At <i> Only </i> $4 Million a Mile, Firm Hopes Driverless Rail Network Gets on Track

Tired of spending $200 million or more per mile on a subway?

Shop at the Kmart of public transit, where a futuristic rail system can be had for a bargain-basement price of $2 million to $4 million per mile.

So say the promoters of the CyberTran (for Cybernetic Transportation), who exhibited one of the rail cars Thursday at the Burbank offices of Calstart, the public-private consortium developing transportation technology.

The event kicked off an effort to secure $20 million in public and private funds for construction of a 10-mile CyberTran demonstration track at an undetermined site in California.

The system would consist of a network of small driverless rail cars--each carrying six to 32 passengers--that would travel on an elevated guideway in the freeway median.

“It is not a train,” said John Dearien, the chief engineer who developed the system at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering Laboratory and is hoping to turn his idea into a commercial enterprise.

A feature of the system--something its planners hope will win over perennially rushed, car-loving Angelenos--is that passengers could speed to their destination at up to 80 m.p.h. in the city and up to 150 m.p.h. across open land without stopping at stations in between. (Rail cars would also be equipped with outlets for computers and fax machines.)

The system is cheaper than other rail lines planned or under construction in Los Angeles, its promoters say, because it requires only eight feet of right of way in each direction--less than a freeway lane.

Planners estimate that a 280-mile system could be built on L.A. freeways for $1.5 billion. In contrast, the nearly 21 1/2-mile subway is projected to cost $5.8 billion.

The planners could face problems, less from a technical standpoint than a psychological one.

The public may be reluctant to ride an elevated line in Earthquake Country. And, though the recently opened Green Line was planned to be driverless, it isn’t in part because officials thought riders would feel less safe.

Still, an MTA engineer who climbed aboard a prototype vehicle Thursday said, “Interesting. Very interesting.”

MTA spokeswoman Andrea Greene later said the transit agency liked the concept of trying to do more with less, but questioned where such a system would go when plans call for using most freeway medians for car-pool lanes.

“This would not fit into our current plans,” she said. “We’d have to build more freeways.”

State Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles), a member of the Senate Transportation Committee who also attended Thursday’s briefing, said the technology could generate manufacturing jobs in addition to reducing air pollution and traffic congestion. He pledged to seek state bond financing or tax credits for the project.