Post by Steven Dale
A thought experiment:
Imagine if we created financial incentives for people to experiment professionally with transit?
For example: What if, for a transit agency to receive federal/state/provincial funding they had to dedicate at least 5% of their total annual budget to research and development?
How would that change things?
My recent flaying at the hands of the PRT community got me thinking about this. While I may disagree with the logic of PRT, but I’m pleased the industry continues with their somewhat quixotic quest. Their dedication to an ideal and their perseverance to doggedly pursue it is admirable.
The fundamental beauty of what the PRT community represents is a willingness to experiment and take risks. Whatever your position on PRT, you have to admit, these are a group of people with guts.
Generally speaking, transit doesn’t have those guts. And maybe it needs it.
In the last 100 years, we’ve basically seen no risk-taking and innovation limited risk-taking and innovation in transit and we’ve been left with the results of that neglect. Sure there’s been the occasional BRT or LRT, but those are just standard technologies put in their own rights-of-way. Most innovations have come in things like ticketing and fares.
Don’t even get me started on monorails.
We need a culture of transit that privileges – nay, expects – experimentation, innovation and invention because the status quo just isn’t working too well anymore. That doesn’t mean taking reckless risks, especially when it may endanger people’s lives, but it does mean we can’t change things for the better using the same techniques that got us to where we currently are.
We may laugh at things like the Chinese Tunnel Bus™ but what if it actually works?
Yes research, development and experimentation is expensive and the fruits of it somewhat elusive. But it is something that successful companies (whether public or otherwise) commit to. There’s a reason things like auto show concept cars and haute couture fashion exist.
Maybe no one’s ever going to wear a dress made of meat or drive a shape-shifting sports car, but the ideas and discussions those things provoke go on to challenge and influence our preconceived notions of the world around us. They inspire us to dream a little higher and a little better.
When was the last time we saw a high concept tram? A bus made of paper? A flying subway? All ridiculous, of course. But that’s partly the point.
There’s a reason PRT continues to hang around: It inspires us to imagine public transit better than what it currently is.
Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.
Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.