Such a system, if pervasive enough, would allow people to travel around cities without driving. And if deployed in conjunction with thoughtful land use planning, redevelopment, and urban growth boundaries, the transit system could assist in correcting decades of sprawl made possible by, and in service of, the automobile -- or as I call it, the Private Travel Appliance.
Vukan R. Vuchic, Emeritus Professor of Transportation Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, has for several decades been a staunch advocate for light rail transit, perhaps its leading advocate. So while Vuchic's views in opposition to PRT during that time can be charitably described as superficial, because of his leadership on light rail I have always counted Vukan R. Vuchic on the side of the angels
So it was with not a little astonishment recently that I read the following statement by Vuchic:
Unlike most transit systems, [PRT] operating costs can be recouped at the fare box, [Peter] Muller added. Vukan R. Vuchic, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, disputed that, saying not enough people use transit because it is still cheaper for most to drive a car.
And autos have a role in getting people around.
"Modern transportation is designed as intermodal," said Vuchic, who has written a trilogy of books on public transportation. "It combines use of private car and bus and light-rail and rapid transit and does not forget pedestrians."
There is no single answer to the issues of our daily travels, he said.
"People like to think there will be some vehicle that will come and that will solve everything," he said. "It's a naive concept."
Vuchic said there won't be enough people to use PRT in the suburbs to make it profitable and in the packed downtown areas, there will be a need for bigger vehicles that could seat "30, 40 or even 80 people" whereas PRT would be difficult to use.
Those systems already exist and are in use, he said.
Source: CNN
Unable to supply a high-ridership last-mile solution based solely on a conventional transit technology, Vukan the god of light rail has fudged the intermodal transit system into an intermodal transportation system, in which the last-mile role is filled by cars.
1 Yes, cars. After writing eloquently in the past about the need for "auto disincentives," Vuchic has surrendered to the dominance of Private Travel Appliances that environmentalists, planners and smart urban denizens have rightly grown to lament.
But ceding a seat at the table to the Private Travel Appliance is only one level of Vuchic's surrender. 2 In his rush to dismiss PRT as "unprofitable," he validates critics who attack all public transit because it requires subsidies.
But we know that to be a false comparison. Transit is a public good, as a society we have agreed it should be available regardless of profitability -- indeed, provision of transit is public in large measure because the private sector is unable to make a profit at it.
Then there's the impact of using cars as a last-mile solution. Hopefully he means park and ride facilities. In suburbs they are geared to commuters, storing Private Travel Appliances all day while their drivers are in the central city. 3 How can a suburban city hope to do successful pedestrian-priority TOD when their rail stations are magnets for car trips that start, and return to, cul-de-sacs an unknown distance away?
And what of outlying towns overtaken by suburbanization, but are now trying to revitalize their old central business districts to compete with malls? If, using Vuchic assumptions, those places can't support a PRT network -- or even a PRT shuttle to connect the old town center with the newer mall -- then they can't support light rail either. 4 The mall wins.
But it's a different story in the central city, right? In the city people can leave their cars at home and walk to the nearest light rail station. 5 Unless a citywide network is too expensive, in which case the areas unserved by light rail will be underserved by buses (sorry, except in situations where buses have exclusive lanes and level boarding platforms, they are not rapid transit). And it will always be so, because Vuchic insists cities not explore unconventional transit options like PRT that could provide comparable service at lower cost. One must presume there are no underserved areas in Vuchicland, thanks to the Private Travel Appliance part of his transportation system. QED, Prof. Vuchic!
6 I suppose Vuchic must think it irrelevant that people be able to live in a city without driving -- why, Private Travel Appliances are so cheap, let's assume everyone drives anyway. If Vuchic is right, why bother with Smart Growth anywhere, urban or suburban?
Finally, it's ironic that Vuchic dismisses PRT proponents as being "naive" about "some vehicle that will come and that will solve everything" -- since Vuchic is falling back on one vehicle, the Private Travel Appliance, to "solve" the missing piece of his intermodal transit- er, make that intermodal transportation- network.
One wonders what Vukan R. Vuchic's life's work was all about, since the problem on which he focused could be solved simply by redefining it.
Slideshow: How Will You Get To The Train? Light rail + PRT = City-wide transit network
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