San Jose Podcar Conference Newsletter & Website Features PRT Plan by Convicted Felon

The website for the Podcar City conference in San Jose October 27-29, 2010 has a page devoted to the recent PRT workshop last month. If you go to the bottom of the page, next to a photo of MnDOT Commisioner Thomas Sorel, there's a PRT map with the following description:

Minneapolis Personal Rapid Transit Map Legend (a Concept Plan) Map submitted by former Council Member Dean Zimmermann.

Under the map is the following contact info (redacted for this blog):

Comments or questions can be directed to the author:
Dean Zimmermann deanzimm@****** 612-***-****

The map shows a plan for a 68 station PRT system serving downtown Minneapolis and some high density housing area to the south. The PRT Web Area would serve the densest housing area in the entire State of Minnesota.

Not mentioned is the fact that Dean Zimmermann was convicted on 3 counts of bribery in 2005.

The Podcar conference newsletter also has the map and contact info for Zimmermann.

Click on the screenshot to make it bigger:



In addition to taking bribes, Dean Zimmermann tried to convince real estate developer and government witness Gary Carlson to invest $250,000 in PRT:



Last year, I videotaped Zimmermann protesting reality-based transit and promoting Personal Rapid Transit at a transportation forum. Zimmermann gave me a tortured explanation for accepting cash from FBI witness Gary Carlson and refused to sign a waiver for the FBI tapes shown at this trial:



Members of the LRT-hating/pod-promoting Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit (CPRT) also spread the nonsensical conspiracy theory that Zimmermann was framed:



Learn about the trial of Dean Zimmermann and more at the Minneapolis Confidential blog.

Will San José Pimp Their Own Pods?

ABC KGO has a report on pod plans for PRT in San José :



(If player doesn't work, go to the abc7news.com website)

ULTra is featured zooming around in computer-generated videos... no mention that the launch of ULTra at Heathrow 5 has been postponed twice.

Laura Stuchinsky, Sustainability Officer, San José Department of Transportation appears and gives a rave review for PRT (also on the ATS ULTra PRT vendor website here).

Bill James is also in the video, the JPODs guy:



Bill James also tried to sell Jpods in Minnesota... here's a video featuring Bill James... watch for Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson sitting in the Jpod with the "Support the Troops" ribbon:



Here's Barbara Johnson's pod-praising letter to Bill James from the Jpod website (click to make larger):