmermann, [sic] Source

Yes, how dare a lawyer take on a client. Because, that one client invalidates any and all good work done previously, right? How dare a progressive candidate accept an endorsement from a progressive Green like Zimmermann, who also fought for "people of color and poor people."

Ben Labridor is a freakin' hero, man, for ferreting out the Jill Clark-Mark Olson-Dean Zimmermann-PRT connection!

It's cooties all over again! Resmuglican and PRT cooties!!!



gPRT
Somebody left my Ken Avidor out in the rain

Mr. Puffy has a great fall

He taketh my screen-name in vain

Nedken Ovendoor the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist has been a busy boy lately, what with the need to pull together all the threads of the Big Scary PRT Conspiracy.

News stories about PRT are more and more frequent (he dismisses them as "puff pieces"), the most recent in the New York Times and on CNN.com. Guess this means the Times supports Mark Olson, and Time Warner is a road warrior.

The PRT - Right Wing connection must be cemented too, and on that front he is vigilantly on the lookout for bias on Slappy Olson's page on Wikipedia. Avidor has even gone so far as to file a Conflict of Interest complaint (a "COI")-- 'cause, ya know, PRT = Mark Olson, therefore Biased Mark Olson Article = Biased PRT Article.

Humpty Puffy even brings me into it. He writes:

I will stop editing the page if persons with genuine COI issues like PRT promoter Mr_Grant (David Gow) and Republicans like Swanny and the guy from the AEI stop editing the page. Source

The thing is, Undiedrawer wouldn't recognize Objectivity if it walked up to him on the street and cried, "Ken, dontcha know me? It's me. Objectivity. When was the last time I saw you -- elementary school? So I hear you went to art college-"

And what does ol' "liberal-biased" Wikipedia think? If Slappy is a right winger, Slappy = PRT, and therefore PRT = right wing, then surely Wikipedia will side with Avidor? Um, NOPE:

Swanny123s edits were well within WP:BLP guidelines. On the other hand, Avidor has chosen not to abide by the request to stop editing the article. If Avidor wants to add the other names to this report (per the guidelines), feel free to. However, if Avidor continues to ignore this, and edits against policy (BLP, COI, disruption), he may be blocked from editing.
...
I have reviewed the edits of Swanny123, Avidor, Mr Grank [sic], and the "AEI" guy to the Olson article. Swanny123, Mr Grant and AEI guy's edits do not violate NPOV nor do their edits show a COI results [sic]. Source

Avidor's problem is he thinks that having a point of view means you can't possibly write neutrally about something. In his book, journalists must be worse than lawyers.

You know, if Puffy the Magic Propagandist has a problem with Wikipedia, he ought to head over to Conservapedia. He'll fit "right" in with all the other nice people digging into the truth on subjects such as Hillary Clinton and Evolution.

Help Humpty Puffy!"Durrr -- got any superglue?"

Archive: On a rail, no doubt (12/13)

Also today: Say, if PRT is a scam to stop light rail, then why is Norman Foster's "Masdar city" planning to have both (video)?

gPRT
There is NO Ken Avidor easter egg for this post

Mr. Accuracy's Greatest Misses

Remember this old howler from Ken Avidor, the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist?

"...there is no PRT project at London's Heathrow airport..." Source

I can't help but be reminded of it, what with the latest progress report by ATS about its PRT project at London's Heathrow Airport:

Construction of the T5 end of the track started in January 2007 and there are now 22 foundations completed for the overhead section near T5. [Emphases added] Source

And this from the airport's owner, BAA:

Work has begun on the test track for the world's first Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, which will run between the N3 car park near Longford village and Terminal 5, and will benefit local residents as well as Heathrow passengers.

The PRT consists of small cars with rubber tyres that travel along a guideway.

The system has a number of great advantages. Being battery powered, it is extremely quiet – no louder than a normal conversation at 10 metres.What is more, it will reduce local congestion and air pollution. The PRT will replace the buses used to move passengers from the car park to the terminal, removing an estimated nine buses an hour from local roads.

The interior of each small electric 'pod' is similar to a London taxi, has full disabled access, and will be able to accommodate up to four passengers and their luggage... More

Not bad for a project that doesn't exist.

Non-existent ULTra's non-existent guideway footings can be seen

underneath the elevated roadway.

December 2008: Another photo of ULTra not existing at Heathrow

Archives: See How Nothing he Writes Can Be Trusted
Light Rail Segment Obliterated - Heroic Editor Sounds Alarm

gPRT
There is no Ken Avidor project at London's Heathrow Airport

Hello old friend

Weiner Watch is back, and in top form!



gPRT
Avidor / Avidee / Aviday / Avi a ha ha ha ha ha ha
Avidor / Avidee / a knapsack on my back

More 'Advocacy Is Not a Policy Decision' (or, Evidence I was probably right) - UPDATE 1

"Kinda Over" the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist loves rebuttal almost as much as cherrypicking facts. But the latter continues to undermine the former.

Remember my guess from the other day about the true story behind the failure of Minneapolis LRT in the 1970s?

Wouldn't this be a much more common sense explanation: two Metro organizations in a figurative fight to the death to see which would dominate Twin Cities transit planning -- and neither succeeding? Source

Well Ken Avidor just had to respond today:

A book appeared in 2000 called "The Transportation Renaissance". It was written by a PRT fan called Edmund Rydell. He describes how Anderson and his pals got legislation passed in the early 1970's that prevented the Metropolitan Transit Commission (MTC) from planning for rail transit:

"...Ed and others got legislation that took away from the [Metropolitan Transit] Commission its planning function. Over 20 years later, the Twin Cities still lacks an effective transit strategy."Source

There are even two pages from Rydell's (self-published) book. If only Avidor had read them. Rydell:

Anderson and Kieffer... managed to obtain a copy of the consultant's report to the MTC, and effectively used it against them. Source

If we are taking Rydell as gospel, as Avidor wants to treat it,¹ then the report must have been very bad indeed. At the very least not defensible, because--

The report died from neglect. The Commission couldn't agree on what to do next. The executive director and several staff members quit. For a year the Commission stayed divided on the guidelines it should follow in recruiting a new director... Ed and others got legislative action that took away from the Commission its planning function. Source

AHA!!! These are not the signs of Ed Anderson bamboozling, as Avidor might say, the MTC with the promise of PRT. These are the hallmarks of an organization that had little or no idea how to accomplish its objectives, was wracked by internal divisions, and couldn't even hire a new chief. Such problems don't happen just because one guy talks to them about PRT. The seeds of discord existed long before Anderson came along. And who were the "others"?²

Remember, at that point Anderson was just one person advocating a particular technology. In such a process (a screening process) every technology -- light rail, heavy rail, buses -- has its advocates. It is up to the decisionmakers to evaluate all the options and select one. At that time PRT could not have been the #1 choice, because the most advanced design, at Morgantown, was not financially viable for a wide-scale application. Some other mode had to have been rated #1, and at most PRT would be identified as for-further-investigation -- as it has been for the last 30 years.

And yet, as noted last week, the government bodies that had purview clung to their own positions -- buses, or rail based on a 40-seat vehicle (streetcars?) -- and that was where things fell apart.

You still can't blame J. Edward Anderson.

Read Part I

1. I take Rydell at his word, but I normally don't quote from the book because it provides no references.
2. One also must wonder why the governor of Minnesota -- either Wendell Anderson or Rudy Perpich, both Democrats -- did not step in and relocate the transit planning function to another agency.



Update 2/10/2012: More empty alarmism from the Laffable Luddite.
Ken Avidor is still  claiming "Personal Rapid Transit has always been a bogus excuse to defund rail transit." But the document he references is another op-ed -- advocacy. It takes no money away from one type of transit to give to PRT.  Vandervalk's piece will go nowhere if it goes outside New Jersey's transit policy/planning/acquisition process. Five years later, and advocacy still does not equal a policy decision.



gPRT
"I Ken Avidor in your general direction, silly English k-niggght!"

November 16, 2006

The last time the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist had one his "Specials" published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet -- where he's still listed as "Transportation Editor."

PRTista Update (6/20): Not any more!

gPRT
Anagrams of "KEN AVIDOR" include RAVED OINK, KINDA ROVE, KINDA OVER, NAIVE DORK, RANK VIDEO.