Personal Rapid Transit Will Never Happen

Randal O'Toole offers his perspective on why Personal Rapid Transit will never happen -- and how it will happenif it does.

1 minute read

October 20, 2003, 11:00 AM PDT

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"PRT is a dream of combining the convenience of the automobile with the mass production of transit. Four-passenger cars would run on fixed guideways elevated above the ground that would blanket an urban area on a grid. You go to a station that is no more than a couple of blocks from your home, get on the next empty car, punch in your destination, and the computer-controlled car will whisk you there at 70 miles per hour... We already have a personal-rapid transit system. It is called the automobile. The cost of building a parallel system will be huge, and until that system covers an entire urban area, few people will use it."

Thanks to Chris Steins

Friday, October 17, 2003 in The Thoreau Institute

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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