I have commuted through soaking rain on a bicycle, waited hours in the snow for buses, and looked aside from the body of a man half under a light rail car. Why do we subject travelers to such indignities? With all our engineering talent, can’t we do better?

The short answer is yes, we can. We can build a personal rapid transit (PRT) system that, as described in Part 3 of this series, works for riders, doesn’t use fossil fuels, improves the livability of the city, and saves lives. The long answer, however, is that implementing that better system will require more political science than engineering. Yes, we can build a better transportation system, but the crucial question is, can we implement it?

The history of PRT efforts is not reassuring—SeaTac: PRT studied, not implemented; San Jose: studied, not implemented; Santa Cruz: studied, not implemented; Boulder: 1972 to 1974, studied, not implemented. The truth is that innovation in the public sphere is hard to do. Our city councilors are pushed from every direction, which means their safest course is to defend the status quo. Then too, being innovative implies the risk of spending money on something that fails. Cities cannot afford to do that on a large scale so it makes sense that few of them have been willing to embrace PRT.

Hence the impasse: PRT would be transformative for cities but cities do not have the resources to bring the technology from the startup stage, where it is now, to the observable and testable stage that it must reach before there is a realistic chance that a city might implement it.

Given that both private companies and community activists have failed to implement PRT, it appears that we need a third approach. It is not at all clear to me what such an approach might be and that is why I have hesitated to promote PRT openly. Activism that leads to another study and another failure does no good at all. But given the stakes, we need to move forward, so at the risk of being mocked as another bubble-headed Boulderite, I am going to suggest that we turn to the people.

Perhaps our third approach could be an open-sourced, crowdfunded, participant-owned cooperative with a do-it-ourselves ethic. Our co-op would need the help of software designers to develop control systems, artists and architects to design stations, engineers to develop track and vehicles, neighborhood advocates, publicists, and others we cannot yet envision. We would need retirees with time, students with developing expertise, merchants with wisdom, minorities with perspective, and citizens with the ability to analyze the needs of the young and the old, the able and the disabled. Our co-op would require, in short, the participation of the Boulder community and as much wider support as we could attract.

Money is always crucial, of course, and raising it via crowdfunding would be easier if some of the investments were large. We would need the “one percent” that we squabbled about a few years back to reinvest in the communities where they found their success. Notably, our local son Jared Polis invested large sums in his run for Governor. If he or other Boulder one percenters contributed similar amounts toward maturing PRT, it would transform our city and position us to meet the demands of a fossil-free future.

Governments would have a role to play too. They could facilitate raising money by ensuring accountability and transparency for PRT investors, whether they invest one dollar or ten million. Our local governments would need to be active participants in developing requirements, identifying safety elements, engaging constituents, gathering and analyzing data, and setting up an innovation team charged with assessing new technologies that enhance public life.

I don’t know if a people-centered approach can work because I’m not young and naive enough to be certain—but I am old and naive enough to hope that it might. If you have thoughts, visit the title page for this series. Just for fun, while you are there, take a stab at naming Boulder’s future PRT system.

Perhaps I am wrong about the drawbacks of autonomous cars or wrong about the benefits of PRT. But however we assess these particular modes, it is time to leave the unsustainable road we are on and think hard about a transportation system that will work for both individuals and the city—as we try to move ahead in a swarming and warming world.