San Jose is considering a personal rapid transit system for the airport, throwing $4 million at a feasibility study for the "pod cars."
San Jose will also host an international PRT conference in October.
Gary Richards writes, "The future of other forms of transit also may come into play. Caltrain threatens huge cuts in service unless new funding can be found, and light-rail ridership has been hammered by the down economy.
But the momentum behind pod cars is clear. A company called Unimodal Systems will begin testing a pod-car system it calls SkyTran at NASA in Mountain View in two to three years."
One of the benefits touted in the article is a considerably cheaper price tag than light rail- promoters are saying PRT can be built for $10 million per mile instead of the $100 million per mile light rail can cost.
FULL STORY: Airport planners look to a futuristic transit solution: 'pod cars'
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research