With its rolling hills, scenic waterfalls and ecologically minded college students, this Finger Lakes city can sometimes seem a green oasis.
Until you sit in traffic. Then it seems like Washington, minus the politicians.
“There are tons of commuters,” said Jacob Roberts, who rides a bicycle to avoid tie-ups and save money. “At 8:30am and 5:30pm, it’s bumper to bumper.”
ILLUSTRATION: YUSHA
Roberts is president of Connect Ithaca, a volunteer group that works on community issues like sprawl, and the heavy traffic is one reason he was hooked when he heard about the next generation of automotive technology — personal rapid transit, more commonly known as pod cars.
“I thought, this is cool,” he said.
Roberts was so intrigued that he flew to Sweden last year to persuade industry leaders to consider Ithaca in their search for cities in the US to test pod car systems. Last week, a group of urban planners, engineers and energy experts held a conference at Cornell University here to explore the idea.
The first step was telling people what pod cars are.
“I say: The Jetsons and everyone recognizes that,” said Phyllisa DeSarno, the deputy director of economic development for the city of Ithaca.
Well, not exactly. George Jetson piloted something that looked like a hybrid of a flying saucer and a car. Pod cars are computer-driven electric vehicles that run on a monorail-like loop, usually suspended above roads, with stops at major destinations.
The power source varies from system to system; sometimes the cars carry batteries, and sometimes the power is in the guideway. At each station, commuters can summon the car like an elevator, then type in their destination. The cars vary in size but hold an average of four people, and might cost users between US$0.50 and US$1.50 per trip. Because pod cars are lightweight and do not make unnecessary stops, they are more energy-efficient than cars and mass-transit systems like buses.
The conference organizer, Christer Lindstrom, said a pod car system was being tested for Heathrow Airport in London and Hofors, an industrial town in Sweden. One could be installed in a US city within the next five years, he said.
“The US, of all countries in the world, really needs it, because its dependency on fossil fuels is alarming,” said Lindstrom, the founder of the Institute for Sustainable Transportation in Sweden, a pod car information center.
Industry experts say pod car systems are cheaper to build than light rail and subway systems; they also reduce the need for parking spaces, have fewer accidents and release no emissions. And the car gives users more security and privacy than a subway car or bus.
Pod cars have their detractors, mainly light-rail advocates, who find the systems ugly and impractical, given the extensive guideways required.
Bringing such a system to Ithaca would be no small project. Getting it up and running would cost about US$100 million and would require funds from a variety of sources, including the federal government, research grants and private investment.
But the biggest obstacles in any test city would be public awareness and political will, several experts at the conference said. For the plan to succeed here, Cornell, Ithaca College, the City of Ithaca and other interested parties would all have to agree to let their land be used for the public-private venture.
“I think all of the major players were at the conference with their ears wide open,” Roberts said. “They said they are very interested and looking forward to learning more.”
His group, Connect Ithaca, is applying for a US$75,000 grant from the State Energy Research and Development Authority to study how a pod car system could reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled in Ithaca. Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson said city officials would wait for the study’s findings before going any further.
For pod car developers, the city has many advantages.
“It’s a very progressive, forward-thinking, educated place,” Lindstrom said.
Just last week, Cornell announced it was in the process of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by almost one-third.
Ithaca’s changeable weather is an advantage for selecting the city as a test site, at least from the developers’ point of view.
“You want to know how the track is going to work when there’s snow, sleet and ice,” Roberts said. “You want to know what happens when it’s fall and wet leaves are on the track.”
Most important, Ithaca has the traffic to benefit from such a system. Cornell has more than 30,000 students, faculty and staff members, and Ithaca has about the same number of residents.
“I do think it would make a big difference,” said Jake Lewis, 21, a Cornell senior who works in an information booth, helping drivers navigate the campus. “Parking on the central campus, where most of the academic buildings are, is next to impossible.”
The only other cities in the US being considered as test sites are in California, industry leaders said. Developers are also considering small pod car systems for smaller applications like shuttling people from hotels to airports, said Peter Muller, president of PRT Consulting in Franktown, Colorado.
Earlier versions of the technology exist in a handful of places in the US. One was built at West Virginia University in Morgantown in the late 1970s.
At the time, federal transportation officials considered it a difficult and expensive project, said Christopher Perkins, chief executive of UniModal Transport Solutions, a pod car developer in Irvine, California, who was at last week’s conference.
“People thought it wasn’t going to work,” he said.
But it still operates today, transporting 16,000 passengers a day and has never experienced a major accident, Perkins said.
“It’s had an astonishing success,” he said. “But it’s taken us 30 years to recognize that.”
The pod car will not replace the automobile, Muller said, but it could greatly reduce the number of trips.
“I don’t think any of us are going to say that cars are going away altogether,” he said. “But it could turn America into a one-car country.”
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