Governing paid a visit to the personal rapid transit system in Morgantown (WV). Serving the West Virginia University campus and downtown Morgantown, the 71 blue and yellow cars carry about 15,000 passengers on a typical day. Boeing built the $120 million system in 1975 with federal funding. Now that Boeing is out of the transit business, parts are hard to come by and WVU spends about $5 million a year to operate the aging system. University staffers are proud of their iconic system and even attribute increased student enrollment to the PRT. “In the pre-PRT days, we relied on shuttle buses to move students,” mechanic supervisor Haven Sions told Governing. “Because of traffic, the university had to schedule classes as much as two hours apart so the students wouldn’t be late.” The PRT reduced travel delays, which allowed the university to schedule more classes closer together and triple its enrollment since the late 1960s. Link to full story in Governing.
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