SKYBUS COMPLETE TRANSIT EXPRESSWAY 1967

[@stickynorth]

Very cool! For a brief moment in the late 60's and early 70's my hometown of Edmonton also considered building one of these systems. Alas along with the Bechtel plan for a steel-wheel subway? They never happened. Instead we got a Siemens high floor LRT system and now a Bombardier tram way as of last year...

[@jordantps]

What a joy to see this video! This was really the very first automated transit system in the world, which, ironically, was not used commercially in Pittsburgh.

[@erik_griswold]

The is one (a pair actually) at the current Pittsburgh Airport Terminal.

[@patrickpassanante9585]

Whenever I visit Phoenix, I ride the PHX Skytrain, to a station that connects with their public transportation system or a parking lot where a buddy picks me up. The Skytrain, which is very successful, is a direct descendant of Westinghouse's Skybus, the system and cars are built by BOMBARDIER.

[@J-Bahn]

I agree that since the streetcars were already there (and already had dedicated rights of way), upgrading to a light rail was a good idea. Also replacing streetcars with SkyBus would have negated one of the streetcar's biggest assets: frequent stops that provide maximum connectivity. That being said, I would have loved to have seen automated rail transit Skybus style (ie ICTS Skytrain light metro trains) used on other rights of way, particularly what became the East and West Busway. The corridor's not only were former rail right of ways, but they are also already substantially grade-separated, so the construction cost of a rail transit corridor vs a busway would only be marginally more expensive, if not cheaper. Meanwhile, operating costs (due to automation) would be much reduced. Also, the one-seat bus rides would be lost, but this would be compensated by the fact that when buses connect to the rapid transit corridor, the transfer time would be negligible due to the high frequencies allowed by automation. Also, being an automated metro with a scheduled headway, the wait times along the transit corridor itself (ex. Downtown-Wilkinsburg-Swissvale) could become more consistent as well as more frequent Finally, if ICTS was used on what is now the East Busway, the integration to the South Side Light rail lines could have been much better. When the LRT and East Busway opened in the 1980s, the Port Authority took advantage of the northern half of the PRR tunnel not used for the main light rail subway to build a light rail branch between Steel Plaza and Penn Station, providing a cross-platform transfer between light rail and the East Busway. However, there wasn't room to expand the tunnel to double track because the tunnel was surrounded by the foundations of the US Steel Tower. Finding it impractical to route service from the South sidelines to Penn Station, Port Authority demoted the line to a shuttle between Penn and Steel Plaza. This was of little utility since East Busway buses already continue on the street to within a block of Steel Plaza service was soon dropped. On the other hand, if ICTS had been used, automation could have mitigated the one-track bottleneck. If Steel Plaza had been designed differently, or if a subway was built down the rest of Liberty Avenue from Wood Street to Penn Station, light metro trains could have run from Swissvale all the way to Gateway Center (and later North Shore). Just thoughts. Anyways, a shame that Skybus failed; had it succeeded, I wonder whether it could have proved a cheaper more effective solution that allowed more widespread adoption of regional medium capacity frequent rapid transit.

[@workablob]

I rode this at South Park when it was built.

[@cliffdariff74]

thank you for the upload, I remember this as a kid in South Park

[@erik_griswold]

The grandfather of the most popular Automatic People Mover. Seen now at airports around the world now.

[@WileECoyotey]

I rode that as a kid

[@hypergolic8468]

At 10:19 it shows (middle bottom) Core Parity, if the computer ran with woven core memory it would show a true bit of genius in the design. They had to get it right from the start, no "hot fixes".

[@terrigasior1920]

How cool. Why didn’t they keep this sky rail?

[@asantaraliner]

It's too expensive for a short line and have lower capacity versus conventional rail.

[@midwayization]

Thank goodness it never came to fruition ,such an urban blight , rusting metal posts an beams , taxpayers have to pay to repair it. They got it right with the LRT

[@WileECoyotey]

asshole statement ..that is why it was a prototype

[@Yasya_Vasilev]

В Целиноград такая строилась .

[@AridChannelOfficialSG]

It looks like the Bukit Panjang LRT

[@ericdunn6232]

What the system evolved to: kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHi0c6WerK2ab68

[@that90skid72]

Looks a bit like Detroit's TBH...

[@glenatkinson4066]

Jools VK this system was built almost 20 years earlier. Detroits people mover was built by UTDC (PART of BOMBARDIER now) as a scaled down version of the light rail ilne running in the East end of Toronto Canada.

[@erik_griswold]

@@glenatkinson4066 I would argue that is a similar technology with different roots from this Westinghouse based one.

[@ericdunn6232]

@@erik_griswold two very different products, both now available from Alstom. This system is the predecessor to the Innovia APM system used at many airports. Rubber tires, rotary electric motors, central guide rail. The other is the predecessor to the ART offering which is part of the Movia Metro group. Steel wheels, flexible steering boogie, linear induction motors.