Quote:
Originally Posted by electricron
Thanks for the heads up, although it would of helped if you had referred to his ODU project instead of Norfolk in the first place. 
It's one thing for Universities and other private investors to invest and sink money into research, it's another to expect cities to do so. |
^My bad. I thought this guy was well known. Nevertheless, if he couldn't deliver one mile of workable track what makes anyone believe he's going to follow through on a 15 mile system and operate it as an important piece of a public transit network? What happens if there are glitches, he runs out of money, or other's don't buy into his idea? Does he shut the Orlando demonstration line down? Does it end up as ODU part II? If he decides to sell, who really wants to deal with a proprietary maglev system with non-standard track, trains, and parts that only achieves a top operating speed of 50mph?
I'm one of the biggest rail fans around but if that's my only option for fixed transit, I'll take a shuttle bus or a cheap form of BRT and call it a day. Btw, glad to see another AAF update. Now that's a privately funded transit project that makes sense.