The Ron Paul of Transportation

Thinking people on both sides of the left-right puppet show agree that Ron Paul is a great choice. His fidelity to liberty and small government principles are second to none. Most would also agree that he has a real chance at winning, albeit a small one. Can those same attributes - personal liberty, small government, and a real chance to affect fundamental change - be applied to SkyTran as well?

UPDATE: The most thorough criticism of SkyTran that I was able to find is here. For every criticism offered I was able to immediately think of at least one feasible response, so it seems that there is plenty of Kool-Aid, as it were, sloshing around on both sides. A common allegation is that SkyTran and other PRT projects are funded by the highway/automobile industry to disparage Light Rail, which is ironic considering the best criticism of PRT that I could find was at "lightrailnow.com."

And WTF still has yet to offer his second two-cents, his first two-cents being more like two pesos.

While Ron Paul is the only candidate in the race who actually exercises his office and campaigns on principles in line with the Constitution which grants him his authority, he is scorned and derided by those who enjoy the Constitution's freedoms - and apparently enjoy watching them eroded until they are dead letters or enforced on brown people at gunpoint. While my hometown of Phoenix spends billions to tear up its central thoroughfares to install an aerodynamic streetcar with a dizzying average speed of 17 mph, SkyTran is being mocked by those who sit in their cars or buses for hours each day, eagerly awaiting the day that light rail reaches them.

The benefits and advantages of SkyTran are enormous. The infrastructure costs as much to install as street lamps, a microscopic fraction of that required for constructing freeways or retrofitting existing roads to carry light rail. Its footprint is also similar to that of street lamps. The low cost alone is conducive to little or no government involvement. The speeds reach 100 mph within cities, 150 mph between them (faster than commercial flights at distances of 600 miles or less, when all the time wasted on the ground is factored in). There is virtually no potential for congestion. It provides as much privacy, if not more, than an automobile. There is hardly any noise. It is equally applicable in rural/intercity areas, suburbs, and urban cores. And perhaps most importantly for the libertarian-conservative-neoconservative crowd who tend to pride themselves on their automobiles, those classic American expressions of individualism and symbols of material success (if you buy into all that), there is potential for private, individual ownership* of the unit.

See for yourself: http://www.skytran.net

I'm not advocating abolishing the automobile. SkyTran simply has the potential to drastically lessen congestion, traffic accidents, dependence on foreign energy sources, dependence on Homeland Security and the TSA to make us feel "safe," and materially decrease pollution in cities (noise, air, aesthetic).  Of course, since it's fundamentally different from the status quo, it's laughed at and derided as a pipe dream by those most in need of its benefits. Sounds enough like Ron Paul to me.

JMM

* I don't believe they advertise the potential for individual ownership, but from what I can see it would be a real possibility.

Comments

[WTF]

Man, you've overdosed on Kool-aid

[JMM]

Well, tell me why, oh non-KoolAid drinker. Or is that all you have?

[Josh Montagnini]

Still waiting...

Seriously, I'm open to being convinced that it's a bad idea or won't work. I simply haven't heard any valid arguments against it.