How can SkyTran claim to be able to totally eliminate commuter congestion
in any city, let alone for the same costs of one linear line of light rail?

Sounds like a scam to me!

Again - SkyTran is all about Math, Physics and Costs! So here we go!

First of all what does "eliminate commuter congestion" mean. If it was so simple wouldn't the government and big industry be doing it already? Think of all the lost productivity of human brain power wasted annually in traffic congestion in the USA and all over the world. Think of the mental frustration. Think of all the pollution from cars idling in congested traffic that could be eliminated. Eliminating congestion - if possible- should be a national priority. Once you fully understand the physics, math and cost principals of SkyTran, spending billions of taxpayer's dollars annually in futile attempts to merely "reduce" congestion will seem extremely wasteful to you,

All it takes to totally eliminate commuter congestion is an integration of several of today's existing technologies and open mind. However, we must first understand the math, physics and costs of public transit and especially why the automobile has evolved into today's transit machine of choice.

We will leave the technical details involved till later and start by assuming we can make certain innovations happen (with simple rationales) and then IF these premises can indeed be made to work that - YES, commuter congestion can be totally eliminated in any city! The goal always has to be to do it for a reasonable investment - meaning for the same (or preferably less) amount of money being spent here and there in the USA to build useless, slow light rail systems (systems that must be subsidized heavily forever by all taxpayers and which at best only remove 1% of road traffic! Light rail systems absolutely do not solve any problems - they just burn taxpayer money!)

Premise #1. Assume we can build a system that can carry the equivalent of 6 freeway lanes of passengers for less than $2 million per mile (installed, complete with vehicles and all electrification).

Premise #2. Assume the system is automated and safer than any other form of transportation so that hundred's and hundred's of $50,000 salary drivers are NOT required. (Simultaneously, that eliminates the potential hassles caused by driver strikes!)

Premise #3. Assume the system does not require any acquisition of expensive Right-of-Ways. No demolition costs. No ground preparation costs.

WHAT LOGICALLY HAPPENS?

#1. First we must know what Light Rail costs, so we have a baseline for comparison. Current projections for light rail costs have jumped up to about $50 million to $100 million per mile from $35 million per mile that was average back in 1999.

#2. If you have a city that is roughly 20 miles wide by 30 miles long (like Orange County, California where I live), then the cost to build a single light rail down the 30 mile entire length would be $1.5 to $3 billion. (Several years ago, Orange County was trying to raise $1.8 billion to build a shorter 28 mile long system, which makes the $1.5 billion figure credible). Instead of 30 miles of light rail, that same $3 billion would be enough for us to build and install 1,500 miles of our assumed $2 million per mile system!

#3. Theoretically, we could then entirely cover that 20 mile by 30 mile county by installing 21 parallel lines, each a mile apart, that are 30 miles long down its length = 630 miles and then perpendicular to that install another 31 parallel lines, also each a mile apart, that are 20 miles long = 620 miles. The total would be 1250 total miles. (Yes, we would still have $500 million of the light rail budget remaining!!)

#4. The daily passenger mile capacity of this system is phenomenal! The calculation is based on CalTrans maximum measured 2,200 cars per lane per hour. At the accepted 1.2 passengers per car average then 6 lanes X 1.2 people per car X 2,200 cars per lane works out to be 15,840 passengers per hour per line. If the average person was making a 10 mile commute, this system could provide 1,080,000 such trips per hour. Orange County's population as of May 2007 was 3,098,121. The work force or people who commute is 1,627,000 of the total population (http://www.fullerton.edu/cdr/ocff.pdf ). So you can see that if every single worker quit driving, riding buses, cycling or walking to work that the ENTIRE work force could be carried to work in just 1 hour 30 minutes. This means the end of the 3 or 4 hour rush hour! (Note that the light rail proponents were expecting to get 38,000 riders per day!)

In a perhaps easier to understand graphical form:

Wait a second! I am totally confused.
How in the heck are you going to accomplish any of this this?

Very good question!
All skeptics (which should be all of you) please proceed to step two and take the
Quick SkyTran
Photo Tour

WARNING

Once you study and fully understand the SkyTran principles you will find yourself extremely frustrated whenever you find yourself driving in nasty traffic congestion. Our solution is that simple and logical.

It is sad because it seems that all the people occasionally stuck driving at 5 miles per hour during the freeway rush hours have become sheep. They just follow the crowd along meekly, instead of spending that time thinking about how to solve/eliminate the commuter congestion problem.

Worse, it seems the so called transportation experts gave up long time ago. Instead of using their brains to come up with low cost solutions, they expend huge mental effort to write long diatribes such as "Why Traffic is Here to Stay... and Will Get Worse". Written authoritatively by Anthony Downs, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC. Published in the Fall 2004 ACCESS by The University of California Transportation Center in Berkeley, CA www.uctc.net. Give me a break! An intelligent sheep telling everyone to accept being sheep. Yuk! Reminds me of throwing a live lobster in room temperature water and raising the temperature 1 degree at a time ever so slowly. Lobster never tries to climb out - happily gets boiled to death. A similar form of sheepism and an almost similar result.

by Douglas J. Malewicki, SkyTran Inventor & never a happy sheep.
Invention website: www.CanoSOARus.com