As we prepare for Earth Week next week at Ithaca College and in the greater Ithaca community, there are many campus and local sustainability initiatives to be proud of, from our LEED-certified platinum buildings, the ever-growing number of students integrating sustainability into their educations to the wildly successful Carshare program. Though this latter development is encouraging, the ways we move ourselves from place to place nonetheless continues to exact a carbon cost the planet cannot afford — or, to put it in more anthropocentric terms, we cannot afford the cost carbon will exact in terms of a radically changed planet.

We do need to change our car-dependent culture. But not all proposals for a new transportation regime should be on the table, especially those that have been repeatedly shown to be infeasible. Personal rapid transit systems — or podcars as they are commonly known — have recently captured the imagination of many people in the community, including at the college. In early April, the City of Ithaca received a $75,000 grant from the New York State Department of Transportation to study the feasibility of a personal rapid transit system for Ithaca. Such systems typically involve small cars (four to five passengers) running at frequent intervals on an elevated loop. This system works like one of the driverless airport shuttle trains, though the cars themselves would be quite a bit smaller than automated airport trains. The college is one of the proposed termini for the system.

Praised by supporters as the future of sustainable transportation, the evidence against the feasibility of podcars completely undermines such fanciful thinking. Transportation scholar Vukan Vuchic has debunked the claims of podcar advocates for years. Podcars have been rejected as impractical by dozens of cities in North America, Europe and Japan, all with a much greater population density than Ithaca. Advocates for the current system in Ithaca argue that the technology has evolved since the period of the 1970s to 1990s, when so many urban areas decided against podcars. Visionaries present mock-ups of systems that are stylish, futuristic and unobtrusive — cars hanging from wires sliding gracefully above the street. In reality, the structures required to support any form of podcars — even smaller ones — is going to be quite large. Not to mention station requirements, rarely do renderings show the required elevators, stairs and platforms needed to get people above grade.

While troubling, the aesthetic cost of a podcar system in a place like Ithaca is the least significant problem with podcars. The system proposed by local advocates would primarily serve East Hill and South Hill, in essence a piece of luxury infrastructure that would benefit those moving between downtown and either of the campuses but would not be of much use for the average commuter. Even worse, it seems almost certain that the costs of such a system (in the tens of millions of dollars — completely unrealistic in even the most flourishing economy) would siphon transit funds away from the more flexible bus system. Buses, as they now operate, are part of the carbon footprint problem. But a hybrid bus filled to capacity generates the lowest carbon output per passenger mile of almost any vehicle on the road. Electric buses or even electric trolley buses would be a far better and far cheaper investment for our community than podcars. In the meantime let’s focus on expanding the existing service of TCAT and providing more infrastructure for bicyclists.

Michael Smith is an assistant professor in the history department. Contact him at mismith@ithaca.edu.