The failure of the Seatle Monorail goes first to organizational factors - the viability of the tech is unknown. Those organizational factors include the monopolistic effects of any single source technology, not to mention our own local business practices in such low competition arenas.

Maglev type techs will happen, and though it's more fun than realistic at this point they are a great subject for fun conversation. Hydrogen fuel is much closer, and if the Feds are using their authority correctly their Detroit green bailout will include provisions directing the oil companies to start building the distribution system for private vehicles.

Most constructively, there are high tech options for transportation development that INCREASE choice, not reduce it. Further, these are incremental approaches that support both transit and private vehicles.

Coincidentally, I just wrote on the same subject, from the perspective of highway funding, on my blog.

http://www.motleytools.com/blog/2009/01/the_future_road.html

Hydrogen? Yeah, we've got plenty of hydrogen all right. Only trouble is, there's all that oxygen getting in the way of using it as a fuel. The idea of using hydrogen as a fuel is all wet.

The PRT concept does not hinge on hydrogen. The idea's chief features are (a) on-demand operation, so they don't run around empty (b) small size, meaning they are not mostly empty at non-peak periods, (c) low vehicle weight. These qualities alone add up to energy-per-passenger mile numbers in the 800-1000 BTU range (bus 4000ish, autos 3500ish, rail 2500-300ish). This would go easier on the power grid, whether the source is hydro, solar or hydrogen.

Just so long as wacky monorail/PRT/GRT theories remain conceptual...and avoid the harsh realities of, well, reality - then, they will live forever. Inside people's minds. And as some technical college kid's perpetual dream.

It amazes me that mass transit opponents like Skip Berger will always scream and howl to stop legitimate rail technologies from being built; but this tightly-knit group of backwards-looking critics always seems to have a soft spot in their hearts (not minds) for the next technological marvel/boondoggle-in-waiting.

The likely cause of this contradiction is underdog syndrome. "The Man" picks light rail, and the perma-critic picks something else. Something highly unconventional. This syndrome (paired with those who held fond memories of Seattle circa 1962) kept the doomed Green Line project alive far past its inevitable expiration date.

If Berger went back to the early '70's to look at Richard Nixon's fascination with Boeing's PRT/GRT as "the transportation system of the future", he might realize just how un-cutting edge today's column really is.

Memo to Berger and other assorted gadget-driven dreamers:

Multi-billion dollar transportation systems shouldn't be planned and built based on some guy's sentiments or emotions. Tested, viable technology isn't the random choice of showhorse "big thinker" snake oil salesmen for good reason. Engineers and transport professionals may not be interesting enough to warrant a Berger blog post. And they may frustrate goofy professor-types like Doug MacDonald. But, in the end, it's the hyper-dull engineers who actually get the job done. You won't be reading much about the under-appreciated workhorses. But that's probably the way they like it.

Gee, if only advocates of innovative transit technologies were as monolithic as you assume. We actually represent a spectrum that includes some who just love PRT or GRT or monorail, to those like me who want a light rail/PRT/bus intermodal solution. I am thankful that the old argument that PRT is just a "wacky" dream is just that: old. I look to the PRT programs being tested and implemented in the UK, Sweden, and Abu Dhabi (all countries committed to trains as well), and see innovation on the horizon.

Leave the cheap psychoanalysis of PRT advocates to... oh... cartoonists?

Back in the 60's when I was a kid, I remember a book with a picture showing the rockets that would regularly take people to the moon and back, sort of like taking the bus downtown. That was supposed to have happened many years ago.

I also remember how "personal hovercraft" were going to revoutionize travel back in the 60's or 70's.

Weren't we all supposed to have our own "jetpacks" by now, for traveling about town?

I don't think Obama wants to rescue the big 3 auto manufacturers and rebuild highways and bridges because he thinks people are going to stop driving cars any time soon.

Hey, here's a thought. Speaking of Obama and infrastructure - isn't the Monorail plan shovel-ready? We were --><-- this close to actually breaking ground, so we must have full plans ready for building.

Interesting idea, Matt. Do we re-condemn the properties that were going to be stations?

Sure. We should be good at it by now.

In answer to MadMan: I have long been a booster of buses-- that makes me a "gadget-driven dreamer"? My favorite local mass transit concept was from the 1920s when Bellevue's visionary, James Ditty, suggested regular zeppelin service across the lake. Now there was a great use of hydrogen!

"Sure. We should be good at it by now."

Heh, good one!

Knute,

Neither 150 mph speeds nor hydrogen power (?!) are required; 40 mph for a nonstop public transit system seems perfectly adequate for many urban environments, with faster speeds possible in less dense areas; at its typical nearly-constant speed it would be faster than cars for most trips, to say nothing of large-vehicle public transit.

Either way, the idea of a Personal Rapid Transit system, with or without the maglev component used in this Montana application, seems particularly well-suited for many urban applications: cost-effective, energy-superefficient, and fast, safe, and convenient enough to entice people from their cars.

Note that it would also operate quite well in inclement weather; a suspended system like this would be virtually immune to snow, ice, and flooding, and less vulnerable to power outages due to its low power consumption. Even supported systems with linear electric motors like Vancouver's SkyTrain, which do not rely on the friction between wheels and rails or roadway for propulsion and braking, or other systems which use grated guideways that snow would mostly fall right through, would be relatively unaffected.

Note that the standard response by detractors to interest expressed in the emerging new generation of public transit like the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system you describe here is to anonymously label the person expressing interest as "wacky", "goofy", "a dreamer", "anti-transit" or some other such nonsense. It's no surprise that one such detractor has already chimed in. As more and more of these systems are built in the coming years (the first two are reportedly scheduled to open this year), one can hope that these detractors should start better recognizing both reality and the many advantages it offers over the alternative.

John C. Todd, Jr.
SoundPRT
http://www.GetThereFast.org

Classic. The PRT cult can't help citing the "innovative" linear induction motors of Skytrain. Which Translink has now abandoned as the system is expanded.

These nuts are living in dreamland. Which only strengthens their ideological rigidity and resolve. It's a human flaw, which only reveals itself when certain issues are raised. Which is why I always enjoy reading the musings of David "Wiseguy" Gow. At least Mr. Todd is somewhat rational and realistic in his quest for the magikal transportation unicorn.

Sorry. Scratch the slight praise of John Todd. If he's betting the farm on slow, limited range & limited application golf carts to break the logjam on PRT, and return us to the glory (Nixon) years...the guy really must have abandoned his 20% rational thinking quota.

To say an isolated, obscure dictatorship in the Middle East, and an airport parking lot valet service will form the foundation of a transportation revolution (will be televised...on YouTube) is the ESSENCE of wacky dreaming.

I don't know why I even bother poking fun at these guys. They do all the work for me.

And what exactly is "the alternative" to PRT Mr. Todd makes reference to...at least in the case of Heathrow? An airport minibus? An automated monorail, like the one featured at SeaTac? Wow. Talk about breaking some serious barriers!

Let's hear it for steel wheels on steel rails. Two of them, 4 feet 8 1/2 inches apart. Perhaps insufficiently glamorous to some, but it works. Easily switched. 160 years of working out the bugs. Parts available off a shelf. The French have built a wonderful system. Their TGV trains that zip past you like you're standing still when you're driving 130 kph run steel wheels on two (very high quality) steel rails.

They've made it work, why can't we? If only the Green Line had been proposed as regular old rail....leave monorails to the Jetson wannabees. Why can't we just build something that works?

Snoqualman,

There is, of course, no reason not to build "steel wheels on steel rails" where appropriate, including high-speed rail. High-speed rail is proven and fast (maglev is even faster), but in urban applications the TGV you praise is far from appropriate, and would not attain higher speeds than conventional rail; high-speed rail is better suited for intercity transportation. For urban applications, slower speeds with more closely spaced stations become the requirement. Intercity rail networks can certainly serve urban areas, as will be the case in Masdar, the new carbon-neutral, zero-waste city under construction in the United Arab Emirates, which'll be powered entirely by renewable energy.

The Masdar solution ( http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081104/FRONTIERS/357775919/1036/NEWS ) is to build a local transit network so good that it'll actually be faster than private cars within an urban area, that passengers seldom have to wait for and that connects within easy walking distance of every point in the city and to a rail network connecting with neighboring cities (Abu Dhabi) and the regional airport. In Masdar, cars will be banned, and all in-city transportation will be accomplished by walking, bicycling, Segways, and Personal Rapid Transit, which will be necessary for longer trips (Masdar occupies about 2.5 square miles) as well as for trips made by the elderly or infirm. The result will be a truly sustainable city, where private automobiles are no longer necessary and would in fact be inferior to the public transit network for urban transportation.

The London system at Heathrow Airport ( http://www.atsltd.co.uk/media/pictures/heathrow-project/ ) will serve a similar purpose as it rolls out from next year's opening, beginning with a simple connector between a remote parking lot and that airport's grand new Terminal 5, and as the success of that system is demonstrated, eventually connecting points throughout that airport with rail lines, remote parking, and nearby hotels, reducing congestion, energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and travel times.

The point isn't to build "glamorous" transportation, after all. It's to build a transportation network that's cost-effective and energy-superefficient, that maximizes the ridership of (and investment in) public transit that has already been made, and is fast, safe, and convenient enough to provide a realistic, truly sustainable alternative to driving. PRT is emerging as an important transportation option in a quickly growing group of cities around the nation and around the world, and this adoption is likely to continue increasing geometrically as the first systems are deployed later this year and their operational characteristics are demonstrated.

The Monorail always seems to bring out strong arguments. I would like to point out that separate road beds seem to work best, no matter if asphalt, steel rail or concrete rail.

I would encourage someone to take the time and compare passenger mile vs. cost, vs. accident rate, and total down time. I would opt that our under funded, "Old School Tech" monorail would beat Metro, Sounder, Amtrak and WSF.

Downtown to the Seattle Center is served by multiple Metro lines, yet the Monorail has now transported more than 46 MILLION Passengers since built despite the fact that it requires leaving the street level to get to it, has limited marketing, advertising and promotion, and continues to run.

And it now carries fewer passengers per train than it used to by regulators decree. Just observe the monorail on any busy Seattle Center event night. While the rest of the world comes to a grid lock below, Metro bus riders among them, the monorail zips along as an effiencent, green testament to fully separate right of way and the forward thinking of Century 21 planners.

Think of how much MORE efficient it would be if we just extended it down Second Avenue with a stop near the Market and SAM, then down to our billion dollar investment in Stadiums, Ex Hall, and Transit Hub of King Street and Union Station.

I bet we could do that for far less than 4 new street car lines.

Podcar advocates keep on pushing to build Podcar cities. Seems to be a worldwide movement. See http://www.podcar.org/ithacaconference/index.htm .

Why not wish them well?

In the meantime, Sound Transit has won the hearts and minds of Puget Sound regional voters, who doubled the agency's tax take permanently last November 4.

Within a few weeks of the victory, Sound Transit's light rail planners published an environmental impact forecast (prepared before the election, but hidden until the vote was taken) telling us -- to summarize the depressingly long story posted at http://www.soundtransit.org/x9959.xml -- that the $5 billion East Link light rail line between the International District and Redmond Town Center would add 5,000 new daily round trip transit customers to the corridor by 2030.

That computes to a million bucks for each new daily round trip on transit in a corridor that will see hundreds of thousands of daily trips in all modes by 2030.

With numbers like that, you can see why it's official state and local government policy that as many people and organizations as possible should move homes, offices, and stores within walking distance of light rail train stations so that Sound Transit can beat the disappointing ridership forecast, have more people crowd onto the "cattle car" trains (to quote Podcar fans), and thus get the tax cost per additional transit customer down a bit ... say a half million bucks each.

Time will tell if the official densification policy of "transit oriented development" is a dog that hunts. It has lots of fans around here, as long as other people do the moving closer to train stations.

Be that as it may on the light rail front, advocates of making the regional bus system work better finally have reason to smile with the December 31 publication by WSDOT, Metro, and Sound Transit of a bus-based high-capacity cross-Lake transit plan for SR 520 that could beat I-90 light rail to a ribbon cutting by four years ... 2016 instead of 2020.

With Sound Transit's ample treasury, a fleet of fast, clean buses traversing both Lake Washington bridges emerges prominently as a trackless, high-capacity, cost-effective transportation alternative worthy of close examination by the government agencies that control the I-90 bridge as a national asset -- the initials of these agencies are WSDOT and FHWA.

I made one misstatement in my last comment, that the London PRT system at Heathrow Airport will open next year, when it's actually scheduled to open later this year. Apologies.

jniles,

I don't know that I've ever heard a "podcar fan" describe "cattle car" trains in the way you suggest. It certainly hasn't been my experience with rail transit more than any other form of large-vehicle transit, perhaps excepting rush hour in New York's subways and DC's Metro. The Sounder trains I ride are always nearly empty, by contrast, though I only ride these in a reverse commute -- I hear they get somewhat better ridership in the opposite direction. I regularly ride buses that are crammed full, however, to the point where it's not uncommon that I see prospective passengers (including me) get waved off. I think it's safe to say that large-vehicle transit vehicles get crammed full at rush hour, whether they're buses, trains, or automated people movers like the ones at Sea-Tac Airport. This is simply the nature of the large-vehicle beast, whereas congestion in a true PRT system manifests in quite a different way, which I suspect you understand.

We live in a multi-modal transportation environment, for better or worse, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Now that Alaska Way will be buried underground creating yet another tunnel in that area, one has to wonder if the extension of the monorail isn't an inevitability. Ballard and West Seattle will continue to grow and densify and some form of rapid mass transit will be necessary. If not a second subway tunnel in Sound Transit 3, than I would not be surprised to see if either a monorail extention or some kind of elevated light rail becomes the solution.

And while we wistfully wait for these technologies to bear fruit, and continue to trash the idea of monorail here, we are being forcefed a 'big Dig' for a small stretch of road that will take up vastly more of our resources (taxes, etc), than the monorail ever would have, with much less to show. Our traffic is only getting nominally better now because the economy is tanking, nothing of consequence on the horizon for 520, I5 is still down to roadbed north of the U.Bridge, which it has been for over two decades. All this is really a testament to the fact that despite our high opinion of ourselves as cutting edge up here, our democratic process had chosen "do nothing" rather than "come to consensus". Or maybe the concensus is to just force the traffic to determine the design? We bitch and moan about it, but really, it hasn't changed much at all in 40 years, when the decision to create a bus city was made. It ends up being someone like Microsoft to build their own private bus line for employees. The rest of us are just stuck, literally.

I heard from a member of the stakeholder panel that West Seattle would get some kind of streetcar service as part of the bored tunnel project. So problem solved ;-|