Manhattan of Texas
I'm always glad when someone decides to experiment. It's hard to break people out of any routine unless something catastrophic happens. In transportation, any new ideas are usually old ones, but I visited a place unique place Friday that tried something new that wasn't early century streetcars.. Las Colinas!
It's sort of like Disney World. or San Antonio gone to Disney World. or San Antonio and Disney World go to Venice!
There's a canal.
Restaurants, office buildings, apartments...
And best of all...
PRT! (Personal Rapid Transit)
You push a button and a voice behind the curtain speaks "2 minutes" and *poof!* a mini train appears. Ridership on the two lines is at about 45 persons/hour during the 4hours each weekday it is running, mostly serving the office lunch crowd.
Originally a ranch, when development was "inevitable," Las Colinas was master-planned in 1973 as a non-profit corporation. All of the property owners chip in for the PRT so it's free to riders. Unfortunately it hasn't been the success that was anticipated (note the lack of gondolas in the canal), but don't worry, according to an important Las Colinas guy: “I believe that Las Colinas will be fully built out in 20 years and will become the Manhattan of Texas."!!!
They're getting there.. just look at all those people!
posted by Spakalina @ 12:41 PM
3 Comments:
Not PRT, but an APM like at the airport. PRT is unbuilt and has never worked.
PRT is a subset of APM. APMs can be divided into PRT and non-PRT. What I rode here does not fit clearly in either category. Non-PRT APM uses a fixed schedule. What I rode in Las Colinas arrives on demand (you push a button and it comes). However, it is not clearly PRT either because it could hold maybe close to 20 people, whereas PRT is typically defined as carrying 1 to 6 passengers.
It sounds you're anti-PRT and trying to make sure nobody thinks PRT works? ;)
I still think it is PRT - it is on-demand for a certain location. It is just MEGA PRT...if we could get people to live and go to dense enough areas then maybe we could all sustain a system like this instead of the baby WVU prt. Since they are expecting to be the Manhattan of Texas then they will DEFINATELY need this capacity in the future.
"Personal" in this case means "up close and personal" with all the people crowded into the car.
Personally however, I prefer the "Personal, Rapid Tube" version of PRT...
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