Texas Tribune 2/2/10Up in the AirWhen President Barack Obama doled out $8 billion in stimulus dollars to fund high-speed rail development last week, Texas got a paltry $4 million — one half of one-tenth of one percent of the total. This will fund improvements that will increase the speed and reliability of the section of Amtrak’s Texas Eagle line between Fort Worth and the Oklahoma border. Even when added to more than $7 million secured in additional federal funding for other rail projects, this will not bring high-speed passenger rail to Texas anytime soon. Speaking in Dallas at the Texas Rail Advocates conference just a day after Obama’s announcement, Assistant Federal Railroad Administration administrator Karen Rae was unapologetic in blaming Texas’s lack of “unified vision” for its inability to make good on its applications for high-speed passenger rail funding.
"If we learned anything from this whole exercise," says Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson Karen Amacker, "Texas really needs to get with the program."
Richard Garriott already has. The Austin computer game developer, who has no shortage of vision, is just one example of someone in the private sector with an idea for making mass transit cleaner, safer and more desirable — someone who views the current pipe dream of high-speed rail as obsolete. Fifteen years ago, Garriott began toying with an idea he called "computer-controlled gondolas." "What happened in the intervening years is that many other people have thought of it and invested in it," he says. “Now this hypothetical thing I was talking about is at its time.”
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Garriott is investing his money in a company called Austin Personal Rapid Transit, which envisions a pervasive network of narrow track throughout the city of Austin teeming with battery-powered, computer-controlled vehicles. His vision is not — as people tend to initially dismiss it — something from The Jetsons or Minority Report. “We are careful not to use the word ‘pod,’” Garriott says. “We’re talking about enclosed golf carts on a track on a telephone pole. These are things that already exist.”
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A functioning PRT system is already operational at London’s Heathrow airport, and there’s a test track — dubbed “Taxi 2000” — running in Minnesota. Using those models, Garriott hopes to lay out the finances of the project within a year. “I personally believe that any solution that you will choose to ride because it’s your best choice compared to your car will be self-sufficient,” he says. Garriott says he's still working out the cost of the Austin PRT system, but a study of personal rapid transit systems prepared for the New Jersey State Legislature found that building the simplest guideway with low-end capacity would run about $15 million, while the most sophisticated, highest-capacity version would cost up to $75 million. If the Austin project can proceed without taxpayer money, Garriott believes implementation could begin in another two to three years. With success in Austin under its belt, Austin PRT would look to spread to other cities. For now, Garriott has chosen to focus on urban areas “because that’s where the problems are.”
Wikipedia entry for Personal rapid transit (PRT)Personal rapid transit (PRT), also called personal automated transport (PAT) or podcar, is a public transportation concept that offers on-demand, non-stop transportation, using small, automated vehicles on a network of specially-built guideways. From an engineering standpoint, they can be envisioned as very small subway cars, sometimes as small as three seats.
ULTra - Ultra Light Transit Web site with a really good concept video.
www.ultraprt.comThis sounds really cool!
Sonia
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