PRT systems that are well-designed are not the same size as cars, they are smaller. They are also lighter than even a car of the same size because they carry neither fuel nor batteries but run on an electrified guideway. The switch patent I posted before shows a wheel and guideway design that results in much lower rolling resistance than does a simple tire-on-roadway design, further increasing efficiency. Also, much of the bulk of automobiles is for safety reasons, but the risk of impact is much much lower for PRT (the risk of head-on impact is essentially zero, for example, and the risk of a side collision is exactly zero), and since all vehicles are equally lightweight to begin with, there is not the same degree of danger as there is for, say, an SUV impacting a compact car.

“PRT means grade separated infrastructure which is tunnel, open cut or elevated.”

Yes.

“If elevated the line will have to be 15 – 20 feet off the ground.”

Yes, but this can be done relatively cheaply with small and lightweight vehicles (on the order of a few tens of millions per mile).

“There will have to be storage tracks for at least some of the stations.”

Trains require storage yards as well, as do automobiles. But because PRT vehicles are shared throughout the day, unlike private automobiles, you need fewer PRT “parking spaces” than you do automobile parking spaces (some estimates are around 1/10 as many), and spaces can be smaller because the vehicles are smaller and do not need room for access by humans while they’re parked in storage. And since average speeds are higher than conventional rail, and total capacity needed for a given throughput is inversely related to average speed, you need less total capacity for PRT than you do for rail.

By the way, the reason PRT vehicles are as large as they are is for ADA compliance, which means being able to fit a wheelchair facing forward in every single vehicle. If this requirement were relaxed so that only a certain percent of all vehicles needed to be ADA compliant (which would be much more in line with the wheelchair-accessible capacity requirements of conventional transit systems), then the average vehicle size could be much smaller.

“As someone who keeps up with transit world-wide, I have yet to read of such a system being implemented other than some airport systems.”

There was no sustained manned heavier-than-air flight before Orville and Wilbur.

“I would be happy if PRT was workable because it would be a nice transition from car ownership and having to drive.”

Me too.

“I suspect that a normal car version of KITT of Knight Rider fame would actually be more feasible although I am not expecting wide scale implementation of that in the next 30 years.”

There are many advocates for driverless cars. I’m not sure why you think they are more feasible, as it’s much easier to control a vehicle in one spatial dimension when the environment is highly controlled, as it is in PRT, than it is to control a vehicle in two spatial dimensions when the environment is much more unpredictable, especially if you plan on allowing these vehicles to operate alongside human-driven vehicles. The AI technology which is necessary for, for example, allowing such vehicles in an urban setting with a high degree of reliability and safety is indeed years and possibly decades off. Finally, driverless vehicles still lack most of the efficiency and travel time improvements that PRT provides, as the vehicles will still be heavier than necessary and be operating on the same congested roads that we drive on today. The control systems needed for PRT are comparatively simple, especially for vehicle control which consists of little more than acceleration, deceleration, detecting obstructions (already deployed in commercial automobiles today) and communicating with regional and central control systems. All the technology necessary for PRT, hardware and software, exists already. It’s just a matter of putting it together and testing it.

The vehicles are ADA compliant, stations are monitored by remote video (or by on-scene private or public security if you so choose), stations are located wherever is convenient and cost-effective. I don’t know the exact switch response time but multiple demonstration systems have been built that seem to have no problem switching reliably (here and here, for example). The switching mechanism is on the vehicles rather than in the track, if you were wondering. All this info is at the website I linked to, and lots of technical documentation is available here. Believe it or not there has actually been a lot of thought put into the issues you raised and many others in the forty or so years PRT has been in development. The video at prtinternational.com is a good overview of both rationale and technical aspects, and you can contact them directly if you have more questions.

The rationale in a nutshell: cars are bad for a variety of reasons, but people often prefer driving to public transit because it is faster and more convenient. If however we are able to provide a public transit system that is as convenient as the car but still as efficient and environmentally friendly as conventional transit, then we’ve really got something good. PRT attempts to do just that.

Keep fighting the good fight, TSTC.

As to the SLAPP suit, if the TSTC can show that the authority did not follow appropriate state and federal rules, the SLAPP should get the heave-ho. If the authority followed the rules and gave a defensible response to objections, then the TSTC is in trouble. Personally, I believe that expanding rail capacity (BUT NOT THE Trans Hudson Tunnel as currently designed) is the far better public investment. Note both expansions I mentioned may run out of capacity within a projected period but that is not a reason to oppose them. One good reason to oppose either might be the strain they would put on other components of the system such as feeder roads to the Turnpike and Parkway.