Reasons why capital will not invest under Federal railroad laws.
Written Constitutions are vividly clear that the Federal transportation monopoly is forbidden:
  • Georgia’s Constitution: "Article I, Bill of Rights, Section VI, Paragraph V: “Shall not have the power to authorize any contract or agreement which may have the effect of or which is intended to have the effect of encouraging a monopoly, which is hereby declared to be unlawful and void.”
  • US Constitution specifically enumerates the maximum extent of Federal involvement in roads at ensuring the defense of free speech in the “post Roads” clause. This restriction was adopted 8 states to 3. Madison explained in Federalist #45 that “internal improvement” such as highways and canal are State Sovereignty. There are 21 Presidential veto messages that defended the “post Roads” restriction before the “living Constitution” replaced the written Constitution in the early 1900s.
Even the two injuries on the Morgantown PRT can be attributed to this Federal monopoly:
  • Morgantown’s PRT was self-regulated from 1972 to 2013.
    • Producing about 150 million injury-free passenger-miles.
    • Nixon, is the only one of the eight Presidents that made a difference. He sent his daughter to open the Morgantown PRT network and allowed Morgantown’s PRT to be self-regulated, not subject to Federal railroad standards.
    • May 1975, Congressional Office of Technology Assessments study PB-244854 warned that “institutional failures” within the Federal monopoly may delay expansions of PRT networks (US DOT does not reference this study or PRT at its web site).
  • In 2013 WV University, seeking Federal money, shifted from self-regulation to existing Federal standards.
  • To comply with Federal regulations they ignored American innovations:
    • They selected Thales (French company) to comply with Federal regulations.
    • Did not request a quote from Kiva. In 2012 Kiva sold its robotic warehouse networks to Amazon for $775 million.
    • Did not request a quote from US PRT innovators.
  • On Nov 16, 2016, the conflict between Federal railroad regulations, the way train engineering people think, and the nature of distributed self-driving robotic PRT, Morgantown experienced its first injuries.
“Georgia First” would implement Georgia Fire Safety, a much higher safety standard than the Federal monopoly:
  • 0.2 injuries per million using Georgia Fire Safety
  • 11,200 injuries per million using US DOT