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The choice for high capacity, non-polluting, National Park access
Because of the pollution and congestion that thousands of visiting cars create daily, our National Parks are seriously looking at eliminating automobiles entirely. Slow buses and even slower Light Rail systems are being explored. SkyTran Incorporated is proposing to install SkyTran Personalized MagLev Systems instead. SkyTran would have much higher capacity per day, would get visitors into the park much faster (from even more remote locations), would cost less initial capital to implement and much less per year to maintain. With SkyTran, all the automobile roads could eventually be removed and replanted. With SkyTran, many more visitors per year could now be transported in and out of the Parks with high speed efficiency to enjoy the natural beauty of the parks with no pollution whatsoever.
Half Dome, Yosemite National ParkEveryone would love a scenic backcountry SkyTran ride to the spectacular view at the top of Yosemite National Park's Half Dome (8,842 feet elevation). Buses or Light Rail could never accomplish such a transportation feat, but SkyTran could do it easily. This is because a SkyTran vehicle's total weight would not exceed 700 pounds, so a rather small 700 pounds of linear motor propulsion force could be used to provide the capability to climb straight up! Thus, there would be no concern whatsoever as to the maximum grade capability of SkyTran. For amusement purposes we could even provide an optional high speed descent "for the kids" straight down the face of Half Dome to the Valley floor some 4,800 feet below (a 480 story drop)! We could even add a 4-g pullout into two giant loops at the end? What a rush that would be!
National Park administrators should be challenged to select or design a transportation system for moving humans that would minimize intruding on both the natural beauty and wild life. Roads for buses or tracks for rail will not accomplish that goal. SkyTran's miniscule overhead monorail guideways, intermittent support poles and miniscule vehicles would be all but invisible. If we had the opportunity to install just one high capacity, high speed SkyTran transportation system in a National Park people would observe that the integrity of these national treasures was being maintained. Then people would finally understand that SkyTran systems in their own cities would mean true improvement and not just expensive, wasteful degradation.
