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Aeolus commented on the blog post Come Saturday Morning: The PRT Boondoggle
Agreed, as long as you qualify it with “primarily”.
I just wanted to point out that the rest of the world doesn’t have political systems that are broken as badly as ours, and that transportation modes are being constantly assessed and reassessed based on energy efficiency, convenience, cost, and whether or not they work in a given setting.
If the US had a serious government, instead of a kleptocracy, we would have made very serious changes in our transportation systems plannings decades ago.
But we can’t even manage to build high speed or regional rail systems or decent bike paths or sidewalks at the local level, so it’s pointless to talk about the modes that might connect regional and human-powered systems.
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Aeolus commented on the blog post Come Saturday Morning: The PRT Boondoggle
PRT is also being promoted and studied by Sweden’s Institute for Sustainable Transportation, a group that sees PRT as a part of an integrated mass transportation system, extending the reach of traditional trains and subways into areas that are not densely populated enough to support other systems. Systems like this are being actively tested and implemented in small scale by company’s like Korea’s Vectus.
American public transportation faces huge problems because almost all of our resources are invested in parking, cars, and roads while far too little is invested in walking, cycling, and the entire range of transportation options that include high speed rail, regional rail, local rail, trams, buses, shared vehicles, et cetera.
If the pot of money were the right size, PRT would be one of the answers that would make sense in some areas. Instead, we see vicious debates between advocates for various modes, while we fail to invest adequately in any of them.
But as with many things, innovation in transit will not come from the US, because our political system is so badly corrupted.
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Aeolus commented on the blog post A Few Thoughts on the Debt Limit Deal
The die was cast when the President approved extension of the Bush tax cuts and simultaneously approved a disastrous deal on inheritance taxes.
Our quisling President keeps trading the cow for the handful of beans, hoping this time they will be magical, that he will be able to climb the beanstalk, find the goose that lays the golden egg, and cut down the beanstalk before the giant can catch him.
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Aeolus commented on the diary post Repbulicans – A Party Full of Charlie Sheens by Bill Egnor.
Probably a better metaphor than most. And where it leaves Obama is as the battered spouse and enabler of the crazed, addicted partner. “Most battered women report that they thought that the assaults would stop; unfortunately, studies show that the longer the women stay in the relationship the more likely they are to be seriously [...]
