Thursday, March 3, 2011

Fate of Masdar PRT Not Yet Final

©MMXI Get On Board PRT!NewsCenter

We knew it was coming. Last October the news broke that the Masdar City project -- already retreating from ambitious goals of zero-carbon, zero-waste and producing all energy onsite -- had decided against installing Personal Rapid Transit throughout the 2.3 square mile 'eco-city.' The news came just as the inauguration of the pilot section of the PRT system, 'Phase IA,' was imminent.

And so we were not surprised when the wave of news items arrived. Environmental journalists attending January's World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi on the one hand wrote in giddy prose of riding the driverless pods, while on the other hand chuckling at the brevity of the 2-station route. It sounds so small when you say the stations are "a mere 800m" apart. That's half a mile to Americans.