Hot Potato - Update 2

It used to be that when Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist Ken Avidor wanted to smear pod transit as a right wing conspiracy, all he had to do was trot out one of his state's Republicans who had said or done something supportive in the legislature.

Leaving aside the issue of why Minnesota was able to produce, elect and nurture whackjobs like Michele Bachmann and Mark Whoever despite the (best?) efforts of Ken  the Dump Blogger, we have to remember that the pro-PRT community for many years was limited to one citizens group with limited resources.

Republicans were generally anti-light rail and therefore seen as the path of least resistance, and they became a focus of pro-PRT efforts. This was a mistake, especially since it turned out there were plenty of Democrats willing to offer bills on PRT. 

My point is that it was easy for Ken to trot out Krazy Eyes and Slappy whenever (and that was often) he needed to dismiss PRT as fringe.

But he can't do that now, now that there are Heathrow pods, Masdar City PRT and Suncheon pods in operation, and plenty of non-Republicans are interested.

He can't do it, but it doesn't mean he won't try.

Recently Ken  tried to use his old technique of linking a politician to 'pod people,' hoping to achieve shaming. But this time the politician is Jim Oberstar, who is giving the keynote at this fall's Podcar City conference at George Mason University.

Oberstar is no small-time loon like the aforementioned duo.*  For one thing, he's a Democrat. And in his 1975-2011 House career he amassed enormous gravitas on transportation issues. He was only Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.  In fact, Oberstar is an avid cyclist and promoted creation of bike trails during his long career. You'd think Ken would remember that. Awkward.

Jim Oberstar doesn't need Ken Avidor's approval.

Will Avidor attack Oberstar more as the Podcar City conference gets closer? It would be the stupid thing to do, but -- Nah; I think he'll drop it.



^* UPDATE 1 -- Ken quotes us out of context again! He tried to slime Oberstar, now tries to make it look like we did it.

Archive -- Ken Avidor misquotes all over himself (2011)

UPDATE 2:  James Oberstar, 1934-2014

gPRT
Get it together Ken, you're barely trying

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

I Cannot Comment

Thanks to reader "Not THE Harry Harrison" for alerting me to this:

At first I thought maybe this was Ken's extreeeme attempt to deprive me of material. But no, it's about all of his blogs, not just Dump Bachmann:

At first reading it is tantalizing for what he doesn't say -- not I don't know, or There are technical difficulties, or even That god-damn Blogger. What it sounds like to a reasonable person is I've been told to keep my mouth shut.

And here is his explanation for public consumption:

Wow. The "Dump Bachmann" blog (and all of Ken's blogs) has been retired with Bachmann yet-to-be-dumped.

The Speculationing. Yes, SPECULATIONING.

Let's note that in general "I cannot comment" is a very legalistic expression. People say it when they're in trouble. They say it when arriving at the police station to assist with their inquiries.

Maybe litigation is occurring, or is in the pipeline, about something or things Ken has written in one of his blogs. Something serious and with merit, otherwise those blogs would still be up and Ken would be blogging about it. Of course, libel can be libel even if distribution is limited.

This is the "case" mentioned by AnitaMaria, but I can't believe that has any merit, coming as it does from a right wing whackjob. I certainly wouldn't pull down my blogs in face of a nuisance suit from such a quarter (unless I had written something that -- oh never mind).

Or maybe Ken simply doesn't understand that to be of value an archive needs to be accessible to would-be researchers. ANY researchers. Otherwise your archive enters the realm of conspiracy theory-style 'secret knowledge.' Yes, Stupidity would be the simple explanation.

More later (I suspect).

Don't hold a wake for the Laffable Luddite's blogs yet, though:

His Jan. 2008 blogging retirement

April 2008 unretirement

Later in 2008 re-retirement

April 2009 - He's back

gPRT
I suppose I COULD treat it as a victory

Nothing Meaningful

Mock Journalist, Part XIII

The new Ken Avidor blog post is the work of a lazy, lazy man.

You can tell from the title: Was Minnesota Personal Rapid Transit Huckster Run Out of Fayetteville, Georgia on " a Greased Rail" After "Press Release Hoax"? (PRT Moondoggie, 3/12) The question mark at the end means 'I have no idea.' Lazy.

The story is about the foot-in-mouth attempts by the JPods PRT company to secure an installation deal with the city of Fayetteville, Georgia. We relayed this sorry excuse for transit development starting a month ago at the NewsCenter (see 2/13) -- the linked stories show how JPods basically counted its chickens before they were hatched.

The overview is that JPods accidentally or on purpose released a press statement prematurely claiming Fayetteville had agreed to host the company's first pod installation. When it found out, the city council was not pleased, and the gambit (or mistake or misunderstanding or whatever it was) appears to have been pivotal in the council decision to not let JPods build on/over public rights of way. Build it on private land, they decided.

Which is absolutely the correct decision in this case, simply because JPods has zero track record it can cite to reassure a community it can bring off a successful project. JPods wanted Fayetteville to be the guinea pig for a pod design with no prototype, no testing results, no regulatory sign-off, no project team, no manufacturing capability, no supply chain. In effect, JPods wanted Fayetteville to host a testing facility -- and that is not the job of local government, even if (as JPods claims) the project funding was to be 100% private. The public still 'pays' by allowing use of public ROW, and in any negative impacts on overall transportation and land use.

That Ken gets the story right this time is due only to the fact that he sat back and waited for the Fayetteville media, the NewsCenter, and the Transport-Innovators Google Group to do the work of information gathering as well as criticism.

And he concludes today's entry by telling any public officials who might be reading (I suppose it's possible), "If you're wondering whether PRT is a boondoggle or not, Google is your best friend" -- an unwitting admission that Ken Avidor adds nothing meaningful to the coverage or discussion of personal rapid transit.

But you knew that.

gPRT

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

Sense of proportion

"King Kong was only three foot six inches tall."

Peter O'Toole to Steve Railsback
The Stunt Man
1980, 20th Century Fox

Scale. It's always good to put things in their proper scale. Context, if you will.

The history of this blog is replete with examples of us pointing out when Ken Avidor ignores or omits context, all the better to incorrectly portray Personal Rapid Transit technology. I bet he thought he could sneak two non-contextual photos by us in his November 15 post, Suncheon Bay Vectus "PRT" Revealed to NOT be Personal Rapid Transit (Berther, 11/15). We could probably call it a Screen Play -- a Big Lie, 'Suncheon PRT stations aren't offline', running interference for this:



Two pictures in which there is nothing familiar to impart a sense of scale. Sure, thought Ken, I'll just call them 'massive.' It's not like anyone can prove otherwise -- it's all the way over in Korea.

He thought wrong.

An examination of the photo of Station One and Depot in the official Vectus PDF does contain a good clue about scale: workers on the ground.

Let's propose those workers are 5'7."  That would make the station platform only about 28 feet above the ground. And the station roof only about 40 feet above the ground.

For even better sense of scale, behold these recently released photos showing a rather compact Suncheon Station 2:

PRT Consulting

PRT Consulting

As for the 'massive' main guideway to Station Two, it is holding 2 sets of rails, one going in each direction. Therefore that guideway is twice as wide as what's shown above at Station One. Here's a photo of 3 guys standing on single guideway at Suncheon, just imagine it twice as wide.

PRT Consulting

UPDATE 1
It's official: Vectus lists 'typical' guideway width as 1400mm (4.6 ft. Ref: page 23 here). But the vehicles are 2100mm/6.9 ft wide (p.22), so the little pods are actually wider than the "massive" guideway.



gPRT Massive Liar

Berther

Laffable Luddite again displays ignorance of basic PRT concepts


I think we've pretty well established how Ken Avidor is the Worst Expert In The World when it comes to anything to do with PRT. So his new blog post "Suncheon Bay Vectus "PRT" Revealed to NOT be Personal Rapid Transit" can best be described as maintaining his pattern.

Avidor writes as follows (pay attention to what he has put in bold, they are not in the original):

The Vectus October update (PDF) has a preview of their much-ballyhooed Suncheon Bay project in Korea.

Station Two is currently under construction and due to be completed by the end of December 2012. Both stations will feature in-line berths, platform screen doors and touch screen passenger information/destination selection facilities.

According to the Wikipedia PRT article which is mostly written by fans of PRT,  offline stations are  a defining characteristic of PRT:

In PRT designs, vehicles are sized for individual or small group travel, typically carrying no more than 3 to 6 passengers per vehicle.[1] Guide ways are arranged in a network topology, with all stations located on sidings, and with frequent merge/diverge points. This approach allows for nonstop, point-to-point travel, bypassing all intermediate stations

So Vectus is just another monorail/people-mover that exist in airports, amusement parks etc. all over the world. Not the revolution in transportation we were promised, not "faster,  cheaper,  better" than conventional transit modes.

He really thinks he has something here, and sinks his teeth in. Except he's comparing apples and oranges: the fact is a PRT station is offline, but its berths can be either inline or not inline.

Nomenclature review:

1. A station is where multiple pods can park to load and unload passengers; it is offline on a siding so vehicles going to other stations can bypass it.
2. The positions where pods park are berths; they can be sawtoothed where pods park at an angle so they can pass each other in the station, or inline (!!!) where pods park nose to tail.

Here is a PRT station at Masdar City:

Sawtoothed: Berths angled, not inline. Station is offline.

Next, a PRT station at West Virginia University:

Berths nose-to-tail, or inline. Station is still offline.

You choose: Ken Avidor doesn't understand what an inline berth is, or knows what it is but has decided to deliberately confuse it* with inline stations.

---

Update 1 (11/16): Martin Pemberton, Vectus director of Sales & Marketing, has confirmed to NewsCenter that the Suncheon stations are indeed offline --

Maybe some confusion in terminology. By 'in-line' we mean one behind the other. The stations are 'off-line' from the main track, ie. in siding as you call them.

The clock to see how long it takes Ken to retract his post starts... now.

JavaScript Kit

---

By the way, while the official definition of PRT calls for offline stations, a demonstration system with only two stations (like Vectus at Suncheon) wouldn't need stations to be on sidings. A trip from Station One that bypassed Station Two would end up -- where? I invite Ken   to try to fill in the blank.

Basically, there is no need at Suncheon to bypass a station. Doubt could be cast on Vectus should they ever offer inline stations in a larger, multi-station system. But we know they are capable of offline stations. An offline station was a feature of the Vectus test facility in Sweden, which received government safety clearance.

Uppsala, Sweden. Vectus pod enters offline guideway.

Also: We cover this Vectus Update at the NewsCenter.

^ * i.e., lie

P.S. Ken  also has a second post today, in which he declares:

"elections have consequences... the [Nov. 6, 2012] election slams the door on any chance of public funding for PRT projects"

For proof he cites a quote from 2011 by one Minnesota legislator who is skeptical of PRT, who is the new chair of the senate transportation committee. And the quote contains no vow about door-slamming, it's all an Avidor prediction; we know how accurate he is about predictions.

In short, elections would have consequences for PRT in Minnesota -- had PRT been an issue in any Minnesota election contest, which it was not (sorry Ken, you mentioning it doesn't count).

At any rate, no future public funding for PRT projects in Minnesota represents no change from the past. Ken is celebrating no change.


gPRT
PRTher, rhymes with Birther