If you’ve ever been to Morgantown, you’ve probably seen an elevated roadway snaking around the city, with tiny people movers clad in blue and gold traversing back and forth. That’s the Morgantown PRT, short for Personal Rapid Transit system. It’s essentially a network of small trams that take you from the station you arrive at directly to your desired destination, with no stops in between. It’s unlike any other transit system in America, and perfectly reflects the optimism for infrastructure and wild ambition of planners and officials in the 1970s.
It’s kind of funny, but it feels like no one outside of the field thought about urban planning ten years ago.