On Dec. 3, the Sun Sentinel published an article headlined "Air taxi developer planning commuter network." Frustratingly, it read more like a press release for the company.
This concept certainly could be an answer for traffic congestion, but only for the wealthy and connected few, leaving the rest of us dealing with the same problems on the ground. I laughed at the claim of them being "comparable in price to ground transportation." How? By comparing it to a chauffeured Rolls-Royce?
Overpromise and underdeliver is common with such transportation "solutions." See Elon Musk's Hyperloop scam (a means to "derail" California High Speed Rail), Uber (formed on the premise of undercutting taxi pricing to eliminate competition sufficiently to raise prices), or "pod-based" automated cars and rail-connected vehicles (often VC-backed reinvented trains, but worse).
The article would benefit from hard-hitting questions into the company's financial models. What's the cost structure? How can trips of four non-wealthy riders ever pay for a multimillion dollar aircraft and what it takes to operate it? What's the daily trip capacity?
Even with 10-minute frequency for 18 hours a day (imagine hearing these take off and land 216 times daily in urban areas), and assuming they were full each trip, these vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft would carry 432 people. For comparison, a typical arterial road carries 30,000-60,000 vehicles per day, and Tri-Rail carries 16,000 riders daily. This is not a traffic solution; it's a rich person's toy to avoid our society's issues.
Fortunately, we already have a solution for everyone to gain similar time-freeing and money-saving relief for transportation woes: Trains and buses. Yes, our bus network carries mainly lower-income riders; that's because we have essentially no "choice riders" (people who could drive but choose to ride the bus), since it is an inferior alternative in most ways.
I would love to see an article on how the transportation surtax Broward voters approved and pay into is being used to improve (or not) our bus network. Has Broward Transit's budget been supplanted by surtax funds, mirroring the "lottery funds for education" allocation trickery? How is the proposed South Florida commuter rail line planning to spend $1 billion for roughly 1,000 daily riders?
Meanwhile, Tri-Rail, which is facing existential funding challenges for no reason besides political stubbornness, moves the equivalent of one lane of I-95 traffic per day, eliminating that traffic for everyone else. We can do more of that -- with more trains, not flying pods.
Great transit helps both riders and also everyone else. If you're always going to drive your own car, then you want others riding buses and trains, because they're then not creating traffic for you. Amazing transit literally makes driving better. These VTOLs won't do that.
More people using transit reduces delays, pollution, crashes and health care costs while improving property values near areas served by transit.
These VTOL craft might be quiet at cruising altitude, but they are not when landing or taking off. And if they're actual urban transportation, then they'll need to be in actual urban areas. Do you want to listen to them thrumming every couple minutes?
Bottom line: Even if these are not actually just another techbro scam like Hyperloop, they will only ever be a tool for the ultra rich to further separate themselves from the rest of society, while the rest of us continue to lose. Let's put our efforts on solutions for everyone.