Like gold standard crazies, intelligent design ideologues and cold-fusion enthusiasts, Personal Rapid Transit nuts see something the rest of the world doesn't see and think they are visionaries as a result."
How nutty are the PRT fanatics?
I first encountered the PRT fanatic "A Transportation Enthusiast" on the Seattle Post Intelligencer forum way back... I think it was 2006. A.T.E. was angry that none of the other folks on the forum took him seriously... so, he began a non-stop rant, in bold caps that got him banned and his rants erased. David Gow, a Seattle-based PRT promoter gathered up A.T.E.'s rantings and proudly displayed them on his blog. A sample:
"ALL SHALL OBEY THE THIRD COMMANDMENT OF TRANSIT FUNDAMENTALISM:
THOU SHALT NOT DEBATE! {thunderclap}
DEBATE IS THE WEAPON OF THE HERETIC GADGETBAHNERS!
THINE ONLY DEFENSE AGAINST DEBATE IS ATTACK!
ATTACK THINE ENEMY'S PROPHETS: ANDERSON, SCHNEIDER!
FILL THE AIR WITH MOCKERY OF THESE EVIL GADGETBAHNERS!
BANISH THEM TO THE FLOATING LOVE POD!
FOR IT IS WRITTEN THAT ALL WHO DO NOT FOLLOW THE HOLY WORD OF WEINERBAHNEN SHALL BE RIDICULED AS CULTISTS AND TOOLS OF THINE EVIL AUTO INDUSTRY
HEAR MY WORDS FOR I HAVE SPOKEN! I AM WEINERBAHNEN! I AM CARTOONIST! I AM ALL KNOWING!"
"Transportation Enthusiast" stomped over to the Pharyngula blog comment section to defend his new cause, one he was not sure of at that time:
I am new to PRT, so I'm not really a critic or a proponent, but I can tell you this: I am an engineer and I've looked at the math, and to this point I've seen no evidence that it has been proven infeasible.
I'm still quite skeptical, and I still lean towards proven technologies (i.e. LRT), but PRT is not "joke" that some would have you believe. The mathematics and theory seem quite reasonable to me. I've read the lightrailnow critique, and while it makes a few good points, there are some significant flaws, especially when it comes to headways. Yes, I've done the analysis myself, and I invite you to do so as well.
Certainly, PRT still has a lot to prove, and it may yet turn out to be infeasible in real world scenarios. I would still lean towards proven modes, but I have an open mind about it. I'm waiting to see how the current PRT projects in Europe and elsewhere turn out.
Do not be swayed by activists, on one side or the other. There are some people who have an almost religious zeal in their views on the topic, so be sure not to be swayed by the vocal minority (one way or the other).
It wasn't long before A.T.E. became a zealous defender of PRT even as the number of true believers dwindled.
Here's another example of Transportation Enthusiast's unique way of winning friends and influencing people:
"So now you're bowing out ,eh? You went in and empowered that f*cking idiot and now you're dropping it on the floor. You are as much a moron as he is."
A.T. E. continued being my personal troll for many years, maintaining a blog about me that accused me and friends of all sorts of nasty things. such as this:
Lesson: Do not trust political hack blogs like DumpBachmann, and, more generally, never trust any forum moderated by propagandists like Eva Young and Ken Avidor, especially in cases like this where they have a possible financial conflict of interest.
Recently, I noticed a critic on the Transport Innovators with a similar style of invective with the screen name Mike C. Here's a sample:
Michael Setty is an ignorant blowhard. He is one of the "three stooges" of anti-PRT activism, with Ken Avidor and Vukan Vuchic.
Mike C. also posted on another forum where his real name popped up on a couple posts.
A.T.E later changed his Wiki User name to Atren. On Daily Kos, he calls himself Transeth:
I am known as "A Transportation Enthusiast", "transenth", "Mike C", and "Mwillong" on various forums, as well as "ATren" on Wikipedia. I joined here to comment on some misleading threads regarding Personal Rapid Transit (PRT).
A.T.E. had a good run of anonymous trolling, but he slipped up when he posted his workplace IP number on Wikipedia... and now we know who he is.:
"About the Author -"Michael Carrato received his MS degree in computer engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has nine years of professional experience in design and development in C/C++, Java, and Smalltalk. He currently works as a software engineer at Cymfony, Inc., in Williamsville, NY....."
UPDATE: Michael Carrato confirms the facts in this post are correct.
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