Time for podcars? N.Y. city wants to be first

Podcars typically run on an elevated guideway or rails, but they also can run at street level. As a starting point, pilot podcar networks can be built along existing infrastructure, supporters say.

Ithaca Mayor Carol Peterson said a podcar network could be part of her upstate city's long-range transportation plans and its mission of developing urban neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable and pedestrian-friendly. Ithaca has a long history of progressive achievements — this summer, it began the first community-wide car sharing program in upstate New York.

In Ithaca, a network could connect the downtown business district and main business boulevard with the campuses of Cornell University and Ithaca College, which sit on hillsides flanking the city. When the two colleges are in session, Ithaca's population balloons from about 30,000 to about 80,000, causing big-city congestion on the city's roads.

Santa Cruz, Calif., recently hired a contractor to design a small solar-powered podcar system that would loop through the city's downtown and along its beach front.

The Institute for Sustainable Transportation predicts a podcar system will be installed in an American city within the next five years, although it is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars. Because of the huge initial investment, funding would have to come from both public and private sectors, IST officials said.

The capital cost is about $25 million to $40 million per mile, which includes guideways, vehicles and stations, compared with $100 million to $300 million a mile for light-rail or subway systems, according to the IST.

Although the plan for Ithaca is only in the conceptual stages, Roberts sees the city as a logical place for the country's first community-wide podcar network, noting that construction of the Erie Canal across upstate New York in the early 1800s revolutionized commercial transportation in a young America.

"Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany are connected along a single line, the Erie Canal. Now, they are connected by the (New York State) Thruway. It would be easy to adapt. You could have a high-speed rail line, or even buses, deliver travelers to the podcar stations, and the podcars take them wherever they want to go in the city," he said.

But podcar developers say they have overcome most technological obstacles and now must overcome the political and cultural barriers that lie ahead, equating it to the mind-set revolution that occurred when Americans hitched up their horses for good to become a nation of motorists.

"We are introducing an alternative to the automobile for the first time in 100 years," said Christopher Perkins, chief executive officer of Unimodal Transport Solutions, a California company that builds podcars that operate on magnetic levitation instead of wheels.

"But if you look back 100 years, you saw that we made the transition from the horse to the car. I think we are ready to make another transition," he said.

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