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As this time of year brings reflection, we thought it a good idea to take this week to look back upon The Gondola Project and revisit a few successes from the past year in urban gondolas and cable cars. 

In today’s installment, we look back at what we believe to be the 10 Most Promising Developments & Discoveries in cable transit and urban gondolas from 2011 (in no particular order):

1. One of (if not the) most ambitious cable transit line finally opens for service in Rio de Janeiro – the Complexo do Alemao Teleférico.
2. Medellin, Colombia continues its aggressive pursuit of the multi-modal ideal when they announce their intentions to build two more urban gondola systems, both integrated into a coming Light Rail Line.
3. The Gondola Project team discovers an incredibly unique and fascinating funicular in suburban Switzerland that could have major implications for future urban development patterns.
4. Details solidify around plans for three urban gondola transit lines in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
5. The Montréal suburb of Laval announces a feasibility study for an urban gondola connected to the Montréal Metro.
6. A ropeway test installation by a major steel cable manufacturer suggests the potential for high speed gondolas in the future that reach speeds of 65 km/hr.
7. Steven Dale speculates how so-called “smart glass” on the Bukit Panjang LRT in Singapore could be used to solve privacy problems in urban gondola installations. Then, 8 months later, Gondola Project Team Member and online researcher extraodinaire, Nick Chu, discovers a little-known pair of gondolas in Aichi, Japan from 2005 that do exactly that.
8. Two more urban cable cars are under construction in Constantine, Algeria. Such developments, it was discovered, would eventually bring that countries total cable transit system count to 23.
9. News reports surface suggesting that Calgary, Alberta, Canada wants to explore cable cars and urban gondolas sometime in the near future.
10. A bizarre gondola system in a Swedish zoo, demonstrates some rather extreme cornering techniques.
11. (Bonus!) The London Thames Cable Car / Emirates Air-Line is approved. In order to meet an aggressive deadline so that the system is open in time for the forthcoming Olympic games, system construction is launched, branding completed and the first tower is installed all within a matter of months. Despite all these successes, controversy erupts over system costs.