political action on behalf of innovative transportation R&D

[Bruce A. McHenry]

By being fragmented, the community of transportation innovators is all too easily dismissed.  We are too busy cutting each other up and spending very little time and effort to speak with one voice.  Would it be possible to get all of the PRT innovators together and not attack each other designs?  Would it be possible for the PRT & dual-mode folks to promote, or at least not attack and dismiss, car and ride sharing, electric cars, powered roads and car-trains?

While the most successful of us scrounge for a million here or there, the government is giving away and guaranteeing tens of billions of dollars to Detroit and to High Speed Rail.  We should all be outraged about this and find common cause.

For all the talk from this administration about supporting technological innovation, has there been any actual support for innovative ideas?  I have not seen any.  Why doesn't this community rise up in a chorus to protest not just the inequity but also the hollow promises and the foreclosing on the future of the nation?

Bruce McHenry

[rober...@aol.com]

Bruce, although we here at Tubular Rail are not involved in the relative merits of PRT vs Dualmode, we do share the outlier position and philosophy.  I personally have been in touch with Jerry Roane and Jay Andress as well as meeting with Roy Reynolds out in LA.  Although I agree with you desire to see innovators speak with a united voice I think it would be wise to identify to whom you want to speak and why. 

 

The subject of course is clear, money.

 

We would be willing to participate and sign a well crafted letter to this end.  I would suggest to start with Congessman Wu of Oregon who heads an Innovation subcommittee. His staffer is a Nils Tilstrom in Washington DC. 

 

Regards,

Robert Pulliam

Tubular Rail Inc.

Houston TX

www.tubularrail.com

[Michael Weidler]

Bruce, We can shout with one voice til we're hoarse and no one is going to hear us because there are only 130 of us in ATRA. Add the vendors on this egroup who are not currently members of ATRA and we go all the way up to 136. Not exactly a major voting block.

--- On Mon, 8/24/09, Bruce A. McHenry <br...@discussit.org> wrote:

From: Bruce A. McHenry <br...@discussit.org> Subject: [t-i] political action on behalf of innovative transportation R&D

[Jerry Roane]

Bruce

Plenty of outrage but no outlet.  Lots of frustration but no brick wall to bang my head against.  I spent my own money traveling to Washington DC for that innovation job Jerry S. posted only to get the turn down letter months later saying they never even filled the position.  Plenty of false hope.  Plenty of being jerked around.  Plenty getting standing ovations at conventions only to have NOTHING happen.  Plenty of researchers asking me for free work for their report who's last paragraph simply asks that more research be funded. 

As for discussions about various approaches I think most of those discussions are net positive.  If we hold back the negatives they will be shown in a more public form later so it is probably better to talk through them now.  Every technology has good and not as good points and constructive criticism allows us to tweak our presentations to avoid embarrassment.  My feeling is that each of the opportunities has a time window where it might have a positive contribution.  I have a harder time respecting solutions that were tried and have failed like car pool cheer leading ride the bus on ozone days etc.  I think that any solution that would result in unsafe operation either from strangers or car bumpers needs to have the weaknesses addressed so the public is not subjected to danger.  This forum I think does a decent job of discussing topics.  Occasionally we get a stuck record going but not too bad.  I hope our total message is one of let's do this thing. 

Reading LaHood's statements are very discouraging.  I cannot figure out where he is coming from.  I can only guess he rode a train in Europe and fell in love.  I have seen nothing from his press that indicates he is going to address traffic for everyman.  I don't have a chorus just a solo. 

As for funding we can bootstrap if we have to but a 130 mpg car will get here faster if they help rather than hinder our progress.  So far all the grants and requests for information and proposals have been a total waste of my resources.  Each grant program manager along the way telling us that we have a shot when all they are doing is getting numbers of proposers and giving out the grant money to the biggest corporations that sign up.  If they are not interested in funding why do they have us waste valuable resources begging, pleading and filling out books of forms?  No is not that hard of a word to say. 

Jerry Roane

[Dennis Manning]

Looking at Wu's web site gives the sense that "innovation" to his sub-committee still means innovation within the existing systems.

 

Dennis  

[Jerry Schneider]

At 05:48 PM 8/24/2009, you wrote:
>
>We would be willing to participate and sign a well crafted letter to
>this end. I would suggest to start with Congessman Wu of Oregon who
>heads an Innovation subcommittee. His staffer is a Nils Tilstrom in
>Washington DC.

Been there, done that - absolutely zero response. If at first you
don't succeed ...

>
>Regards,
>Robert Pulliam
>Tubular Rail Inc.
>Houston TX

><http://www.tubularrail.com>www.tubularrail.com

[Jay Andress]

  I met with Nils in April (Congressman Wu is from Portland...so Jerry S helped with a contact). He is very smart and familiar with transportation. I don't think getting abrasive with him will help. But I think that this group needs to develop an active lobbying effort (meet with Nils and others in Washington DC). Apparently some HSR folks got to Senator Obama a number of years ago.

  Lobbying is very easy if you know a few tricks. I am actually working with several others (several active in this group) to develop a lobbying effort. At this point it is a little bit premature to discuss it.
  If some of you want to play a part in our effort please let me know.

 

                                                                        Jay

--
new contact info: jay.a...@monomobile.com

[Kirston Henderson]

Bruce,

   I find myself in full agreement which is pretty easy because we are working to develop and market all of the various types of vehicles that you mentioned plus some that you did not mention.  Unfortunately, I suspect that is unlikely that you will find many others in this mode.

   From the standpoint of our own company, we have steadfastly refused to consider any involvement by the Federal Government, because of the all of the red tape and strings that come attached to any funds from the Feds.  (I know this well from many years of working on aircraft related programs and R&D programs with the government.)  The only possible exception is that if the Feds made a grant to some state or local agency that did not pass on the usual strings and red tape to suppliers, we might be interested.  I recently spent about 45-minutes with our local congressional representative who is on the House Appropriations Committee and explained this position very clearly.  We did suggest, during that meeting that some sort of grant of this nature to TxDoT to fund a full-up demonstration of one our systems could be a sound investment on the part of the government, especially when TxDoT is in the process of trying to find means to do such a demonstration.  I don't know if the presentation will have any effect or not.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Dennis Manning]

Jay and Bruce Henry have hit on a vital point. It concerns how PRT advocates can press for funding in the next 6 year transportaion funding reauthorization legislation (damn I wish they would put a name on it. CLEAN-TEA has been suggested). SAFETEA-LU as the last one was called was an abomination.

 

This is the big wazoo. It's where if PRT lobbying can be successful we can pinch off just a tiny piece of the projected $500b package for transportation to go for PRT it will be the lift we need. 

 

I don't know the lobbying game, but it seems to me one key is in getting to Jim Oberstar. He knows PRT. He is the most powerful person in the House on transportation matters. 

 

I'm fairly certain that a strong lobbying effort for PRT will be launched by all the interests in PRT in the Silicon Valley. What I'm grappling with is how ATRA or anyone else on this ti-list could boost the lobbying efforts.  

 

Dennis

 

  

----- Original Message -----

From: Jay Andress

To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

[Jack Slade]

There is another way to try for political recognition.  There are very influential people who are not currently in Office who have extreme influence, and may be easier to reach. Some of them may be elected, or try, in the future.   I refer to people like Clinton, Gore, Gingrich, and some of the other people who have been in recent political arenas. Most have websites, some are active with causes or looking for one....Gore will look at anything that eases Global Warming, for instance.  All of them have influence, and may be far easier to reach than the people currently holding Official Positions.   Has anybody except me tried to get through to any of them?   Jack Slade

--- On Tue, 8/25/09, Bruce A. McHenry <br...@discussit.org> wrote:

From: Bruce A. McHenry <br...@discussit.org>

[Jerry Roane]

Jack

I wrote a long letter to Al Gore's TV network he had on cable for a while when they were starting up.  I gave them the whole pitch but they wanted me to hop through more hoops and create more footage to be considered on their network and it dropped off.  There was a guy here in Austin who was made president of ATI (Austin Technology Incubator) and he managed to screw me around for the year or so he had that stepping stone title before he went off to work for Al Gore.  His borrowed office is at NREL right now.  He was only interested in social climbing not so much in doing his job of promoting technology out of UT Austin. 

I think you have a valid thought to talk to those who are humbled in the process and might have time to think about our solutions.

Jerry Roane

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 2:57 AM, Jack Slade <skytr...@rogers.com> wrote:

snip

[rober...@aol.com]

I do notice that those commenting on this thread seem to want to only focus on PRT type systems. Sucessful coalitions tend to be broad based. That said a direct approach to government may not be the best approach.  The effort may have to lobby the lobbyist. i.e. a cooperative approach to the Sierra Club types which has many local and state chapters.  This is just some back of the envelope thilnking before my first cup of coffee. 

rp

[Michael Weidler]

Robert, It helps to have an organization before you try to create a coalition. If your suggestion is that ATRA should be forging relationships with other organizations, I agree. The problem is that ATRA doesn't have a whole lot in the way of members - a little over 130 at last count. And these members do not appear to have a whole lot in the way of money or personal clout, so why would any other organization want to align with ATRA? I think one of the things ATRA needs to do is have a membership drive. One very good target would be college age people. The ATRA web site probably needs a make-over before we launch this drive. We need to tie "Advanced Transit" into environmentalism and global warming for starters. It would probably also help to have a definition of "Advanced Transit". At the moment, advanced transit seems to include anything which might possibly be an improvement over current practices - regardless of how idiotic the idea. For instance, HSR can easily be considered advanced transit. ATRA started out as SM PRT. It has expanded to include DM PRT. The question becomes just how far afield from SM PRT do we want to go? What are our goals? To improve public transit? To electrify transportation? To reduce congestion? To reduce CO2 emmissions? --- On Tue, 8/25/09, rober...@aol.com <rober...@aol.com> wrote:

[Jack Slade]

I may be wrong (as usual) but I think some of the members of the Sierra Club are on this list. If so, I havent seen any indication that they are trying to hep us. What can we do to change this?   Jack Slade

--- On Tue, 8/25/09, rober...@aol.com <rober...@aol.com> wrote:

From: rober...@aol.com <rober...@aol.com> Subject: [t-i] Re: political action on behalf of innovative transportation R&D

[Kirston Henderson]

on 8/25/09 10:58 PM, Michael Weidler at pstr...@yahoo.com wrote:

> ATRA started out as SM PRT. It has expanded to include DM PRT. The question
> becomes just how far afield from SM PRT do we want to go? What are our goals?
> To improve public transit? To electrify transportation? To reduce congestion?
> To reduce CO2 emmissions?

Since it appears to have never left that original purpose, I suggest a
name change to make it clear that it is a PRT only organization. I was
deceived by the ATRA name for a while, but finally dropped my own membership
after realizing that PRT was the primary objective of the organization. It
became obvious that I simply did not fit into the organization.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jay Andress]

Michael,

 

  Actually you may be surprised but there is actually some work going on behind the scenes at ATRA and elsewhere on some of these issues. Bob Dunning,  who is at work right now, may be able to comment further when he is available.

  There is an effort that has been going on for about two months to redesign the website. There is a small group of people, including myself, Ian, Bob, from ATRA working on this project. If there are some website designers/graphic designers in this group who are willing to give us some advice that would be great. You can contact me and we can add you to our small group.

  I would be in favor of a membership drive for ATRA, but that is someone else's decision. That would require a small dedicated group. I have noticed that there is incredible passion among the younger generation (listening to my daughters) about global warming. There is also passion about oil independence. A group such as ATRA that offers the technological answers to that passion could get lots of attention.
  Concerning ATRA being just PRT, there has been some movement on that issue as well. They actually have taken some recent tentative steps to add DM. Personally I would like it expanded to include many forms of electric rail transportation. Again that is not really my call.

   There are so many opportunities right now. I am surprised that some of the technologies discussed by this group have gotten no government support or research dollars. I was very disappointed that( just announced last week),most of the dollars for electric cars went to the very big automakers and to build mostly lithium batteries. I saw nothing in the way of outside the box thinking. The sooner this group is heard the better.

 

                                                                               Jay