Personal Rapid Transit in Indianapolis

In the sidebar on the right, you will see an incomplete list of cities that have a history that includes the Personal Rapid Transit boondoggle. Until now, I saw no reason to include Indianapolis because I did not have access to primary source material. Thanks to the wonderful librarians at the Indianapolis Public Library, I was able to access a few articles (scroll down past the video) about an attempt by PRT promoters in the Indiana State Assembly to fund the planning and building of a German version of PRT, Cabinentaxi in the late 1970's in the Circle City. The story is a bit murky after all these years, but it appears there were two prominent PRT promoters in the Indiana State Assembly who were able to leverage funding for the project.

 J. Edward Anderson:

In the late 1970's, through vigorous efforts of two Indiana legislators, Dr. Ned Lamkin and Richard Doyle, the Indiana Assembly appropriated $300,000 for a study of automated transit in Indianapolis including PRT. This study has been mentioned above in the discussion of Cabinentaxi. 

Cabinentaxi's German entity appeared to have gone kaput in the late 1970's, but continued to exist in typical pod-proselytizing-zombie-mode in Detroit, causing trouble for reality-based Michigan transit advocates. The demise of Cabinentaxi, appeared to end the chances of pods zooming around Indy as they do in this wacky video:

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:

Was Minnesota Personal Rapid Transit Huckster Run Out of Fayetteville, Georgia on " a Greased Rail" After "Press Release Hoax"?

That's the opinion of one of the Personal Rapid Transit aficionados at the Transport Innovators Google forum:

In February, JPods' Bill James outlined a demonstration project for "a type of monorail system that would use solar power to operate to move small cars, or pods, across portions of the city." (link to The 2/26/13 Citizen article "JPods don't get off the ground with F'ville Council")

After a fried[sic] discussion at a retreat on February 22/13, mayor Clifton said "it would be better for JPod Corp. to pursue a participant from the private sector, adding that there is no current need for a city committee to be established to (even) study the proposal."

James badly damaged himself with his press release hoax. Basically, they ran him out of town on a greased rail.

Apparently, the would-be PRT vendor Bill James (JPODS)sent out a press release that suggested his proposal to cover Fayetteville and the sprawling Atlanta metropolitan area with pods on elevated tracks was a done deal (download PDF HERE):

GEORGIA TO BE FIRST WITH SOLAR-POWERED TRANSPORT SYSTEM

Fayetteville resolution supports building of PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) network Fayetteville, GA. Dec 21, 2012: JPods, Inc of Atlanta, GA and UK-based Equility Capital Ltd have signed a Letter of Intent to build and fund the world’s first solar powered Personal Rapid Transit (PRT or podcar) network in Fayetteville, GA. The $100 million project is part of a larger $3 billion, three year effort to build a network that solves congestion in Atlanta. The project will commence as soon as all rights of way, planning, engineering contracts and other agreements are in place.

The Fayetteville project will be the first PRT system built in the US since a nine-mile network was built in Morgantown, WV as a solution to the 1973 oil embargo. The Morgantown network has since delivered 110-million oil-free, injury-free passenger-miles. On Sept 6, 2012 the City of Fayetteville passed a resolution to support transportation innovation. Bill James, President of JPods, Inc said: “The Fayetteville resolution on innovation opens a door. The Performance Standards resolution will allow building the first PRT network in the US since Morgantown. CSX Railroad commercials note ‘Our trains move a ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel.’ Radically greater efficiency is practical. JPods achieves efficiency by combining computer networks with ultra-light personal trains. Next time you ride in an elevator, you are riding in a vertical-JPods, pick a destination and you are chauffeured there using 1/10th the energy of cars or buses, without car payments, gasoline, accidents or congestion. You do not wait. You do not ride with strangers.”

Equility Capital is the leading global specialist in providing project finance from the alternative capital market. The market, now widely recognized to be worth $67 trillion, is backed with private money channeled through hedge funds, asset managers and similar institutions. Because most of the money was earned by entrepreneurs, the alternative capital market has a huge supply of ‘innovation-inclined’ funding to support new technologies and other ventures that traditional banks and lenders shy away from.

David Rose, CEO of Equility Capital noted the provision of funds is contingent on the Fayetteville project being ‘shovel ready,’ Rights of way agreements, building permits, design, civil engineering, manufacturing contacts must be signed as part of a viable business case to secure the release of funds.

The Fayetteville City Council has a resolution pending to grant rights of way access based on a set of Performance Standards where projects are privately funded, operate without government subsidies, exceed 120 passenger-miles per gallon, are regulated by theme park standards (12,000 time better safety record than highways), privately insured with environmental approvals granted based on saving energy relative to transport modes already approved in the rights of way.

James said: “We will be appointing the lead contractor, hiring and breaking ground as soon as the City Council passes the regulatory Performance Standards resolution and choose the partners to build.”

JPods has two signed agreements to build in China. Other existing PRT projects include the Ultra PRT system recently opened at Heathrow Airport in London, and Vectus PRT has a network in Uppsala, Sweden.

The press release has contact info for "Equility Capital" who James says would be the financial backer for the project.

A February 18 Fayetteville Daily News article says the JPODS press release became part of the discussion at a city council meeting:

While the presentation offered an interesting look at a transportation system that some cities in other countries have implemented, the viability of the idea for Fayette County was questioned, as were James' intentions. Councilman Larry Dell challenged James with a press release he found online, bearing James' name, entitled "Fayetteville, Ga. Signs PRT Letter of Intent: Georgia To Be First with Solar-Powered Transport System."

As of press time, the press release dated Dec. 21, 2012 can still be found on the blog of Personal Rapid Transport Consulting, at the website www.prtconsulting.com. A google search for 'JPods Fayetteville' also yielded a Google Groups discussion group featuring correspondence from James saying "it looks like we've broken the right-of-way barrier," and then referencing a September resolution from Mayor Clifton that generally supported "private sector solutions" to Atlanta's traffic congestion. The resolution made no specific reference to JPods or any other specific transportation innovations.

In response to Dell's questioning James said the press release was not meant to be released to the public and that he had thought the resolution had been passed within the context of the JPod idea. Councilman Walt White emphasized that the resolution had been passed with the Mayor's tie-breaking vote. The resolution was in fact passed with White and Dell opposing it, while Paul Oddo and Mickey Edwards voted in favor. Councilman Ed Johnson abstained from voting, allowing Mayor Clifton to break the tie in favor of the resolution.

The lesson for public officials - If you're wondering whether PRT is a boondoggle or not, Google is your best friend.

Senator Torrey Westrom (R) Promotes Personal Rapid Transit at MN Legislature Hearing Yesterday

Former Representative, turned pod lobbyist Mark Olson would be pleased to hear his Personal Rapid Transit  boondoggle mentioned by Senator Torrey Westrom (R) during yesterday's Transportation and Public Safety Committee hearing for the confirmation hearing for Charles A. Zelle, our new MnDOT Commissioner.

As loyal readers of this blog will recall, the former MnDOT Commissioner flushed thousands of dollars down the drain on PRT which according to the pod people caused Sorel some unpleasantness. PRT has no chance in this legislature as the previous post explained. But the MNGOP has become the party of really bad ideas and they seem determined to return PRT to the mix this year.

Senator Westrom, in a rambling question, seemed to suggest PRT was some sort of "reform". Westrom mentions the "moribund" Taxi 2000 Corporation.

Can we expect Taxi 2000 lobbyist Ed Cain (also lobbyist for fraudster "Bobby Thompson") to return to the legislature to promote PRT? How about pod booster extraordinaire Congresswoman Michele Bachmann?

Listen:



Other political pod news comes from New Hampshire by way of Rep. Steve Smith:

Today, the Transportation Committee voted down my bill to create a committee to determine what NH needs to do to allow this new, green, personal mobility solution to come to NH. I can’t help but think that I failed in presenting the idea well enough. I’ll take another crack at it when it goes to the House floor. I’m not asking for money. I’m asking only that 5 people spend some time meeting with the builders of these systems, and other folks knowledgeable about them to see if we can move NH forward and enable disadvantaged and disabled folks the freedom to get where they need to go.

Here's a video of Rep. Steve Smith endorsing another brilliant idea - Herman Cain for POTUS:

 

No Chance for Personal Rapid Transit Projects to be Funded by the Minnesota Legislature

Elections have consequences; in Minnesota, the last election slams the door on any chance of public funding for  PRT projects (there are a bunch, see below).

Both houses of the Minnesota Legislature are now controlled by the DFL. The MN Senate caucus just announced their choices for committee chairs and Senator Scott Dibble is Chair of the Transportation and Public Safety Division. Here's a quote by Senator Dibble from a 2011 article about PRT:

State Sen. Scott Dibble (DFL-Minneapolis), who heads the senate’s transit subcommittee, said that he thinks the proponents of PRT are sincere, but he dismissed their plans for implementation as that of “technophiles” who are not interested in examining the ramifications of a PRT line in terms of the overall multi-modal scheme, land use, economic development, mobility, urban form and the environment. 

“There’s this constant refrain, ‘Build PRT everywhere, all your problems will be solved,’ with no acknowledgement that it is a political impossibility and that we would be throwing a bunch of money at something that’s completely unproven with a lot if implications that haven’t been addressed,” Dibble said. “All I ever here from folks is personal-freedom rhetoric about going anywhere and everywhere, but what happens to the urban forest if you’re running these things all over the place.”

In short, PRT is soooo not happening in Minnesota.

Apparently, there are still pod people who hold out hope for PRT in Minnesota -  the ULtra PRT website still has a page up about "PRT Niche Options for Minnesota" and there is the  proposed $100 million pod project in Coon Rapids.

There's a list of Personal Rapid Transit projects in Minnesota on the Google Transport Innoovators forum:

* Coon Rapids for Rob Jacobs,

* Winona and Duluth for Taxi 2000,

* Bill James talked about an effort in New Jersey and a computer campus N. of Duluth,

* I think that Joe Lampe has an edge city to the N. of downtown Minneapolis

* Ed Anderson is quiet, but says that he has some irons in the fire.

List of PRT businesses is from a CPRT brochure (view on Google):

PRT Updates from Minnesota

JPods

Hull, MA passed a resolution supporting PRT. JPods expects to lease private land and build the first leg there in the next 4 months. New Jersey is considering declaring performance standards, allowing anyone access to public rights of way that can privately finance transport networks that exceed 120 mpg.

PRT International

Dr. Ed Anderson has been working for many years to acquaint planners and decision makers with the potential of an optimized version of PRT for solving urban transportation problems. He gave a presentation to the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority in December 2010. Dr. Anderson works on advising a number of people in various locations around the world on various PRT projects or pending projects. He is willing to give courses on PRT of any desired depth.

PRT Minnesota

PRT Minnesota’s current focus is on preparing a patent submission for their PRT mechanical design. PRT Minnesota is still
seeking funding to complete the technical development program and achieve manufacturing readiness.

PRT Partners

PRT Partners is based in the Minneapolis area and is headed up by Robert Jacobs. PRT Partners assembles teams, technology, and projects that solve specific urban transportation and land use challenges.

Taxi 2000 and Skyweb Express

Currently, Taxi 2000 is working with two financial institutions interested in implementing Skyweb Express projects using a private public partnership agreement. They are also working with corporations for implementing system on corporate campuses. Taxi 2000 continues to work with Winona, Minnesota to build a PRT demonstration and laboratory facility.

Not mentioned is Rob Jacobs' other company Smart Infrastructure which is pitching the pod project for Coon Rapids.

There are two PRT lobbyists - Mark D. Olson for Smart Infrastructure and Edwin Cain for Taxi 2000 Corporation. Taxi 2000 spent nearly $80K since 2004 lobbying in Minnesota.

Suncheon Bay Vectus "PRT" Revealed to NOT be Personal Rapid Transit

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.

And if anyone thinks Vectus can be integrated into a city, take a look at the massive guideways and stations:

Personal Rapid Transit in Amritsar, India: " faces wrath of traders as well as historians"

From Punjab News Express:

The traders feared that the high track of magnetic pods would adversely affect their business. The traders sat on a dharna and raised slogans against the government’s decision. Traders resented that the administration was bent on dislocating the businessmen of the century-old Hall Bazaar and appealed to at least change its route so that the market business would not suffer.

The historians alleged that it would mar the historic structure of the city. The century-old residential buildings, especially those located on the left hand side of the route, was also an obstacle. In view of their weak foundation, there was threat to these structures when six-ft-deep gorges would be dug up to erect pillars for supporting the elevated track.

Amid all these hiccups, the necessary amendments were made in the original model of the project. The root was also changed. But changed root also faced the wrath of traders.

With reports of the state government mulling alternative route for the PRTS project, the members of Rambagh Bazaar Traders Association shut their shops and staged a protest. They warned the government not to take the PRTS route through their market. They even blocked traffic at Gol Hatti Chowk and later at Ram Bagh Chowk few days ago. 

In this way the project is still lying in limbo amidst all these hurdles. Authority sat silent and passing the buck to each other. The shut their mouths saying, that the study of project is in process.

This is reminiscent of the 2009 protests in Daventry:

MORE than 100 Daventry townspeople voiced their opposition to proposals for a pod transport network in the town at a public meeting on Monday night.

Daventry Town Council held its annual town meeting at the Phoenix Centre, off Ashby Road, which gave any resident of the town the chance to ask questions, voice their concerns, or let their opinion be heard.

More than 100 people took the chance, with most of those present angry and upset with Daventry District Council's (DDC's) proposals for a personal rapid transport (PRT) scheme in Daventry (the pod network).

And so the pod scam continues to cause trouble around the globe....

Have the Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit Thrown in the Towel?

UPDATE: Shortly after this post appeared, the CPRT.org website reappeared - however, the dead-enders at CPRT have yet to administer similar life support to their moribund movement in the social media - as of today (9/14/12), the CPRT Facebook page has exactly 17 likes. The last entry is from 2011. Compare that with the Transit for Livable Communities Facebook page with 1,282 likes. I also looked for the CPRT Twitter handle, but that seems to have disappeared. Like everything about PRT, the CPRT as a grassroots movement is a sham.

---------

For many weeks, the website of the Minnesota-based Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit (CPRT.org) has been unavailable. A year ago, the ATRA publication Transit Pulse (PDF) said the following:

It’s a new ballgame for PRT visionaries. There has long been a network of PRT-friendly residents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. Citizens for PRT was established around 1990. It was chartered in 1998 as a non-profit corporation. CPRT activity has waxed and waned, and today is clearly in growth mode. Several Board members tended CPRT’s booth at the annual Living Green Expo this past spring. CPRT was also at the Midwest Energy Fair last month. 

“It’s a whole new ballgame,” reports long-time ATRAmember Dick Gronning. The public ecology Expo was three times larger than last year. It is held at the Minnesota Fair Grounds as a major event in the civic life of the Twin Cities. This year interest in new-generation urban mobility was intense. For the first time ever, staff from Metro Transit visited CPRT’s table. They even stayed a while and talked. Gronning was surprised at how open and helpful Metro Transit was.

The author goes on to admonish "luddites":

Will uninformed union members and leftist bloggers counter CPRT advances in Minnesota? That remains to be seen.

"Leftist bloggers"?

If the CPRT is truly kaput, I doubt the pesky "PRT visionaries" will be missed. Here are old videos showing them pitching the pods at the Living Green Expo and defending convicted felon Dean Zimmermann (2008):



Personal Note:  I began blogging about the PRTistas back in 2004 when they managed to get a pod project included in the MN House bonding bill. I think it's safe to say, with the CPRT's exit from the public stage, state and local government in Minnesota will no longer consider wasting taxpayers' money on PRT. The pod boondoggle and allied "gadgetbahn" flim flams will surface from time to time elsewhere, but here in the Twin Cities, the public has lost interest in pie-in-the-sky transport schemes as our modern transit system takes shape. Unless the pod people make a comeback here, I doubt I will continue to add posts to this blog. I will keep this blog in mothballs for research purposes.

The future of reality-based transit in Minnesota is looking good. Here is a video showing what Minnesotans can expect in 2014:

VIDEO: Heathrow T5 Personal Rapid Transit Pod Customer Service: " Truly Shameless"

Pod promoters always downplay the possibility of failures for PRT. The fact is failure can happen with any mechanical system. What is especially terrifying for a passenger is to experience a failure without any human available to explain what is going on.

This happened recently to a passenger on the over-hyped ULTra pod and recounted in a blog post titled "BAA Heathrow T5 Parking Pod failure - No face for BAA Customer Services here":

This is a failure of the Heathrow T5 Business Parking Pod system where you pay premium parking rates. 

Its not bad that it failed, because these things do fail, what was worse was that they refused to send anybody down for the 20 minutes it was out of order.  

We had to listen to a voice hiding behind the screen, who after a while stopped picking up the help phone also.  

This is Customer Services which is truly shameless. It was 9.30pm, totally dark but BAA Heathrow refused to send any person down to assist or help calm passengers - they even stopped responding to the support telephone also.

Read the whole thing.

Here's the video:



Meanwhile in West Virginia, that other uber-hyped, so-called PRT system continues to cause headaches for its passengers:

Another Failing Grade for Personal Rapid Transit

A memo from Los Angeles County compared PRT to other modes (PDF). The conclusion:

With the technical data currently available, PRT (as a lower capacity, on-demand version of APM) has limited applicability for connecting the regional transit system and LAX, the primary market under study for the Airport Metro Connector.

This is in addition to the memo from a San Jose city official that stated the conclusion of a $1.8 million study that Automated Transit Network (AKA podcars, PRT) was infeasible. In another post I reported that the Minnesota Department of Transportation was not going to go ahead on a $1.4 million PRT study recommended by the University of Minnesota's Center For Transportation Studies.

Although the PRT concept has been around for half a century, the PRT vendors are still not ready for prime time. No doubt the pod people will cry foul and claim the process was rigged. But, as I have noted before, would-be PRT vendors sabotage their own chances of selling their systems by not providing necessary info:

The amount of data available to support rigorous transit planning efforts, as is required for developing a regional transit connection to LAX,is still very limited. Key factors for evaluation are capital and operating costs, vehicle and guideway specifications, operating characteristics, maintenance facility requirements, and capacity and operating speeds. In June 2011, we met with ULTra, the company that developed the Heathrow PRT system, to gather information and to discuss what data were available to support evaluation during the AA. We were able to obtain some information from the Heathrow project given that it began operation later that year in September, but much of the data on modern systems are still preliminary with some information proprietary.

The reason is PRT vendors don't try harder is that PRT is more useful to promoters as an wedge issue to delay or stop funding for conventional transit.

For many years, Personal Rapid Transit promoters have claimed that PRT was faster, better, cheaper than conventional transit. They also claimed the PRT "technology" was available now for implementation in urban areas. They were lying - what they really had to offer was small-scale demonstration projects that could hardly scale up to a city-wide system. Their much-hyped PRT "success" story, the battery-powered podcars at Heathrow and Masdar have failed to be considered for far more simple applications as airport connectors.

How many more studies do we need to restate the obvious? - PRT is an infeasible boondoggle. Here's an ancient, hilarious PRT promotional video with pod hucksters attacking conventional transit modes as "old fashioned":

 

 Where is the Taxi 2000 Corporation today? It's still in Fridley, MN and it's "moribund".

No MnDOT Study of Personal Rapid Transit

In the previous post, I posted a link to a memo from a San Jose city official that stated the conclusion of a $1.8 million study that Automated Transit Network (AKA podcars, PRT) was infeasible. A while back, the University of Minnesota's Center For Transportation Studies wanted MnDOT to waste $1.4 million on PRT study, but an MnDOT spokesperson has said they won't do it.

In other Minnesota pod news, the Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit (CPRT) were a no-show at the Living Green Expo.

Also, fugitive U.S. Navy Vets scamster Bobby Thompson was apprehended in Oregon.Interesting to see if he can explain why he hired pod lobbyist Ed Cain to be his lobbyist in Virginia. Here's the mugshot:

 

City of San Jose Memo: Personal Rapid Transit is Not Technically Feasible

As is always the case with PRT projects - they begin with a lot of hype and hoopla and end with a whimper. A memo from Hans Larsen, the Director of Transportation for the City of San Jose about a proposed Automated Transit Network (AKA podcars, PRT) at the San Jose Mineta International Airport titled ATN FEASIBILITY STUDY STATUS REPORT (PDF) has the following conclusions:

• The complexity and service requirements ofthe Airport ATN project exceed the technical capacity of the ATN systems currently available. 

• There is no established regulatory process to support the construction of an ATN in the United States. This complicates efforts to accurately estimate the cost of building and operating an ATN system. 

• The estimated cost of building the Airport ATN is less than building the APM preferred alignment, plus the ATN offers a higher level o f service and greater coverage. 

• The estimated cost of operating the Airport ATN is comparable to the existing expenses of the Airport and VTA to operate shuttle buses on the Airport and between the Airport and the transit stations

The memo affirms what experts have been saying for years. Here's a Vukan Vuchic quote from Michael Setty's white paper on PRT in Winona (PDF):

The main reason for such absence of any progress in implementing PRT is simple: the basic concept of PRT is inherently unsound. It combines small vehicles, ideal for low density travel, with complicated, electronically controlled guideways that are feasible only for heavily traveled routes. Consequently, in suburban areas where carrying two to six persons would be optimal, construction of guideways is economically infeasible; on major arterials, where large passenger volumes might justify the construction of guideways, small vehicles are highly inefficient and cannot provide the required capacity. Consequently, the combination of the two features–small vehicle and complicated guideway– is paradoxical and makes the PRT mode impractical under all conditions. 

How is it possible that this concept should attract so much interest and even government support for development in several countries? The explanation lies in the fact that the positive features of PRT are often exaggerated while the negative ones are overlooked. Thus, although it is true that PRT resembles the positive characteristics of the automobile more than any other transit mode, it is also true that due to this similarity PRT has the severe limitations of auto use in urban areas: low capacity, very high cost and energy consumption per space-km, and extremely large space requirements for stations, guideway interchanges, and vehicle storage areas. Aerial guideways and stations, in urban streets would be highly objectionable, not even considering the legal requirement for accessibility by the disabled.

These basic problems with the PRT concept were also part of the verdict of the $625,000 2001 OKI Central Loop study. And now after San Jose wasted an additional $1.8 million to study the PRT, they've concluded the PRT concept is too complex and expensive even for an airport (the Heathrow pod shuttle, a loop with only two stations neither of them stand-alone and elevated is not a true PRT). Already, the PRTistas at the Transport Innovators forum are howling with indignation. A quote from Would-be PRT inventor Jack Slade:

"What a lot of bullshit!! You have to build a "Regulatory System" before you can build anything? Are you really talking about the Land of the Free? People who think like this should be deported before they contaminate the rest of the population. I could pick other holes in their "Conclusions"....most of them are wrong....but it isn't worth it.

The ultra-Republican PRT consultant and Fountain Valley Patch contributor Roy Reynolds chimes in, blaming the librul Democrats (of course):

What else should we have expected from a broke and broken Democrat city government /steeped/ in liberal bureaucracy and dedicated to the green technology that Obama thinks is going to save our economy? *Green *was one of their original goals for this project and I'll bet was unmentioned in this memo because, like Solyndra, they couldn't force it to succeed. Needing to have a "Regulatory System" says, in two *perfectly *chosen words, what these people are all about -- that is, regulation, allegiance to AlGore and his climate chicanery, and more government. They couldn't decide (and couldn't afford it anyway since the public employee unions have taken all their money) after spending millions on consultants who couldn't spell PRT before bidding on this project, so they defer it to the Feds. The public and the market seemed to have been completely cut out of this process...

The PRTists begin waxing nostalgic over the halcyon Richard Nixon era and the Morgantown boondoggle. The Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit's Dick Gronning has this observation:

While this shows some of the good side of Republican thinking (there's more), the bad side of the picture was that the Nixon administration threw scads of money at the project without any supervision. Nixon did the same thing with Affirmative Action. His administration REMOVED all of the constraints and supervision for Affirmative Action and threw even MORE $$$ into it. The policy seems to convey the message that human-kind is basically good. It doesn't work for me. Worse yet, there's the assumption that only a certain group have ethics.

Uh, okaaaaay.... speaking of angry, bitter, old, people, the CPRT does not appear on the list of transportation exhibitors at the Living Green Expo this year. Here's a video of their dyspeptic style from a few years back:

 

Seattle Transportation Examiner.com Reporter Not Reporting His Opposition to Recent Seattle Personal Rapid Transit Proposal

Not reporting on it, but quietly whispering his opposition on his personal blog.

David Gow, the Seattle transportation reporter at Examiner.com has not reported on the recent proposal by the Century Transportation Authority for an PRT Project for Seattle (reported HERE, HERE and HERE). David Gow wrote a 6-part "primer" on podcars (PRT) for Examiner.com including this article about PRT in Seattle.

David Gow has several websites promoting Personal Rapid Transit. The Seattle "Get There Fast" PRT website - gettherefast.org seems to be slow in reporting on the new proposal for PRT in David Gow's backyard. The news page at Gow's "kinetic" PRT website is also silent about the CTA PRT Seattle project.

The moribund Seattle PRT forum is also silent on the new development.

However, David Gow is quietly attacking the Seattle CTA PRT proposal on one of his many blogs called "This Week in Precipitation" in a March 24, 2012 post titled "Not another agency":

I have been aware for a few months that this organization -- 'CenTran' -- has been in the works. However I had been under the impression what it's about is Son Of Green Line.

Instead, it looks like they're intending a 16-mile monorail+PRT (pod transit) system in the West Seattle to Ballard corridors.

Gow goes on to address the pod aspect of the plan:

However, there are a number of practical issues here. By the time we are ready to do a technology screening (let alone select a design for installation), will these vendors be ready to deliver and operate what could be the largest pod system to date? Will their systems be sufficiently proven in regular operation?

Most of all, I personally object to this local effort being mounted by a small group, out of the public eye, creating yet another transit bureaucracy.

If PRT is going to be done here, it needs to be part of the existing decisionmaking structure. It needs to be done by Seattle or King County, or even Sound Transit. The latter had planned to do a PRT project as part of the Link program ( http://bit.ly/GN66Yg ), but the expected Raytheon PRT program was cancelled.

Raytheon? Gow is citing ancient history - from the last century. Sound Transit has no current plans for PRT.

Gow then wades into the recent pod people controversy about which imaginary pod concepts should be promoted by ATRA and even how PRT is defined.

I have misgivings that High Capacity corridor service might be too much too soon for a flavor of PRT (HCPRT) that hasn't yet been implemented, anywhere.

Apparently, Gow doesn't have any faith in J. Edward Anderson's PRT International, the would-be PRT vendor mentioned in the CTA proposal (CTA board member Jake Solomon is Manager of Marketing and Business Development at PRT International) . It seems that ATRA doesn't have any faith in PRT International's ability to deliver the goods either, leaving PRT International off its preferred member/vendor page and relegating J.E. Anderson's Fridley company to a lower tier "conceptual" category.

Gow concludes that the problem with the CTA pod/monorail plan is really institutional:

It's OK to hypothesize something that ambitious. But set up a whole new bureaucracy? Really?

Furthermore, local planning for circulation PRT and collector-distributor PRT have been done in SeaTac and Issaquah. We should look first at those service niches.

Will David Gow report his opposition to the Seattle monorail/PRT project at Examiner.com or his PRT promoting websites?

Developing...

UPDATE: David Gow has finally acknowledged the existence of the PRT proposal for his city on his Get There Fast website's news page, with this comment:

Get There Fast takes no position on this proposal.

Also read: Pod People & Monorail Fans Join Forces in Seattle.

Pod People & Monorail Fans Join Forces in Seattle

Way back in 2005, the Seattle Post Intelligencer published my opinion piece about Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) titled "Personal transit still a techno-dream". Eight years later the techno-dream is still alive - this from the Century Transportation Authority website:

Creating a transportation system that utilizes train cars running on a guideway, together with the necessary passenger stations, terminals, parking facilities, related facilities or other properties and facilities necessary for the system - including passenger and vehicular access to and from people-moving systems such as High Capacity Personal Rapid Transit (HCPRT) that has multiple off-line stations to collect and distribute riders to and from the monorail system, including fixed guideway light rail systems (which include any tram and trolley systems such as the waterfront trolley or the streetcar in the South Lake Union area of the city, and high capacity personal rapid transit.)

This is the PRT plan (PDF):



UPDATE: Jake Solomon is on the board of CenTran:

Jake is an entrepreneur businessman passionate about advancing mobile technology and mobile marketing services. He also is a strong proponent of high capacity personal rapid transit (HCPRT), as a "Green" 21st Century efficient and cost effective transportation solution.

Since 2001, Jake has been involved in political and community work related to City of Seattle, King County and Washington State government, advocating for cost effective transportation solutions and for "transportation legislation" that advances 21st Century transportation systems that are suitable for urban environments.

Education: Central Washington State University
Bachelor of Arts Business Administration
University of Washington
Bachelor of Science Forestry

Websites: http://www.cprt.org/CPRT/Home.html

http://www.prtinternational.com/cms/about-itns/itns-history

Jake Solomon has a Fridley, Minnesota pod connection - PRT International - J.E. Anderson's would-be PRT vendor PRT International:

In January 2005, he found it necessary to resign from Taxi 2000 Corporation and soon, with two other of its Board Members, founded PRT International, LLC through which he has developed from basic principles and available public-domain material a PRT system under the name “Intelligent Transportation Network System (ITNS),” which was coined by his Manager of Marketing and Business Development, Jake Solomon. He continues the challenging task of determining how to fully commercialize ITNS.

Recent article about that other Fridley, Minnesota would-be pod provider Taxi 2000 in the Fridley Patch.

Jake's been involved the Seattle monorail fiasco of the previous decade:

In the past few months, however, the idea of a freeway monorail system has been resurrected by a half-dozen advocates who are running a Web site, meeting in cafes and lobbying political and business officials about the reasons to construct a regional monorail along I-5, from Everett to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“Our system is a trunk-line system,” says Jake Solomon, outreach coordinator for the Freeway Monorail group. “We want it to be a high-speed — I’m talking 60, 70 miles per hour — mass rapid-transit system connecting the cities of Puget Sound.”

Freeway-monorail advocates seek to answer a question on the minds of many taxpayers these days: What would happen if the $2.1 billion required to build a downtown-to-Tukwila light-rail line and the $1.7 billion for a Ballard-to-West Seattle monorail were combined to assemble a really, really long transit line?

However, there is not much political clout, and no funding source, for freeway monorail.

Advocates are banking on a collapse of Sound Transit’s light-rail plan, and after the apocalypse, freeway monorail would fill the void. “We have to kill Sound Transit,” says Solomon. Well, not actually kill it, but pack the Sound Transit board with monorail sympathizers, or force the agency to study the freeway monorail plan in depth, he explains.

As I always say, PRT and other gadgetbahn concepts are often used as monkey wrenches to stop, delay or defund reality-based transit - for more about this, see this post: Personal Rapid Transit Has Always Been a Bogus Excuse to Defund Rail Transit

Personal Rapid Transit in India Not Happening

Another much-ballyhooed PRT project fizzles - Times of India:

JAIPUR: The possibilities of Pink City witnessing a new mode of public transport in the form of Personal Rapid Transit System (PRTS) seem to be dim. Reason -- the company that had earlier given a presentation of the project, has now asked the state government to first sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) before it submits a feasibility report on the project.

According to official sources, the state government has refused to do so as all such projects have a certain procedure where it first looks into the feasibility report and then invites tenders. "As per the norms MoU cannot be signed with a single firm directly as objection can be raised that the project is awarded to benefit a particular company." said an official source. He added, "Still, we have asked the company to submit the feasibility report. If they submit it we will consider the project. It was never mandatory for the firm to submit a feasibility report."

Well, there will always be China:

PRT Promoter Compares Politicians Skeptical of Personal Rapid Transit to Hitler

On the Transport Innovators forum, PRT advisor and CPRT board member Dick Gronning tried to make the case for using a scale model of a pod system to convince people PRT could be feasible:

It would have to look and act like a real PRT system. If it had features like a number of systems, we wouldn't be promoting just one system. Set up in a mall, it would certainly draw attention. Politicians couldn't say that it wouldn't work.

The ever-klassy Jack Slade, would-be PRT vendor responded with this comment:

Politicians couldn't say it won't work? Of course they will. Politicians will say anything stupid that serves their purpose. They learned a trick from "Mein Kampf".....namely, "if I tell a lie, tell it often and loud enough, eventually 85% of the people accept it as true". Not an exact quote, but close enough.

Keep it Klassy PRT dudes!

My favorite Jack Slade quote from the Transport Innovators forum:

I have always thought that Avodor was being paid by somebody to "prove" that PRT won't work, and now we know.

The very fact that he thinks Morgantown is PRT shows how little he actually knows, and that statements like "all PRT systems to date have been failures" shows that also. Here is a message from me to him:

Hey, Stupid, there have not been any PRT systems actually tried, so how can they be failures? The first is being tested now at Heathrow, and first reports indicate that it will be a success. Aren't you going to have a lot of Crow to eat when it begins to spread elsewhere? Who is going to pay you anything afterwards? Maybe you can get a job cleaning toilets somewhere.

Jack Slade

Here's Klassy Jack's PRT model:

Minneapolis Community Leader and Taxi 2000 Shareholder Still Promoting Personal Rapid Transit

Sarah Sponheim, President of the East Calhoun Community Organization, daughter of the late Taxi 2000 CEO A. Sheffer "Shef" Lang and scion of Theodore Hamm, founder of the Hamm’s Brewery has an interview in the Hill & Lake Press this month (PDF). Sponheim talks mostly about the many laudable environmental community-based projects she works on, but at the end of the interview, the specter of PRT rears its ugly head:

On another subject, what is Personal Rapid Transit and why are you an advocate for it?

I inherited an interest in a local Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) company called Taxi 2000 when my father died in 2003. I served on the board of Taxi 2000 for four years and maintain the conviction that this form of elevated public transit in small, automated vehicles could effectively replace automobile use in numerous applications. I believe PRT has global potential to slash transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.

On her blog, Sponheim stated the following:

On a bigger front, I will promote Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) through a letter-writing campaign to business-people and legislators. It is high-time this inherently green transit technology got off the ground.

In the last few years, it seems there's been an effort by a few of the original shareholders in the Taxi 2000 Corporation to once again promote PRT in Minnesota. But, there's been a lot of water under the bridge since 2004 when a PRT bill managed to get attached to an omnibus bonding bill in the Minnesota House. PRT was later stripped from the bill in committee. Since then, the Taxi 200) Corporation has tried and tried again to get taxpayers to fund a testing facility, most recently in Winona and failed (more of the dismal history of Taxi 2000 here.).

In a recent article in the Fridley Patch, another more realistic shareholder had this to say about Taxi 2000:

“They exist but they’re kind of moribund in Fridley,” he said. “I don’t pay any attention to Taxi 2000.”

Since 2004, the Hiawatha Light Rail that Sheffer Lang and other PRT advocates at the time vehemently opposed has proven to be a phenomenal success. LRT, streetcars and commuter rail projects like Northstar and other reality-based transit initiatives need the support of environmentalists and community activists like Sarah Sponheim. I encourage Sarah Sponheim to learn more by going to the Transit for Livable Communities website (TLC does not support public funding for PRT).

Perhaps, after Sarah Sponheim educates herself about reality-based transit she may look into the idea of restoring the route of the streetcar line that once existed in her neighborhood. It would connect Linden Hills to Uptown with the existing, legacy streetcar line.

And why would Sarah Sponheim want to be a part of the anti-LRT, pro-PRT bunch like this guy?

Will Cardiff, Wales Fall for Another Gadgetbahn Flim Flam?

Years ago, Personal Rapid Transit was supposed to debut in Cardiff, Wales.. but, they backed off when reality set in.

Seems they haven't learned their lesson:

An advanced railway could soon be whisking passengers from the centre of Cardiff to the Bay – over the heads of people walking below.

Plans for an elevated railway were discussed yesterday by representatives of Cardiff City Council and Monometro, a Blackwood-based company that has developed the state of the art system with the help of Saudi investors.

A little Googling came up with this:

Digging into MonoMetro finds a couple of things – it’s run by a bloke called Gareth Pearce, from Blackwood, Caerphilly, Wales. It’s, so far as I can tell, not been built anywhere yet, although there are stories of Saudi interest leading to a scheme in Mecca opening in 2012. There’s a lot of accusations that TfL and the Government have deliberatly ignored the scheme, including a comment...

The comment quoted in the blog:

The enire London MonoMetro project, painstakingly planned and meticulously designed through cooperation across a raft of private UK and US companies, it took ten years of effort. And while MonoMetro stands as a magnificant transport achievement it has been resisted since 2001 by the politburo style Transport for London, backed by the Stalinist Mayor Ken Livingstone.

The blog goes one with a look at the Wikipedia article on MonoMetro (go to the blog to follow the links):

Mr. Pearce, who I’m sure is a lovely fellow really, is mentioned in less than glowing terms here and here.

I then had a quick look at Wikipedia’s entry on the MonoMetro scheme, and the page reads like a mixture of advertising and complaints about the treatment of the scheme by the Government and ‘orrible old Ken, neither of which is exactly in keeping with Wikipedia’s neutral tone rules. In fact, comparing revisions here and here shows exactly what happened; a user from IP 87.114.135.103 greatly enlarged the previously perfectly acceptable article on the 15th December 2007, in two editing sessions. The revised article subsequently got marked for style cleanup in June 2008, but nothing’s happened since apart from some minor edits, including one by London transport-and-other-stuff blogger D-Notice (at least, I presume it’s him), who, I note deliciously, has also been doing man’s work on Andrew Gilligan’s page.

Looking at IP 87.114.135.103, I see that he made one further edit immediately after his 15/12/2007 marathon, which was on the page for … Blackwood, Caerphilly, birthplace of Gareth Pearce. The edit added an unexplained link to www.monometro.com, which, so far as I can see, doesn’t have a great deal of relevance to Blackwood, Caerphilly other than that the founder was born there. This was duly deleted as linkspam on 11/2/2008.

So, we have an apparent irascible Ken-hating architect with a new transport system to sell, who was told to stuff it by TfL and hasn’t been taking it lying down. He gets two favourable articles on LondonUnlocked, then *someone* rewrites the Wikipedia page on MonoMetro to render it a biased mess, adding a link to the system’s website to Pearce’s home town’s page to round it off.

The blog has some great observations about gadgetbahn, read the whole thing.

For more hilarious UK gadgetbahn flim-flammery read my post about Maglev Movers.

For laffs, read this bizarre screed from Gareth Pearce circa 2005 - here's a quote:

The Mayor of London and some GLA members have made statements that TfL carried out assessment of MonoMetro. Other GLA members have questioned the Mayor requesting a copy of TfL's alleged assessment. TfL in response further dismiss MonoMetro sLRT making no disclosure of any assessment material. In the national press TfL continue to make statements that MonoMetro sLRT is "an anorak's dream" with further statements of misinformation to the GLA that MonoMetro sLRT is unworkable, cannot be introduced into the urban environment and that MonoMetro Limited have no technical expertise. These statements have had a deeply damaging influence on the perception of MonoMetro from other regional authorities in the United Kingdom. Glasgow City Council terminated their assessment of MonoMetro for a city wide network because of adverse opinion publicised by TfL. A study requested by Thames Gateway was abandoned because of the biased opinion of TfL and while Portsmouth City Council commissioned MonoMetro to undertake a study for an urban network which was carried out and delivered they withdrew because of the adverse statements by TfL taken as authority. By contrast MonoMetro sLRT is the preferred technology for a 38 mile project in the United States and is being assessed by the French Government for urban implementation.

For more laffs, watch this video about the Monometro:



UPDATE: Jerry Schneider posted a hilarious letter from Gareth on the PRT-pod-loving Transport Innovators forum:

Jerry ,

We have made good progress with Cardiff City Council agreeing the most difficult part of the route. There are elections in May so the outline planning has to be held back till then but planning has agreed to work through all the necessay difficulties with us so that outline planning will be a foregone conclusion. The environmental assessment can also be submitted at outline planning stage. It's a two stage process outline first and full planning some time later maybe a year, in time to start construction on site.

We have two potential investors wanting to buy the entire £122mm Private Debenture shares with a 5% stock option. Its a bit of a frenzied fight.

I think its very important we complete the development of MonoMetro, the world needs it now. Its a simple railway and no technology to worry about. New system old technology. Metal to metal wheel rail interface proven in bearings applications, rolled rail section where the rolling "patch" contact geometry renders such an effectively low rolling point load that threshold of excitation leading to Hysterisis is never breached thus eliminating wear significantly over conventional rail.

We also have the high speed test track route in early stage of planning negotiations. We presented the route and we are waiting to hear from the County Council planning department. Mech Engineering informs me their design criteria for the bogies will be 140km/h. So with both high speed and urban test track routes in place we can tender for a wide spectrum of projects. Easy as she goes.

Best regards,
Gareth

Personal Rapid Transit Has Always Been a Bogus Excuse to Defund Rail Transit

The PRT promoters are attacking reality-based transit again:

Opinion: Forget light rail, bring in the personal pods

BY CHARLOTTE VANDERVALK

WHY is there so much recent focus on an extension of light rail into Bergen County? It is not state-of-the-art transportation. It is not an inexpensive system to build, and there is no funding for it.

Wherever such a system is operational, it merely adds to the existing traffic congestion on the ground, to say nothing of the potential liability from intersection with vehicular traffic.

Whatever...

Years ago, when I started exposing the anti-transit, pro-PRT antics of Michele Bachmann, Mark Olson and Dean Zimmermann, it was common to hear PRT promoters call reality-based transit and particularly Light Rail Transit (LRT) "old fashioned", "19th Century", even "antebellum":

Mayor Greg Nickels' South Lake Union streetcar proposal is the most ludicrous transportation nonsolution I have heard in quite some time. The streetcar record in city after city is clear: high construction costs, high subsidies and no significant effect on congestion. How can streetcars be part of an intelligently designed new biotech district, when streetcars guarantee its streets will be congested?

I find it hard to believe that the best our civic leaders can offer us is this antebellum transit technology. Why is Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) not on the table for exploration? PRT is a "horizontal elevator" system that offers automated, on-demand, mass transit service.

For the same amount Seattle is planning to invest in trains, a grid of lightweight, unobtrusive, elevated PRT rail can be built covering the entire city.

PRT could even be deployed in South Lake Union, serving both as an efficient local circulator and to feed people to and from future train stations. And it could be done at a fraction of the cost of a streetcar line.

So why aren't Seattle's leaders looking at PRT?

Is it because the transit consultants giving them advice make an excellent living going around the country recommending trains?

David Gow, Seattle

Problem is PRT isn't new. For at least half a century, PRT has flopped over and over again wasting millions of dollars- how many chances do these losers get? I recently found an old book in a county library with pictures of extinct PRT projects I've only read brief descriptions in other old books or J.Edward Anderson's history of PRT.

From a website history (no direct link) of Rosemount Inc., a Minnesota company:

Uniflo was a computer controlled, air pressure levitated and propelled personal rapid transit (PRT) system. A Honeywell researcher, who had worked on and then purchased the rights for the project, interested Frank Werner in pursuing its development. Rosemount had hoped to fund the project with public financing or equity participation by another firm, but even with renewed federal interest in public transportation Rosemount had trouble funding Uniflo. A joint effort with Northrup Corp. to win a Department of Transportation (DOT) contract for a demonstration mass transit system at Dulles International Airport failed. The DOT passed over the Uniflo project for more conventional mass transit systems. Uniflo later received two other federal research grants but made no sales. The project, which was abandoned in 1973, cost Rosemount about $1 million.

This was the pitch, sound familiar?

A personal rapid transit system has been developed, capable of providing urban areas with public transportation service that is competitive with the automobile in speed, availability, accessibility, and comfort. The system contributes no pollution in terms of air, noise, or vibration; it is relatively small in size; and it can be installed elevated, on grade, or below grade. These qualities make it an acceptable addition to a community. Because this personal rapid transit system is highly automated, a significant reduction in the amount of labor required to provide transportation service is anticipated. This could mean that it would again be possible to make money moving people.

This is from a University of MInnesota News Service newsletter from 1965 (click on the text to make it bigger):



Here's what Uniflo PRT was supposed to look like - nothing looks more dated than futuristic design from the 1970's (click on the picture to make it bigger):

Nathan Koren Dismisses Meaningful Public Participation in Transportation Planning

Nathan Koren, according to his Twitter page is "Making the world safe for Personal Rapid Transit". On the "Transport Innovators" forum, Nathan Koren explains how he goes about seeking converts to the pod-transport cult:

I've actually found that educating the public is relatively easy: you tell them that PRT is like a robotic taxi on an overhead guideway, show them some videos of Heathrow etc., and they say "oh, cool!" and are thereafter more or less on board with the concept.

Wow, talk about condescending! Mr. Koren goes on to dismiss the importance of public involvement in decision-making:

But that honestly doesn't matter very much, because -- to put it bluntly -- the public is not involved in the decision-making or implementation process for PRT systems. Since "the public" doesn't buy, design, build, operate, or regulate PRT systems, what they think has virtually no bearing on what actually happens.

Mr. Koren, as is often the case with PRT promoters ignores the process by which, in the U.S. transportation planning is supposed to work. From the USDOT's "The Transportation Planning Process: Key Issues":

Public involvement is integral to good transportation planning. Without meaningful public participation, there is a risk of making poor decisions, or decisions that have unintended negative consequences. With it, it is possible to make a lasting contribution to an area's quality of life. Public involvement is more than an agency requirement and more than a means of fulfilling a statutory obligation. Meaningful public participation is central to good decisionmaking.

The fundamental objective of public involvement programs is to ensure that the concerns and issues of everyone with a stake in transportation decisions are identified and addressed in the development of the policies, programs, and projects being proposed in their communities.

By "meaningful public participation", the USDOT doesn't mean talking down to citizens and showing a few videos as Nathan Koren and his PRT evangelists often do. Mr. Koren goes on to say the real roadblock isn't citizens, but "professionals - developers, transport planners, land-use planners, regulatory bodies, etc." That is utterly bogus - all those professionals are working for the public and have to follow a process that includes meaningful public participation.

Nathan Koren isn't the only PRT promoter with a dismissive attitude toward the public - this is from a January 29, 2010 post titled "PRT "Consultant" Advises Public Officials to Manipulate Public Process":

PRT "consultant" Peter Muller, who was at the MnDOT Rochester PRT symposium recently posted this advice to public officials on his website:

Any proposed PRT system that could suffer from adverse public comment, should have a well thought-out public outreach program. Public education and input should commence before there is any chance of members of the public learning about the project and becoming upset, because there are aspects of it they do not understand or that get misrepresented in the press. There are many instances of good public projects being stopped in their tracks by a vociferous minority.

Muller then goes on to describe a sham public process - the sort of manipulative process described by Sherry Arnstein in The Ladder of Citizen Participation:

In the name of citizen participation, people are placed on rubberstamp advisory committees or advisory boards for the express purpose of "educating" them or engineering their support. Instead of genuine citizen participation, the bottom rung of the ladder signifies the distortion of participation into a public relations vehicle by powerholders.

The PRT guys have always avoided a genuine public process... what are they afraid of?

In a 2010 letter I wrote to the Winona Daily News, I wrote the following:

According to a Jan. 20 article in the Winona Daily News, a meeting where the public could have asked questions was for Winona City Council members only, “While there was little discussion of PRT during the meeting, the vote came after council members examined the system during a pre-council informational session that lasted more than one hour.”
I recall a similar PRT “informational session” for Minneapolis city officials only on March 26, 2005. When a proposal for a PRT project later came up for a vote in committee, the PRT promoters failed to show up and the matter was tabled. More recently, public officials in Daventry, England, complained that PRT promoters would not show up at public forums to answer questions. The Minnesota Department of Transportation held a “PRT workshop” Aug. 18, which cost $50 to attend and was not a public meeting. Why are PRT promoters avoiding the public?

When the city of Winona revisits the issue of PRT, as it has recently indicated it would, I would suggest they hold a free, public forum and invite critics as well as promoters. I would also suggest inviting experts in the field; transit engineers, transit advocacy groups and environmental groups. But most of all, I urge Winona city officials to invite the public.
Grassroots support for any big public project is essential. For it is the citizens who will end up paying for it— and if built, living with it.