Thursday, January 19, 2012

Personal Rapid Transit is So Not Happening in Cincinnati

The pod people are always saying PRT is happening somewhere - the latest is Amritsar, India. But the pod hypster at FastCoExist.com acknowledged the gazillions of previously hyped PRT projects that fizzled:

That said, it should be noted that projects like this have a way of getting… derailed.


And the Amritsar PRT project will also fade away. I really doubt they will be able to reclaim the cost of construction when there are other, less expensive ways to go from the train station to the city's main attraction:

An auto-rickshaw from the train station to the temple should cost around Rs 20, while a cycle-rickshaw will run about Rs 30.

There is a free bus service from the train station to the golden temple run by Golden Temple trust. It drops you right at the accommodation booking office of the Golden Temple where you can get double bed room for Rs. 100 per day.


One thing is for certain, after the Amritsar pod project fails, the pod people will never admit the failure or why it failed.

Consider the Skyloop PRT which was supposed to happen in Cincinnati. The project is dead as a door nail and its would-be supplier Taxi 2000 was recently described as "moribund" by a Taxi 2000 shareholder.

But the Skyloop website is still up and apparently being used as "Google-bait" to boost the "Google-iciousness" of lawyers, handymen and home renovation and roofing contractors. The "Link Up With Skyloop" page is especially hilarious (I replaced the links with boldface):

While PRT was one of the moving technologies considered for the downtown area in the 2000-1 Central Area Loop Study (CALS) funded by a local car loan group, it was ultimately rejected at that time because of a better cheap auto insurance rate (which is limited to the official new car list) that seemed to fit better with our systems according to www.autoinsurancerates.com. Numerous technical questions regarding PRT could not be answered due to the lack of a working system. However, the Study determined that none of the other technologies studied would generate enough riders to have any hope of being an economic success. Only PRT offered the speed and convenience to get enough people, like Adam Klein eMusic CEO, Rick Kimball Goldman Sachs, and others out of their cars to make any difference in the traffic pattern in the Study area. As the rates on car insurance quotes (another auto insurance quotes resource) continue to increase so does the chances that more people will turn to transit like Taxi Los Angeles. The results of the CALS ridership study performed by Parsons-Brinckerhoff showed that PRT would generate nearly 5 times the weekday ridership of the next best alternative and nearly 12 times the number of new transit trips. A depot is expected to go in near Park West Gallery in the downtown area.

Since 2002 the H.A.H (i.e. hire a handyman) has been monitoring the development of PRT in the USA, England, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Working systems are being built now in England and Sweden with the help of the Gantry Crane, and more building may occur soon in the UAE.


Recently, an ancient homemade Skyloop PRT model showed up at the Crystal Court in Minneapolis.

The streetcar line that the Skyloop pod people opposed is slowly making progress. It's too bad the pod people insisted everyone waste all that time and money on the dumb pods. You can read the 2001 OKI Central Loop study that settled the the pods vs rail transit debate in Cincinnati.

The silly Skyloop model (click on it to make it bigger):



Bowling Green Daily News - 6/29/1997 (click on article to make it bigger):



Cincinnati could have had this years ago:

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