The Jet-Tram Of The Future, Today

One thing that jumps out at us right away about ex-Boeing engineer Ben Missler and his jet-tram is that he keeps telling people he thought up the idea while stuck in a Seattle traffic jam. You know, just "traffic jam" would be fine, Missler.

But the Seattle connection might be important to make, because Missler's Mass Tram America company proposes building its tramcars out of decommissioned Boeing fuselages. The towers will be power stations -- using either solar panels or windmills -- and the whole thing runs on magnets at speeds up to 200mph.

Missler claims an estimated cost of $8-$12 million/mile, which doesn't reflect his hope that, operational, his tram would be power-producing, and able to sell energy back to the grid. Is he nutty in the head? If so, better cinch up your lapbelt the next time you fly.

The other Seattle connection -- tramwise -- is that Seattle has hills. Hills make rail transit difficult, i.e., expensive, to implement. We have no idea how feasible Missler's idea is, but we've ridden on trams before, and we have a suggestion for where the first one can run: from West Seattle to downtown. Then where? Ballard to Queen Anne to Magnolia? Queen Anne to Seattle Center to downtown? Not sure we need to hit 150mph anywhere in there, but bring on the trams, we say. If we end up looking even more like the city the Jetsons built, so be it.