A California transit company is proposing a self-driving car service along an elevated roadway between downtown West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County’s airport, an innovation that it says could revolutionize how people commute in and around the city center.
Glydways says the short 4-mile distance between the downtown and Palm Beach International Airport makes it an ideal location for a new transit system that relies on autonomous vehicle technology.
Under its proposal, self-driving cars would whisk commuters along a dedicated circuit with stations at the airport, the county’s convention center and several downtown sites.
The company is implementing similar systems at airports in Atlanta and San Jose, California. It is pitching now to Palm Beach County government leaders in the hopes of capitalizing on concerns about worsening traffic in the area’s fast-growing urban core.
County commissioners are expected on July 7 to discuss whether to direct county administrators to explore the project, which the company estimates could be in operation within five years if area leaders move ahead.
Glydways in May submitted an unsolicited proposal to the county government for a 5-mile “airport connector” service, calling it “a direct, on-demand, personal and affordable transit experience accessible to all.”
“The West Palm Beach Airport Connector will create the County’s first direct, on-demand transit connection between its two largest revenue-generating public assets — PBI (Palm Beach International Airport) and the Convention Center,” states a company document detailing the proposal.
Brian Gettinger, Glydways’ senior vice president for growth in the Americas, said in an interview that the service combines the convenience and efficiency of a dedicated railway with the comfort of a private car service.
But the dedicated paths that Glydway uses are far less expensive to build than railways, making them much more practical as public infrastructure.
The fact that the county’s airport — which on July 9 will be renamed Donald J. Trump International Airport — is just a few miles southwest of downtown makes constructing elevated roadways much more feasible than in many similarly sized cities.
“You guys have a very unique nexus of things close together that unfortunately aren’t connected yet,” Gettinger said. “How great if all of those could co-exist.”
Under the proposal, passengers would board a private, self-driving car at one of the service’s stations. Unlike a train or metro rail service that makes scheduled stops, the car would take its passengers directly to their selected station, using dedicated pathways to cruise over or around regular traffic.
“Your vehicle would not stop at those,” Gettinger said. “It’s going directly to its destination every time.”
A company document shows a proposed path from the airport north toward downtown along either Australian Avenue or Congress Avenue, with stations at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, CityPlace, the Brightline train station, the Palm Beach County Courthouse, the NORA District and the city’s Historic Northwest neighborhood.
The possibility of profits generated by the fee-based service could give local governments the potential to partner with private investors to construct it, reducing the public costs, Gettinger said.
“We believe it would create one of the best, if not the best, intermodal systems in Florida,” he said.
The company did not provide cost estimates for its project, but its CEO told business-news publication Fast Company last year that construction costs for its transit systems could run about $3 million a mile for at-grade roadways, while elevated paths could cost about $15 million a mile.
The company is currently building a half-mile-long transit network in Southwest Atlanta connecting the Atlanta airport’s people-mover to a convention center and a sports arena, a pilot project for what it hopes to be a much-larger transit system.
It is also developing a transit network in San Jose, California, connecting the local airport to downtown.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Could West Palm get automated transit system from airport to downtown?
Reporting by Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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By Andrew Marra, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
