A few weeks ago, the state of New Jersey appropriated $75,000 to study the development of a personal rapid transit system for Long Branch, a shore town just south of New York City. If PRT projects elsewhere are a sign of things to come, it's the beginning of an epic boondoggle.

As described by its promoters, PRT is a computerized, driverless mass transit system. The passenger enters a sleek, four-person pod that is guaranteed to be waiting at the station, swipes a fare card, punches in a destination and goes. The pods run on a web of elevated tracks 16 feet above street level with stations every two or three blocks apart. PRT advocates promise transportation with no wait, no traffic and no smelly strangers.

In theory. In practice PRT has never worked anywhere despite 30 years of study and development. Combining the small carrying capacity of an automobile with the expensive infrastructure of mass transit, PRT offers the worst of both worlds. If you want to see what it looks like, watch The Incredibles. In the movie, the evil villain's henchmen travel about their volcanic- island lair in pods that look remarkably similar to the system SkyWeb Express is selling to New Jersey.

It's fitting that a cartoon villain should choose PRT as his ride of choice. Though it all sounds very gee-whiz innocent, PRT is a major scam. In Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Seattle, Chicago and elsewhere, PRT has burned through tens of millions of dollars of public and private investment. The only tangible result has been to clear the way for highway construction and make legitimate mass transit projects more difficult to build. In at least a few cases, after finally running PRT out of town, citizens learned that the public officials most enthusiastic about PRT had financial stakes in the companies developing it.

There are signs that all of this is now underway across the river. PRT advocates expect to wring another $1,000,000 out of the New Jersey legislatures shortly. They dream of a pod network stretching from Atlantic City to the misbegotten Xanadu sports and entertainment complex at the Meadowlands.

The PRT craze is a clear sign that an endgame is underway. Suburban Americans are waking up to the fact that their car-based lifestyle is broken and unsustainable. They are starting to look for solutions, but their vision is limited by an "autonomist" ideology that places personal convenience above all else, no matter what the cost. Rather than looking at transportation options that we know work (PRT gurus derisively refer to the train as a "19th-century technology"), Americans are looking for a high-tech miracle to save them from the rough road that is so clearly ahead. PRT ain't it.


3:35 PM | Link | (2) comments   

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote that the dominant media environment is invisible to people just as water is imperceptible to fish. Likewise, car culture is invisible to the vast majority of Americans. We are too immersed in stalled traffic, alienating suburban sprawl, and an endless barrage of expensive ads to really see what our environment has become.

New York City is different. It's the only place in the nation where car owners are the minority and motor vehicles operate as a hostile, invasive species. Like the horn of a Ford Crown Vic blasting you out of your shoe leather, it has always been the case that, in New York, the extremes of car culture are more jarring than just about anywhere else.

Lately, these extremes are ratcheting up to a new level. In the face of mounting evidence that the American motoring habit is one of the most destructive forces on the planet today, we seem to be working overtime to convince ourselves it’s all OK. Rather than face facts and fix problems, we're desparate to move one more sports ute off the showroom floor before the whole thing falls apart. In the process, American car culture is moving to a place of relentless absurdity, so far beyond the realm of irony that it has become the very parody of itself. Evidence:

Exhibit A: The magazine ad for the Lincoln Aviator that has been running in high-brow magazines for months, starts with a bio of "Carlos," the classic New York City bike messenger. It goes on to compare the cyclist, "nimble, alert, and able to anticipate" to Lincoln’s 3-ton, 16-foot, 13 m.p.g. urban artery clogger. Like Carlos on his bike, the Aviator maneuvers by "by reflex and bursts of acceleration. It’s a constant adrenaline rush."

Exhibit B: On December 2, a few days after hundreds of heavily-equipped police decimated November's Critical Mass bike ride, midtown traffic ground to a halt for a NASCAR rally in Times Square. After revving engines, squealing tires, spewing noxious crap, and taking a spin around the neighborhood, 2003 champion Matt Kenseth noted, "That was pretty amazing to be able to shut down the city like that. I don't think traffic will be the same all day."

Exhibit C: The proliferation of gigantic, grotesque vehicles with magnetized "support the troops" ribbons stuck to their rear-ends.

The ribbons in particular are either so brazen or so clueless, they raise some obvious questions. Do Americans not see the link between their plush-bucket-seat-lifestyle and the necessity of a massive military presence alongside our Middle East gas station? Or do we understand the connection perfectly and have simply decided that blood for oil is a pretty good deal? After all, if Air Force aviators make it possible to cruise the city with eight cup-holders and a porn video playing in the dashboard of a Lincoln Aviator, the least we can do is slap a yellow magnet on the back and say, "Thanks, troops."


11:20 PM | Link | (6) comments   

A UFO from Planet Sprawl is about to land on Park Slope, Brooklyn. No, I'm not talking about Frank Gehry's torqued, titanium basketball arena. It's a smaller project, though still a neat microcosm of the development issues roiling Brooklyn these days. In January, Commerce Bank breaks ground on a new "store" at 5th Avenue and 1st Street.

"America's Most Convenient Bank" is the quintessential corporate steamroller with a cancerous business plan. By 2009 the bank plans to have grown from 300 branches and $30 billion assets to 700 branches and $104 billion."

Vernon Hill, the bank's president, is part owner of 45 Burger Kings in the Philadelphia area and looks to the fast food business and retail giants like Home Depot, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart as the models for his banking business. For this, he is lionized as a major innovator.

The Park Slope branch will cover more than three-quarters of a block and look exactly like a branch you'd find in a New Jersey strip mall. A one-story industrial box surrounded by asphalt and dotted with shrubbery, it will blare its presence via a giant, illuminated plastic sign on a steel pole. Most unusual for a thriving, pedestrian shopping street, the bank will offer three "convenient drive-thru" lanes. Very convenient. If you're in a car.

Unlike the century-old buildings that line 5th Ave., this building, with its glass panels, white brick and metallic roof, is unlikely to last any longer than the bank's 20-year lease on the lot. Unlike the solid, high-ceiling banks of old, Commerce Bank gives the impression that it is just passing through, sucking assets out of the community as efficiently as possible, like a motorist in a drive-thru on his way to somewhere else.

The building is not just an issue of esthetics or style. It's an issue of public safety, urban environment and, ultimately, integrity. Fifth Ave. supports a bus line, bike lanes, many delivery trucks and an ever-increasing volume of motor-vehicle traffic. Primarily, though, 5th Ave. is a pedestrian shopping corridor. It is a genuine, functioning Main St., the likes of which have mostly been obliterated in much of the rest of the country.

The economic vitality of the local merchants and the quality of life of the neighborhoods surrounding 5th Ave. depend upon the safety and convenience of pedestrians. By encouraging motorists to detour into the neighborhood and then drive across a busy sidewalk, Vernon Hill's drive-thru will, without question, create greater traffic congestion and, all too likely, get someone hurt or killed.

Now that Brooklyn is hot property, big corporations, developers and retailers want in. That's fine as long as everyone remembers that places like 5th Ave. were resuscitated by moms 'n' pops. If left to their own devices, outfits like Commerce Bank will happily turn New York City into an unlivable, car-choked, drive-thru wasteland. That is what they've done to much of the rest of America. Now they want to do that here as well. How convenient.


3:06 PM | Link | (12) comments