Chinese Traffic-Straddling 'Bus' a Scam, Says Chinese State Media

"The internet loves the Transit Elevated Bus (TEB)," writes Sophie Weiner, but this week the Internet finally learned its lesson about the wonders of Facebook-friendly transit "innovations"—they work better on social media than they do in real life.

"This week, Jinchuang Corp, who produced the first model of the TEB, took it on a 'test run', producing a video that wowed viewers all over the world," writes Weiner. "There are just a few little problems with this amazing innovation." After listing a few of those problems, Weiner drops the summarizing bombshell: "Two Chinese state media outlets have claimed that the whole TEB project is actually a scam to extract funds from investors."

Angie Schmitt followed up on the news of the peak behind the curtain at the TEB, listing five reasons that no one should ever take the idea seriously, including:

• "It's a train, not a bus."
• "It only goes straight."
• "It can't run on streets with overpasses."

Those are three of the five reasons that were obvious even when the original rendering of the proposal began circulating the Internet, but here is one of the videos that reported the "news" of the test: