We do things for reasons beyond money. That’s no surprise. We – as people – are motivated by a whole host of other factors. Check out this fascinating video/animation from www.theRSA.org on what actually motivates people. And at the end of it ask yourself: Do our cities, governments, societies (and transit systems) motivate us in ways that are appropriate to who we actually are and how we actually behave?
June, 2010
29
Jun
Jun
2010
1934 Chicago World’s Fair
For your amusement (at around 2:25) . . . In Technicolor!
And for the record: When I talk about Cable Propelled Transit, this is not what I mean.
28
Jun
Jun
2010
Never Mind The Real World
If I gave you the choice between a transit technology that could carry 20,000 people and a technology that could carry 6,000 which would you choose? Clearly, youd choose 20,000.
Or what if I gave you the choice between a transit technology that operated at 100 km/hr or one that operated at 35 km/hr? Obviously youd opt for the faster one. Faster is better because faster means you get where youre going sooner.
And thats the problem.
Humans are irrational – no secret there – and were so hard-wired to grab the most of anything, well almost always opt for that which gives us the most. It doesnt matter that we dont even like three-quarters of whats on the Mandarin’s all-you-can-eat buffet, we just like to know the option is there.
So too with transit planners.
Theoretically, Light Rail carries between 6,000 – 20,000. Just ask Professor Vukan R. Vuchic, one of the only people to ever write a textbook on transit planning. His Urban Transit series of textbooks constantly state that LRT carries between 6,000 and 20,000 people. He also states that they operate at “maximum speeds (of) 70 km/hr or higher.”
Never mind that there’s no LRT system in North America that carries more than 4,000.
Never mind that there’s never been an LRT system built that carries 20,000 people.
Never mind the cost involved in staffing and purchasing vehicles that arrive every 1-3 minutes; the figure necessary to reach 20,000 people.
Never mind that the posted speed limit in most cities is 40-50 km/hr. To Vuchic, what matters is that Light Rail emcan/em go 70 km/hr or higher.
Never mind that Vuchic himself says that the average operating speed of LRT is as low as 15 km/hr.
Never mind that LRT stations are spaced 300 – 1,000 meters apart, completely preventing vehicles from reaching those top speeds.
Never mind stop signs, traffic lights, jaywalkers, slow-moving grandmothers, speeding teenagers and streetcar drivers who stop to grab a coffee while on the job.
In other words: Never mind the real world. Completely ignore what actually happens in cities and instead focus solely on what is theoretically possible. Focus on the text book and the equations in it, not the city block and the people on it.
Numbers like Vuchics are constantly used to justify technologies like LRT and we flock to them because they promise us the fastest, biggest, best technology around. It doesnt matter that the numbers prove otherwise. If you give people a narrative that appeals to them, they’ll believe it. Its cheap and easy politics and it’s not fair, but that’s the way it is. Nobody ever said life was fair.
When you’re talking about billion dollar contracts and thousands of jobs, should you really expect government and industry to play fair?
Cable can carry more people than the industry publishes. It can also travel at speeds faster than what they publish. Ridiculously simple innovations like double decker vehicles would double the capacity over night. But the cable industry seems to want to play fair. They only want to talk about what they’ve done in the past, not what they’re going to do in the future.
That’s admirable, but it hurts the industry’s chances.
27
Jun
Jun
2010
Sunday Morning Statshot
A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE STATISTICS THAT MAKE YOUR CITIES WORK (OR NOT):
Percent of American children walking to school in 1969: 50%
Percent of American children walking to school in 2007: 16%
Average walking speed of a human being: 5km/hr
Average distance a human can commute by foot on daily basis: 20km
Diameter of ancient cities such as Rome, Persepolis and Venice: 5km
Average daily round-trip commute time around the world: 1.1 hours
Total traffic delays in US in 2003: 3.7 billion hours
Percentage of total greenhouse gas emissions in US related to transportation: 28%
Forecasted percentage of deaths attributable to road fatalities in 2020: 33%
Leading cause of death in London in 1720: “Furiously driven” carts and coaches
Number of pedestrians killed by horses in New York in 1867: 4
Number of people killed on roads in China 1951: 852
Number of people killed on roads in US in 1951: 35,309
Number of people killed on roads in China in 1999: 84,000
Number of people killed on roads in US in 1999: 41,508
Number of deaths on Indian roads each year: 100,000
Hippo-related deaths per year, glbally: 150
Percent of daily local trips made on bicycles in the Netherlands: 27%
Percent of trips made by bicycle in Beijing in 2000: 38%
Passengers per year riding India’s railway system: 7 billion
Longest recorded boxing match: 111 rounds
World’s longest subway system – Shanghai: 420km
2nd longest subway system – London: 408km
3rd longest subway system – New York: 368km
Number of passengers handled by Shanghai’s subway system per day: 5 million
Total money invested in creating and expanding rapid transit in 12 major Chinese municipalities: $150 billion
Yearly commitment by the United States on transit capital projects: $2 billion
Population of South Africa: 49 million
Daily ridership of South Africa’s minibus taxi industry: 14 million
Cost of a BRT ride in Johannesburg: 65 cents US
Total cost of stadiums built for World Cup 2010 in South Africa: $2.2 billion
Estimated cost to conduct Oakland, California’s recent streetcar study: $630,000
Cost for Stanford student to complete an identical study: $987
Fastest growing retail market sector in 2010: Dollar Stores
26
Jun
Jun
2010
Aerial Technologies, Lesson 8: Funifor
The Freeride Paradise Funifor. Image by alexleo10.
The last aerial cable technology worth mentioning is the Funifor. Like the 3S, Funifors are very rare beasts. Only around a half dozen exist, and are all located in northern Italy (for whatever strange reason).
In essence, the Funifor is nothing more than a fusion of a Funitel and an Aerial Tram. It’s dual grip mechanism allows for a short grip arm and a more stocky, yet purposeful appearance. It doesn’t appear to dangle like other aerial systems. Like an Aerial Tram, however, it lacks the Funitel’s detachability. This means longer than normal wait times and lower capacity. It also means intermediary stations are very difficult and the technology is best used for point-to-point applications.
Like most Aerial Trams, a Funifor runs on a parallel set of support ropes, though the pair are spaced wider apart than standard Aerial Trams.
What distinguishes a Funifor from an Aerial Tram is that each of the two cabins operate separately. As opposed to an Aerial Tram, a Funifor’s propulsion rope is not returned to the opposite direction for use by the other vehicle. Instead, each cabin uses its own set of bullwheels, engines and propulsion ropes. (That’s why when you see pictures of a Funifor, each direction appears to use 4 separate ropes; two for support, one for propulsion plus the return part of the propulsion loop.) This allows a Funifor three distinct advantages over an Aerial Tram:
- As cabins operate independently of each other, higher capacity can be realized through reduced wait times.
- Intermediary stations become possible in locations other than the exact mid-point.
- In the event that one line shuts down due to emergency and or maintenance, the other line can still operate. Yes, that means that capacity is reduced by half, but at least the system is still in operation.
- If evacuation of a vehicle is necessary, the second vehicle can be used. Funifors can be equipped with bridging equipment allowing passengers to move from the disabled vehicle over to the other operational line.
These advantages, however, are offset by a couple of negatives:
- Towers are necessarily larger and sturdier in order to carry the extra load.
- Doubling of engines and propulsion ropes causes a significant increase in cost.
If one were choosing between an Aerial Tram and a Funifor in an urban environment, it would be best to opt for the Funifor. The added capacity, reduced travel times, maintenance potential and evac procedures makes it an obviously superior choice. Yes, it’s more expensive, but on balance worth it.
Why, after all, do you think New York opted to rebuild the Roosevelt Island Tram as a Funifor? Given that the terminals were already built, the $25 million USD price tag that came with this rebuild made the choice easy.
The Roosevelt Island Tram Redesign. Image from The Roosevelt Islander blog.
(In fairness to the manufacturer Sigma (one division of the Poma-Leitner group), this is not strictly-speaking a Funifor. Funifor – the word – is a trademarked name of the Doppelmayr Garaventa Group. Sigma’s design, however, clearly captures all that a Funifor is.)
25
Jun
Jun
2010
8 Ways To Define An Aerial Ropeway
Cable Propelled Transit is just one segment of a technology that has dozens of names, Aerial Ropeways being the most common. But what if you broke it down a bit more? Aerial Ropeways, after all, is a pretty broad term and one that’s not really applicable to the urban area.
So how about these:
- Resort & Theme Park Systems – Purely for tourism and recreational purposes, most typically found at ski hills. They’re located well outside of urban areas, or if they are in urban areas, they exist in theme parks and zoos. These are by far the most common of all cable and ropeway systems. You don’t need examples, because these are the ones most everyone are familiar with.
- Toys For Tourists – Systems located in urban areas, but existing almost exclusively for tourists. These are rarely built and almost always die on the table, rarely getting past the proposal stage. See here.
- Complementary Infrastructure – Systems that exist to service another more primary business need. They may carry commuters, tourists or business people. They are usually free to ride and exist as a kind of middle child between the resort systems above and the CPT systems below. Systems such as these are becoming more-and-more common, especially in airports and master planned developments such as casinos. The Mandalay Bay Cable Car, for example.
- CPT with Zero Integration – Urban systems primarily targeted towards local users. These systems have no physical or fare integration with existing transit systems or technologies. The Mount Avila system in Caracas, Venezuela is an excellent example.
- CPT with Physical Integration – Urban systems primarily targeted towards local users. Physical design of stations and the surrounding areas allow for ease of use and transfer between other transit technologies. But the systems suffer for lack of integration within the local fare structure. The Portland Aerial Tram, or the Innsbruck Hungerburgbahn for example. Like Zero Integration systems, they are very closely related to Toys For Tourists.
- CPT with Fare Integration – Urban systems primarily targeted towards local users and commuters. Systems suffer from a lack of physical integration, but benefit from being ticketed under the same fare structure/system as the surrounding transit network. New York’s Roosevelt Island Tram used to have Zero Integration, but since a deal was brokered in 2004, the system should be classified as one with Fare Integration.
- CPT with Full Integration – The holy grail of CPT. Local users benefit from full physical and fare integration schemes. Obviously the Medellin and Caracas Metrocables fall into this category.
- Educational Systems - One of the problems with explaining CPT is the lack of strong examples. Instead, it’s necessary to extrapolate and translate things learned from non-urban ropeways and apply those lessons to CPT in order to improve the technology. Educational Systems are all over the place. I’d suggest that almost all Aerial Ropeways are Educational, but some of the most important are the Grindelwald-First in Switzerland, the Norsjö Aerial Ropeway in Sweden, Vancouver’s Peak 2 Peak, and the Volkswagen Funitel in Slovakia. All have important lessons for anyone interested in creatively applying Aerial Ropeways in urban environments.
Can you think of other potential categories that were missed?
24
Jun
Jun
2010
The Koblenz Rheinseilbahn Is Open For Business
The vehicles of the Koblenz Rheinseilbahn. Not the clear effort to make the system more in line with standard transit vehicles. Image from Wikicommons by Azumanga.
Apparently the Koblenz Rheinseilbahn just opened to the public this past month. As is typical for the cable industry, this rather monumental opening came with virtually no publicity or media awareness.
In an earlier post I suggested that the installation is temporary, which apparently is a mistake. The system can be removed if need be, but the hope is that it will remain a fundamental part of the city.
As I understand it, the system is not fully-integrated into the public transit network, and has only two stations but it is certainly a fine example of an Urban Gondola system, given its environs. In fact, from the images so far, it’s probably the most “transit-oriented” system yet – at least from a design perspective.
Vehicles have the distinct look of transit and avoid that cheap ski lift appearance. The all-glass exterior gives the vehicles an airiness and slickness that prevents them from looking comical. Meanwhile, the stations are wonderfully slim in profile, and the towers appear to have a somewhat low profile, impressive, given the typical size of other 3S system towers.
Currently, there’s virtually no images on Flickr of the system, little in the way of publicly accessible research and few quality videos (the best I could find is embedded below). There is, however, a German Wikipedia page.
As many readers of The Gondola Project hail from Switzerland, Germany and Austria (thank you, Google Analytics), I’d be great if one or two of you could take the time to pull out some important details from the page and include them in the comments for English speaking readers.
With my limited German, I can glean that the vehicles hold 35 people and the system has a capacity of 3,800 pphpd, but not much more. I’ll keep an eye open for more information as it comes available. If anyone else out there, however, can find something, please post it in the comments below.
The Koblenz Rheinseilbahn's upper terminal. Wikimedia Commons image by Schängel.
