Personal Rapid Transit Will Never Happen

Randal O'Toole offers his perspective on why Personal Rapid Transit will never happen -- and how it will happenif it does.

1 minute read

October 20, 2003, 11:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen

"PRT is a dream of combining the convenience of the automobile with the mass production of transit. Four-passenger cars would run on fixed guideways elevated above the ground that would blanket an urban area on a grid. You go to a station that is no more than a couple of blocks from your home, get on the next empty car, punch in your destination, and the computer-controlled car will whisk you there at 70 miles per hour... We already have a personal-rapid transit system. It is called the automobile. The cost of building a parallel system will be huge, and until that system covers an entire urban area, few people will use it."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: Why Personal Rapid Transit Will Never Happen and How It Will Happen

Friday, October 17, 2003 in The Thoreau Institute

Transportation United States

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