This morning, the Washington Post ran an editorial titled "Taxes or Traffic In Virginia, a plea for one to fix the other". The writer reported on the report issued by a coalition of 17 Northern Virginia businesses which proclaimed that it is necessary for the state to raise taxes to address the poor road infrastructure and resulting gridlock. See a link to the article in sidebar.
Virginia wouldn't need to increase road or any other taxes if the state didn't throw transportation funding to the embedded transportation industry. As an example, the budget for 22 miles of above ground public transportation from West F.C. to Dulles is projected to approach $2.7 Billion dollars before cost overruns. This amounts to more than $127 million dollars per mile!
There is an alternative which costs the state Zero dollars, can be built in a fraction of the time, will operate on demand, 24/7/365 and is expandable at will. This alternative is the Personal Rapid Transit System called SkyTran which has been developed by the Uni-Modal Corporation. Uni Modal (www.unimodal.com) is a company founded and operated by a group of ex-NASA rocket scientists. They know what they are doing and are willing to put their money where their mouth is to build and operate 21st century mass transit systems. This is a perfect answer for the Dulles corridor and for the transportation issues affecting Northern Virginia, especially in light of the recessionary climate in the country.
Simply put, why wouldn’t the state of Virginia want a no-cost, on demand, modern transportation system as the centerpiece for it’s gateway into DC?
Why doesn't the state of Virginia consider this -- lobbying and enormous political contributions from the likes of Bechtel who have a vested financial interest in seeing the enormously expensive system installed. Get rid of the graft and the state won’t need a tax increase.
Virginia wouldn't need to increase road or any other taxes if the state didn't throw transportation funding to the embedded transportation industry. As an example, the budget for 22 miles of above ground public transportation from West F.C. to Dulles is projected to approach $2.7 Billion dollars before cost overruns. This amounts to more than $127 million dollars per mile!
There is an alternative which costs the state Zero dollars, can be built in a fraction of the time, will operate on demand, 24/7/365 and is expandable at will. This alternative is the Personal Rapid Transit System called SkyTran which has been developed by the Uni-Modal Corporation. Uni Modal (www.unimodal.com) is a company founded and operated by a group of ex-NASA rocket scientists. They know what they are doing and are willing to put their money where their mouth is to build and operate 21st century mass transit systems. This is a perfect answer for the Dulles corridor and for the transportation issues affecting Northern Virginia, especially in light of the recessionary climate in the country.
Simply put, why wouldn’t the state of Virginia want a no-cost, on demand, modern transportation system as the centerpiece for it’s gateway into DC?
Why doesn't the state of Virginia consider this -- lobbying and enormous political contributions from the likes of Bechtel who have a vested financial interest in seeing the enormously expensive system installed. Get rid of the graft and the state won’t need a tax increase.
Decrease the size of the federal government and there won’t be so much pressure for people to move into the area and overburden the traffic infrastructure. But that will be the subject of a future posting.
Posts
Virginia report on PRT, Jan 2008:
ReplyDeletehttp://gettherefast.org/documents/vdrpt08.pdf
Followup, end of 2008:
http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/studies/files/2009%20PRT%20Update%20Full%20Report.pdf
Also see ultraprt.com, vectus.se and
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/moggeprtpaper.pdf
Sir, I appreciate your information. thanks for offering it. I will point out though, that SkyTran is not mentioned in any of the studies. I will ask this question: Since when did America have to follow other countries path of development?
ReplyDeleteWe have always been at the forefront of Technology Development. Why should we not pursue new technological achievements because they aren't already in place somewhere else? The SkyTran project is one which would be built and operated on the developers dime, not the state and their taxpayers. Is it somehow better to spend more than 3 BILLION DOLLARS on a system which is proven to require mnassive ongoing government subsidy just because it has been done before? I think not.
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ReplyDelete@ Since when did America have to follow other countries path of development?
ReplyDeleteWe shouldn't. But we do, and I blame the corporate emphasis on short-term profits. Creating a PRT technology takes years of design and testing, the last to undertake it was Raytheon in the 90s, and they blew it by getting the size and weight wrong.
Traditional technologies are expensive, but he business is established so there is little incentive for existing suppliers to alter their business models. Such a system resists innovation because there are relatively few buyers in the market, and cost of entry into that market is high. The established products are more expensive than doing R&D, but R&D is held to be risky.
This is an economic inertia problem that has gone on for decades, not a political one that can be conveniently blamed on a party, ideology, or approach to governing. PRT as we know it was conceived by a progressive transportation planner in the 50s, was developed by a neutral government research lab in the 60s, and was first tried at Morgantown during the Nixon Administration in the 70s.
Today we can also trace current European interest in PRT to the same time period when national governments set targets for CO2 reduction and decreasing oil dependence. Government agencies and large transport-related companies realized they needed an additional tool.
However, hope can be seen in the fact that SkyTran and other US PRT designs exist. Success at Heathrow, Masdar and in Sweden could cause US government and business to react quickly and nimbly. Some Congressional interest in PRT arose last year after a conference in Ithaca NY; if overseas program succeed, US reaction could benefit companies like Unimodal and Taxi 2000. In addition, a number of important engineering consultancies are now seeing PRT as doable; CH2M Hill of Denver is participating in Masdar. So, stay tuned.