Reply #60: It's easy to capitalize on fear of the unknown [View All]

[mwillong]

For the public at large, I think it comes down to fear of the unknown. People have no experience with PRT or anything like it. The closest thing is perhaps skyscraper elevators, but even that is not a close analogy. The idea of driverless vehicles and elevated guideways is completely foreign, and it appears too complex and futuristic to be achievable today.

I've commented on dozens, perhaps hundreds, of PRT threads over the last 4 years, and in almost every thread, someone will bring up the Jetsons; someone else will reference the Simpsons "Monorail, monorail" episode; several others will call it silly or ridiculous (the buglike appearance doesn't help that ;-)). Even those who are mildly supportive sometimes have difficulty imagining the scope of it, and are skeptical that a dense enough PRT infrastructure could be built.

So there's the natural fear, but then there are the actively anti-PRT people like Avidor, who are more than willing to amplify those fears. Look at Avidor's campaign, both here and at his anti-PRT website: it's all one big scare tactic. He tells people the guideways will be big and ugly (actually, they'd be smaller than a footbridge); he tells them it's a scam, he tells them it's anti-transit, he tells them that only conservatives support it (all completely false); he says it will be a terrorist threat; he says it will be unsafe; he says it's a waste of tax dollars... and there's no truth to any of it.

But the uninformed get suspicious, because they have no knowledge of PRT.

Now, human history is filled with examples of great conceptual leaps. Consider the airplane or the automobile. Nobody in the 19th century could have envisioned how those technologies would transform our lives, yet they we able to overcome inherent human fear of change and are now part of our every day lives. How did this happen, and why doesn't it happen for PRT?

I think it comes down to having a "bootstrap", if you understand the term. Planes and automobiles could start small. Air travel started with innovators taking chances with small homemade flying machines. No infrastructure was needed to jumpstart air travel. Once the early risk-takers had worked out the kinks, others could join in, and air travel grew from zero planes in 1900 to thousands of planes in the air at any given time today.

Same with the automobile. Early versions worked on dirt roads; no need for infrastructure. Early adopters created a market, which slowly expanded, and as the market expanded, roads were built, gas stations went up, the Interstates were built, etc., until today, when it's become so successful that it's a blight.

There is no such gradual path for PRT. PRT startup is difficult and relatively expensive. The risk takers are not hobbyists or early adopters, they are politicians and transit professionals, neither of whom are known for risk taking. There's a saying among PRT enthusiasts: "Nobody ever got fired for proposing a train". Trains are safe: tried, tested, true. Low risk. PRT is the complete opposite: untried, untested, high risk, and, as we've seen, political poison once the detractors find out about it.

Fortunately, we finally have a few early adopters. Heathrow and Masdar are both non-public efforts, so they can bootstrap without political complications. But it took some very forward thinking people with very deep private pockets for it to happen.

So that's my take on it. Others may have different views. Sorry if this is long winded, but I'm enjoying this discussion. :-)