After you did a short piece of sarcasm you mention the the size of the Guide-way:
"PRT takes a 3' wide elevated guide-way, one 5' square of concrete sunk into the ground every 60 to 90 feet for support poles. Yeah, you're right again. That PRT sure takes up a lot of space (5 WHOLE FEET!!!)". Do you know what it cost to build such a structure? The reason State Highway departments avoid bridges is bridges cost a lot of money to build and maintain. It is a lot cheaper to build on the ground then in the sky. For clearances purposes you have to have at least 16 feet of clearance to meet present Federal law (20 feet if you want to meet interstate requirements).Now, on the net I found a 20 foot M2 Baily bridge for $15,000. There is 5280 feet in a mile so you would need 264 of these bridges for one mile of track, that comes to 3.9 million dollars. Bailey bridges are just the part between the post the bridges stands on. The post will have to be dug into the ground, with concrete every 20 feet or so (you can go longer, but stronger and more expensive pieces are needed). Such support roughly run, installed about the same as the bridge, thus you are looking at an additional 4 million dollars per mile. Thus before we even hook up the electrical system and the control system you are looking at about 8-10 million dollars per mile. Electronics have gone down but no matter how we look at it, if you set this up over the public streets (no additional buying of any land for right of way) you are looking at $10 million dollars a mile. Light rail tend to be higher, but that reflects Light Rail have been built and thus we have a good idea of the cost of light Rail, a true PRT system has NEVER been Built (The closest thing is the University of West Virginia System, and the constant complaint about it is the cars are to small for the number of students who want to use it). Anything NOT built on the ground is vastly more expensive then if built on the ground. Furthermore given the nature of such "bridges" they must be maintained, checked for any problems and repairs made (including making sure any drains are working which must be done after any rainstorm).
Yes, I know a you are looking at something lighter then a Bailey Bridge, but the M2 Bailey Bridge is a good example of the price per length and that is why I am using it.
Price for a baily bridge:
http://www.equipmentready.com/?center=details&EQ_ID=1060115You then said the following
"Your next incorrect statement: "it is restricted to one size vehicle for everything AND the high cost of the system must be installed all at the same time, unlike the highway system that can be replaced piece by piece." Wow. Where did you pull that out of? Let's hope it was out of thin air instead of the other option; your argument stinks enough as it is. Your claim is patently false. It is ridiculous to the point of being borderline insane. Why would PRT need to be replaced all at once? When your community puts in a new road do they replace all the existing roads all at once as well? No? The same goes for PRT. It will be a grid of elevated track which interconnects and allows multiple possible routes to any given destination. PRT is far more resilient and forgiving of construction or natural disaster: the system just reroutes you around the trouble area. You will probably never even be aware of it."What are you calling for a PRT or a small car light rail system (or more accurately a light rail with rubber ties running on Concrete)? To have the ability to reroute you must have duplicate lines, all adding to the cost of the system. If you reduce the cost of the system the ability to reroute disappears. i.e. the cars get stuck behind the car in front of them when that first cars stops. If you do not have the ability to reroute you have a Light Rail system on rubber wheels with very small cars. If you do have the ability to reroute the cost of the systems increases exponentially. I know math is disliked by a lot of people, but duplicate lines means duplicate costs, thus why most cities only have one interstate from any one direction, the cost for two is to high and the same with any other transportation system.
As to being easy to repair, modern construction techniques make repair of any rail the easiest in the world (Except in earthquakes no repairs are generally needed). The same can be said of any concrete system, the only thing additionally most such hard surfaces needed over rail is a hose to wash away any small debris (Rail can ignore such small debris).
With today's artery highway system there are too many bottlenecks and choke points where one highway joins another. Not so with PRT. Each lane of PRT is equivalent to a 3-lane highway so there is not "single best route" into downtown or anywhere else for that matter. In fact, the control system routinely spreads out the vehicles so that there are no bottlenecks anywhere. And because it is all computer controlled there are no traffic jams, no crashes and no rubberneckers slowing the whole freeway down as with cars and buses.Most bottleneck occur when people want to get off and on at the same stop at the same time. I give a personal example, when I was in High School I had to take a Streetcar to my High School. I was on the last Streetcar line in Pittsburgh. Every morning I went to the streetcar stop, and waited to see which streetcar would stop. I remember waiting for two or three streetcars to go by, packed to the gills. These came right after another, never more then two minutes apart. Why did all these people pack onto the Streetcars, it was the fastest way to get to Downtown Pittsburgh, such passengers only concern was to get on the Streetcar and then ride it till they get to town and exit out of either the front or rear doors (Pittsburgh has a system, no one pays the fare in downtown, going into town, you pay as you enter, leaving town you pay as you exit the streetcar or bus). It was on the single best route, bypassing the traffic sitting on West Liberty Avenue and PA 51 with ease. Anywhere on its length it was faster to take the Streetcar then to drive your own car do to the volume of the traffic. The problem on these Streetcars you would have 100-150 people, the Streetcars ran every two minutes (sometimes shorter). How would you discharge this volume of people from a PRT system? we are talking about 10,000 people per hour. Remember all of these 10,000 people want to get off at the same spot, downtown Pittsburgh. This is a typical light rail or bus system, high volume of people. The volume was so high, when the old PCC Streetcars was replaced, they were replaced by twice as long light rail vehicle, capable (and often doing) 250-300 people per car. The volume of people per hour stayed about the same. Any thing with smaller volume of people can NOT do this level of transportation. You can NOT have cars capable of only six people picking up 10,000 people per hour. Instead of the 100 or so Light Rail Vehicles doing the work at the present time, you would need 1000 PRTs to stop, leave people exit and have other enter, all within 60 minutes or 1200 seconds (i.e. the PRT would have only one second to discharge and pick up people before it would start to jam up the system. Chicago and New York City have even heavier volumes of passengers. One solution is to have multiple routes, but then you would need multiple entrance and exit points all with a couple of blocks of each other. The problem is NOT the number of routes but that in areas where automobiles are NOT a variable option, the main reason is the sheer volume of passengers getting off and on the mass transit system. PRT, with their small cars can NOT handle that volume of people all at once and all at the same time.
"The automobile does the same job the PRT does better and in a wider areas then any proposed PRT proposal in low density population areas (Suburbs and rural areas) AT a lower cost on a year to year basis." Well that proves that you just didn't do your homework. Roads cost far more to build and maintain than PRT. They do not cost less during construction and you are paying for the operating costs with gasoline tax so maybe you don't know how many billions of dollars go into just filling potholes. The fact is the current road system is a forced subsidy to the trucking industry because 18 wheelers do 2900 times as much damage to roads as passenger cars do but only carry about 400 times the cargo that an equivalent amount of cars or pickup trucks could carry. You are paying extra so the trucking companies can rake in bigger profits. Now doesn't that make you all warm and fuzzy inside???So what are you proposing, a PRT to my hunting cabin in the Mountains? That makes no sense. While I agree with you we are all subsidizing the trucking industry, that is a side point at best when it comes to Mass Transit. PRT may be cheaper to build and run then highways, but the cost to maintain those highways will remain, thus the cost of the PRT, like light rail, will be an additional cost over and above the cost to maintain the highway system.
The point about only one size of vehicle is only partially correct. It depends I suppose on whether you have a huge family or not. Most PRT auto-taxis have seat either 3 or 4 but that is only a design choice by the engineer who had to make a working prototype. Many other size vehicles are possible. If you have a large family or want to take the soccer team out for pizza then why not just take several PRTs and meet up at the Chucky Cheese for some fun and grub?You are avoiding the main use of any transportation system, to get to and from work. Secondary trips as in going shopping or taking the soccer team out are at best minor transportation issue (Through I have to point out why the West Penn Railway Streetcar System closed down in the early 1950s, the blame was put on TV, people no longer went out at night when they bought their first TV sets, thus the West Penn Railway saw a huge drop in income do to people staying home to watch TV). I bring up the West Penn Railway for it shows how non-rush hour traffic was and is important for any transportation system, but also to show the main source of revenue was and is people going to and from work and thus volume at peak time is more important then vehicle size, it is that it is easier to remove 300 people from one vehicle then 300 people from ten vehicles if all of people want out at the same stop.
One benefit of PRT that is not present in other systems is that children can safely use the PRT system to travel from home to school and back. There are no worries of other passengers because there ARE no other passengers with PRT. Everyone always rides in comfort, safety and convenience. Some PRTs even come with an entertainment system or wifi access so you can relax or even get some work done.According to Federal Crime reports, nationwide less then 100 children a year are kidnapped by strangers (most are kidnapped by relatives). When I was age 9, I was taking the bus alone by myself, from the South Park Area of Allegheny County, to Downtown Pittsburgh, transfered to an Oakland bus just to get my teeth worked on at the Pitt Dental School (and this was the late 1960s, about the same time period there was a Race Riot in the Pittsburgh Hill District, a district the bus I took had to go through). No one ever tried to molest me, and if someone had, the rest of the passengers would have beat him up.
I use to do some Children and Youth work, and a child is more likely to be abused if in a car then on any other piece of transportation, in simple terms what you view as "protection" is a trap for children. The Child is safer out in the public then in a small PRT type vehicle. Comfort, Safety and Convince is in the eyes of the beholder, all three are met in my mind in a crowded Streetcar that gets me where I am going. Having to wait for my "private" PRT would increase my discomfort of waiting, the smaller size of the vehicle will bring up concerns of Safety and the fact I can not exit as the same time as 1000 other people at the same place would cause me a huge inconvenience.
Your incorrect statement that light rail can handle more passengers is also without basis in fact. PRT systems can handle as many passengers per mile if not more. The stations are smaller and more numerous than bus or light rail. PRT wins each and every competition with the tax dollar leeching light rail and bus transit options. Period.The problem is that in most urban areas, the number of places people want to go to are limited, thus you have 10,000 people getting off and on with one hour of each other at the same stop. Light rail can handled that, at 250 a pop, all you need is 40 (40, times 250 equals 10,000 people). One Light Rail vehicle every one and half a minutes. If we project that 10,000 people over two hours you have three minutes per car. More then doable. PRT, if we assume 10 passengers per car would need 1000 per hour, 500 over two hours. 1-2 SECONDS per car to unload and load is to narrow a time frame.
The problem with PRT is that is a Car Drivers solution to Mass transit, not a Mass Transit users solution to Mass Transit. People who have used Mass Transit accept crowded Vehicles, lack of seats and meeting new people on the bus/Streetcar/LRV. PRT does NOT address such mass transits users main concern, getting on and off the means of transportation at the same time and same place as every body else. That later concern can NOT be addressed by PRT, for PRT puts its emphasis on privacy, a concept most mass transit users gave up decades ago (or never embraced it). As I have said before PRT is a solution looking for a problem to solve, the problem is it does NOT solve the problems facing most users of Mass Transit,
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
