Taxi 2000 Corporation Kaput?

I haven't been following the PRT Boondoggle as much as I used to, but this popped up on the Transport Innovators forum last summer:

Dear Shareholders: 

This e-mail is being sent to let you know that the Taxi 2000 Corporation office at 8050 University Avenue NE, Fridley, MN 55432 is being closed and that all operations will cease June 30, 2017. Our angel investor decided last year that it was no longer in a position to continue investments into the company in view of their being no immediate prospects of a system contract. We have been unsuccessful in finding other investors, licensees or purchasers of the company assets and we are now out of funds. We thank the investor for supporting Taxi 2000 Corporation for more than a decade. We also thank all of the individuals that have supported the Company over its entire history, whether that support has been through your labor, your financial contribution or your moral support. While we still believe that it is a superior technology, in the history of inventions that has often proven to be insufficient to bring an idea to the marketplace.

Sincerely,

Morrie Anderson, 

Chairman Taxi 2000 Corporation 8050 University Avenue NE Fridley, MN 55432

I cannot confirm the demise of the Taxi 2000 Corporation (Skyweb Express), but their website is appears to be down.  Back in 2014,  in an article titled "Is Fridley Company the Future of Transit or 'Moribund'?", I asked this question:

"This is a company that's been around for a while and it's not produced a single pod system anywhere," Avidor said. "How do they produce a profit?"

This "moribund" company that injected itself noisily into nearly every public meeting about transit in Minnesota and elsewhere, that lobbied for taxpayers' dollars in city after city, now  appears to have quietly and stealthily given up the ghost. But Taxi 2000 lives... on the internet, confusing citizens about reality-based transit policy forever. Here's one of many You Tube videos featuring Taxi 2000:

No Earmark for Winona Personal Rapid Transit Boondoggle

The earmark request for a PRT research facility in Winona, Minnesota has failed to make the list just issued by Rep. Tim Walz (PDF here).

There is no funding for PRT in the MN Legislature's bonding bill either.

After 30+ years of claiming PRT to be better than conventional modes of transit, the PRT hucksters in Minnesota have failed to deliver anything more than hype.

Time for a review....

Recent PRT Failure

The ULTra PRT launch at Heathrow has been delayed at least 3 times.

The Swedish/Korean PRT prototype malfunctioned recently in front of the media.

The Masdar PRT (actually computer-guided golf carts that follow magnets imbedded in the roadway) has been scaled way back.

The much-hyped PRT project in Daventry ended in fiasco.

The so-called Morgantown PRT (it's a mundane people-mover) was the subject of a recent student newspaper editorial after a serious malfunction filled a vehicle with smoke.

Hilarious Winona PRT Earmark Request

Winona Daily News:

U.S. Rep Tim Walz has received requests for more than $280 million in earmarks for Winona-area projects, including $25 million to test transit technology in Winona...

--snip--

One of Congress' most vocal proponents of transparency in the earmark process, Walz invited residents to submit online comments at walz.house.gov on the proposed earmarks in what he called a "virtual hearing." He had received more than 700 responses as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, Severs said, and comments submitted through 5 p.m. today will be considered as Walz determines which projects to submit to the appropriations committee.

Download the Winona appropriation request (PDF) #87 here. I've posted a few excerpts below (click on the screenshots to make them bigger).

A while back the Winona Post ran a story with this headline:

Firm pledges millions to Winona pod car test lab (01/24/2010)
A private company that has developed a futuristic pod car transit system has pledged millions to Winona’s bid for a test lab to be the first to prove such a transportation system works.

Taxi 2000, based in Fridley, Minn., has offered to cover the required 20 percent match to a $24.9 million federal grant Winona will apply for. City leaders are backing the proposal, which would bring Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) to be studied in Winona, aiming to bring jobs and business to the first success of a transit vision first dreamed of in the 1950s.

According to the Winona earmark request, the millions of dollars pledged by Taxi 2000 appear to be an in kind contribution:

"Taxi 2000 (a private Minnesota-based PRT company) has already contributed $5 million (20% match) to the project in preliminary engineering, preparing technology, constructing component prototypes and testing control system software."

Did part of that $5 million go to create this wacky contraption?



And an admimssion that a "pure" PRT system does not yet exist in "a real world setting".



Here is Winona Mayor Jerry Miller's letter requesting the earmark (click to enlarge):

MN Senate Testimony About Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in 2004

J. E. Anderson, February 17, 2004:



More clips here:



Watch complete video here.

Ghosts of "Innovative" Transportation's Past

From the old Taxi 2000 website, The Transportation Renaissance, by Edmund Rydell and Hennepin County Court records.



Click on pics to make larger...