BOSTON — Transit designer Emil Jacob has thought up an elevated network of electric train cars, which he says could replace the entire Massachussetts Bay Transportation Authority for a little more than the Authority’s projected $2.02 billion operating budget for 2016, Wired reports.
Jacob promises the electric motor in each 40-foot train car would need just the “the equivalent of about three golf carts” of energy and would travel at 50 to 100 mph depending on the use case. The cars themselves would be made of aluminum, composites, and fiber glass, Jacob says. A series of archways running over the streets would support the narrow tracks, which look more like cables than they do rail lines, the report said.
To increase passenger volume, cars would run above and below the lines, and to address those harsh Boston winters the tracks would be heated to prevent accumulation of ice and snow, according to Wired.
