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Monday, April 18, 2005

Light Rail vs Personal Rail vs Air Scooter

In light of my previous post on Light Rail vs Personal Rail transport, Sunday's 60 Minutes piece on personal air transport provides some additional interesting context. (If you didn't get a chance to see it, visualize GyroMan from Road Warrior. If you didn't see that either, look in the back pages of 20-year-old Popular Science magazines for the gimmick) I found it strange that CBS reporter Bob Simon basically went gaga over the technology without asking the obvious questions on gas mileage, range, etc. And true to form, the local right-wing radio meatstick also went hyper over the units this morning, sounding almost willing to fork over the funds right then and there. But in actuality, Mr. Meatstick had really no intention of purchasing an AirScooter, as he launched into an attack on all conventional forms of mass transit, claiming them all 19th antiques or some such nonsense.

This follows the premise of misdirection that I pointed out in the previous post. The Air Scooter will become the new Personal Rail; a convenient right-wing excuse to continue defunding Amtrak, Light Rail, and any other workable idea.


From The Times (of England) 80% of traffic in the inner city consists of people looking for parking spots. Instead of endlessly cruising around the block, maybe we should start worry about excess hovering activity in our future.

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