Rail is hard to steal because it is hard and heavy. Look at the price of small sections used for anvils. It was a shock for me.

I participated in a exploration of PRT that was done by someone at University of Washington a few decades ago. One of the things discussed was the comparison of travel times between slow PRT and fast light rail. It doesn’t take many 60-90 second stops to really slow your average speed.

It’s kinda like that brain teaser: If a race car does the first lap at 60 miles an hour how fast does he have to go on the second lap to average 120.

I would say 30kph would be plenty especially for nonstop on-demand service. 60kph sounds unrealistic.

The reason I think you could lay new track is that kiddie train track is really cheap and used railroad rail is pretty valuable.

The value of a scrap railroad track varies by material and its condition. Depending on its dimensions and shape, a ton can range from $300 to $750. For example, an R50 track will fetch a price of between $200 and $750, while an R65 way will cost more than twice that.

It would be simple to make self driving golf carts that followed a magnetic or inductive guideway or even used a virtually guideway with gps. There are a few of these available off the shelf right now. One I remember is dutch and there was another produced in Great Britain.

Suspended monorails don’t take taller rails. You can keep the train upright. It has been well demonstrated. The amount of weight on the rails is insignificant compared to what they were designed for. I doubt there would be any detectable movement.

All that said this seems like an overly complicated solution.

I think you make some good points.

Most importantly, the hard part of these projects is the right of way. I agree that it should be used to its greatest advantage. I suspect you could rip these rails up, lay down kiddie train rails and a bike path for the same price.

The biggest reason for standard monorails is grade separation.

The burden of air resistance is negligible at these speeds. The rolling resistance, lifespan, and pollution of rubber tires is a disadvantage, but at these speeds it is probably the best use of rubber tires.

You only need two lanes for pods at passing tracks. The need for continuous two way traffic probably means the capacity has outgrown this solution.

I bet you are right. They are surprisingly cheap everywhere.

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Seems like a stalking vector.

Can you tell me what city this is? For me this would be reason enough to move.

That is great! Thanks for all you do for others.

I don’t know where you are located. I am in the US and a co-op is just a corporation so all the things that apply to a private corporation apply to a co-op. When applying for grants there are no differentiators that I can think of. One advantage for a co-op here is that there are no passive investors.

This is kinda off the subject but do you live this life? Would you like to code something for no money that would help people?

To me the opposite appears true. Beyond economy -of-scale can you give me some examples?

That’s a much higher percentage than I expected.

Benevolent capital is out there, especially in the startup phase. I find it arrogant and ignorant, but available. It does require risk-sharing which I find doesn’t fit the vision of the borrower.

I’m a better bookkeeper than I am a coder. I would join.

So many roles can be fractionalized that it seems doable.

Strategic leadership and consensus might be difficult. Design by committee could be the biggest enemy.

So Swiss-Army-Man fast.

What can be done to change this?

I think a lot of people need someone to blame for their own unhappiness, too. I would like to see this change, but I am not sure how it can be done.

This might be tangentially relevant https://fed.dyne.org/post/146187

So what I am now hearing is it is hard for them to get seed money.

You are the hero we need

So you are saying employees in employee owned companies are rent seeking social parasites?