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10
Jan

2011

The Gondola Project: Obsessive Guys Who Love Gondola Transit?

The internet’s a funny thing.

It’s so easy to take things out of context, misinterpret or just generally get all riled up about something that turns out to be nothing. Without that in-person interactive component, virtually anything can be misunderstood – and typically is.

Which is why I’m torn about a recent post over at Human Transit. In the post, Jarrett says this:

The possession of the tool, and the knowledge of how to use it, becomes a feature by which a group defines itself and sets itself in opposition to other interests.

If you don’t think this still happens, look at all the clubs and forums for people who own and cherish a particular tool — a Linux-powered computer, say, or a certain musical instrument. If you read an online forum about such possessions, you’ll see the practical work of exchanging troubleshooting tips also builds a community in which people love hearing each other’s stories about life with the cherished tool.

So this is another thing that’s going on behind the obsessive attachment to transit technologies. People who love aerial gondolas (link his, bold mine) or whatever can now network worldwide with every city that runs one, compare notes about each other’s problems and achievements, and thus form a global community based on love of that particular tool. Psychologically, it’s just like a club of guys who all own a particular kind of car, or computer, or electric guitar, or whatever.

Leaving aside the merits of his argument, what is one to make of Jarrett’s comment about aerial gondolas and his link to The Gondola Project?

There are, I think, two ways to look at it; one positive and one negative. First the negative:

It’s nothing more than a less-than-subtle broadside and a low blow.

The Gondola Project, as envisioned by Human Transit. Image by buhtterfly.

Calling The Gondola Project community nothing more than a group of “people who love aerial gondolas” with an “obsessive attachment” doesn’t inspire much faith in the community nor the technology itself. It also completely discounts the achievements cable has experienced in the last 10 years.

Furthermore, comparing The Gondola Project to “a club of guys who all own a particular kind of car, or computer, or electric guitar, or whatever” is off base. The phrasing is intentionally derisive here: No one is a professional. Everyone is just a “guy” united solely by the fact that they own a piece of hardware. Everyone is an amateur.

Doesn’t matter that many of The Gondola Project’s readers, writers and contributors are professionals actively engaged in issues of transit, planning and policy. The impression given is one of a bunch of guys huddled together in one’s garage obsessively going over the minutiae of that which they have no personal stake in.

It’s an attack not upon the technology, but upon the people associated with it.

But maybe that’s reading a bit too deeply into the subtext.

The second way to read it is this:

If Jarrett Walker and Human Transit are hostile towards the idea of cable transit and The Gondola Project, why bother linking to us in the first place? While his coverage of the idea could be interpreted as less-than-favorable, it puts the idea front-and-centre before his sizable readership.

Furthermore, Human Transit has had a link to The Gondola Project under their ‘Technophile’ category for months now. If Human Transit doesn’t like the idea of cable, they wouldn’t mention it. They’d just ignore it and hope that it goes away.

If they don’t approve of the idea, the best way to kill it doesn’t involve giving it more attention. That would be a huge strategic error. After all, like publicity, there’s no such thing as bad traffic.

So maybe it’s a reluctant invitation to the table. While not explicitly endorsing the technology, idea or people behind cable transit, Human Transit’s favorable linking allows for the idea to enter the conversation and discussion. It allows it an opportunity to go mainstream while giving Jarrett the critical distance he requires and deserves.

There’s really no way to know one way or the other which of the two perspectives is right. In fact, there could be a third or fourth perspective as well. The only way to know is to get it straight from the source.

So my question to Jarrett is this: Which one is it? What do you think of cable?

(Update: Jarrett responds in the comments.)

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09
Sep

2010

Say ‘Hi’ To The Spokane Urban Gondola

I recently discovered a new site advocating for Urban Gondolas in Spokane, Washington. I have no idea the person(s) behind the site and it’s currently slim on details, but that’s okay. After all, it’s only a couple months old and these things take time to build up content, community and resources.

Refreshingly, there’s no route or alignment proposed. The author, Selkirk, is candid and simply posits: Why not a gondola?

Why not, indeed?

This is an important step forward. Someone took the time and energy to do something; to say something and reach out to the world. In essence, they’ve expanded, localized and focused the Cable Propelled Transit community and that’s what’s needed here.

I can shout gondola! all I want, but it won’t do a thing until others take ownership of the idea, run with it and push it in whatever way they deem necessary.

So please, if you’re a regular reader of The Gondola Project (or even if you’re not), take the time to visit Selkirk’s site and leave him (or her) a message. Support him (or her). Offer to help. At the very least, say ‘hi.’

After all, starting a website and/or blog is hard work. Sometimes the only thing that keeps one going is the steady trickle of clicks, unique visitors and comments that indicate some small part of the world hears them.

Let’s make sure Selkirk knows we’re listening.

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30
Aug

2010

Americans Want Public Transit (A Satire)

One of my favorite websites in the world is the satirical newspaper, The Onion. Its commentary is such a spot-on accurate depiction of how the world works, it’s oftentimes a more reliable source of news and commentary than our traditional sources.

An absolute favorite article (from 2000) is titled Report: 98 Percent of U.S.Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others. Among the highlights:

“With traffic congestion, pollution, and oil shortages all getting worse, now is the time to shift to affordable, efficient public transportation,” APTA director Howard Collier said. “Fortunately, as this report shows, Americans have finally recognized the need for everyone else to do exactly that.”
Among these positives: the health benefits of getting fresh air while waiting at the bus stop, the chance to meet interesting people from a diverse array of low-paying service-sector jobs, and the opportunity to learn new languages by reading subway ads written in Spanish.
The APTA is kicking off a campaign to promote mass transit with the slogan, “Take The Bus… I’ll Be Glad You Did.”

Meanwhile, in March of this year Transportation For America announced: New Poll Shows Americans Strongly Support Public Transportation.

It’s easy to say you support public transit. After all, who wouldn’t? Even easier to take a poll and say people in general support public transit.

But the real question isn’t whether or not you support public transit. The question is will you ride public transit?

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26
Jul

2010

Forecasting as Voodoo

There’s nothing more common and consistently wrong in the transit planner’s toolbox as ridership forecasting and projections. It’s like voodoo: 90% of the time it doesn’t work, and the 10% of the time it does no one knows why (hint: it’s not because of the voodoo).

So here comes Tom Rubin, a veteran transit consultant saying if Los Angeles had forsaken its program to build streetcars and light rail and instead “run a lot of buses at low fares, they could have doubled the number of riders.”

Meanwhile, quoting the LA Times article above, Jarrett Walker echoes this philosophy stating that “if you really want a transformative boost in transit ridership, the single most effective thing you could do can be done entirely with paint and signs: converting traffic lanes or parking lanes to bus lanes.“

It would be great to see Tom Rubin (and to a lesser extent Jarrett Walker) prove his claim. How can he know that Light Rail directly decreased ridership and that bus ridership would have doubled the number of riders? How can he make such a sweeping prediction?

He can’t.

There’s no way to make that claim unless Rubin has access to a time machine capable of visiting an alternate universe and reporting the results back to our current universe. And if Rubin did have such a machine, why is he wasting his time as a transit planning consultant?

If you read the LA Times article closely you notice four things:

Rubin makes clear that the initial decrease of transit ridership in 1985 was due to an increase in fares. It’s a bait-and-switch. First he attributes the decrease in ridership to an increase in fares. He then tries to pin that on Light Rail (because the subsidy used to artificially keep bus fares low was shifted to rail).
Rubin notes that traffic congestion continues to rise throughout the region and uses that as evidence of rail’s ineffectiveness. It’s a correlation versus causation error: Just because rail was built at the same time that transit ridership decreased does not mean one can attribute the latter to the former. Meanwhile, during the same period of time, LA opened one of the longest and most heavily used Bus Rapid Transit lines in North America. Why is rail to blame and not BRT?
Rubin conveniently ignores the fact that transit ridership has returned to pre-1985 levels in Los Angeles.
Rubin focuses on running “a lot of buses at low fares.” His argument in favour of buses is dependent upon them having low fares. The same argument could be made for running “a lot of streetcars at low fares” or “a lot of ponies at low fares.” Rubin’s argument should be rephrased as low fares increase ridership not buses increase ridership.

Generally speaking, I’m not the biggest fan of LRT because it’s rarely implemented properly. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was the cause of decreased transit usage in Los Angeles, especially when the logic underpinning such an argument is completely suspect.

I also wouldn’t go so far as Jarrett Walker does to say that any one technology or technique (bus in particular) is the single most effective means to boost transit ridership. That’s a pretty big claim to make especially without any statistics to back it up.

For any technology-specific advocate, the stakes are high. Transit contracts are some of the most valuable in the world, costing billions of dollars. It shouldn’t, therefore, surprise us that some industries play fast and loose with facts and truth. Is it right? No. But just because it isn’t right doesn’t mean we should blind ourselves into believing it doesn’t happen.

Cities, meanwhile, are continually struggling to increase transit ridership. So if a certain group of technology enthusiasts can make a specious claim that their technology can do that, maybe their technology will win more contracts and their consultants and planners will get more work. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy that’s (strangely) rarely fulfilled.

Selling one transit technology as the be-all-and-end-all savior of transit is irresponsible. Damning another technology using incredibly faulty logic worse still.

Note to Tom Rubin: If you do have the aforementioned alternate-universe-time-machine handy, could you please tell me who has my copy of Jane Jacob’s Dark Age Ahead? I really love that book and I have no idea who I lent it to. Also: Whose going to win the 2014 World Cup? And: What would I look like with a mustache?

Blogs & Other Sites / Bus / Light Rail & Streetcars / Urban Planning & Design

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10
Jul

2010

Aerial Trams vs. Gondolas

I recently spoke with a cable engineer who thought it completely absurd that people use Aerial Tram statistics to negate the feasibility of Urban Gondolas.

When I told him such confusion was the norm rather than the exception, he became flustered. He simply couldn’t accept that people make that mistake. They’re two completely different performance packages! he exclaimed. They should know the difference!

Listen, if you’re a regular reader of The Gondola Project, then you know the difference between an Aerial Tram and a Gondola (MDG, BDG or 3S). You also know why Gondolas are more suitable to urban environments and fully-integrated CPT installations.

You know that Aerial Trams have long wait times, little ability to implement intermediary stations and corners, low capacities and high costs. You also know that a Funifor negates those problems to some extent but not without significant cost increases.

But not everyone reads The Gondola Project (probably the greatest understatement in the history of blogging).

This is why a post over at David Marcus’ Liveable Norwalk caught my eye.

In that post, David suggests a CPT system for his hometown of Norwalk, Connecticut. It’s a modest proposal; a 1.5 mile long 4 station line. It wasn’t, however, the proposal that caught my eye. It was the response.

Responding to the post was Cap’n Transit, of Cap’n Transit Rides Again. For anyone who reads the transit blogs, the Cap’n should be more than familiar. He’s a prolific blogger and commenter with vast knowledge about public transportation.

He also gets it dead wrong in his response to the Norwalk Gondola:

Says Cap’n Transit:

. . . the urban gondola was first introduced right here in New York City. When they reopen the Roosevelt Island Tramway, come down and try it. You’ll find that wait time has hardly been eliminated.

Says David in response:

I have to distinguish between a tram like Roosevelt Island and a gondola like in Medellin. When I speak of gondolas, I mean the smaller cars that hold 6-10 people and come by every 10 seconds or so.

Says the Cap’n:

Thanks, David! Do they really come that frequently in Medellin? Are there more than 10 people at a time who want to ride? Has anyone tried them?

In the Cap’n's defence, he was open-minded enough to notice he might have been incorrect. But besides that:

Can the average person really tell you what the difference between an Aerial Tram and a Gondola is?

Does the average person know that the Roosevelt Island Tram is actually to be replaced with a Funifor-type system?

Does the average person know the difference between a Funifor and an Aerial Tram?

Problem, however, is not with the average person, it’s with the knowledgeable person. Cap’n Transit knows a lot about transit, but he clearly knows little about Cable Propelled Transit. And that’s not his fault! After all, we don’t know what we don’t know.

The cable engineer can complain all he wants that people should know the difference between Aerial Trams and Gondolas, but they don’t. Whose fault do you think that is?

And maybe more importantly: Do you think complaining about it is going to change it?

Aerial Trams / Blogs & Other Sites / Funifor / Gondola / Research Issues / Roosevelt Island Tram

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07
Jul

2010

Valparaiso Ascencors

In February The Gondola Project held a mini-competition. The winner was to receive their $50 prize by email money transfer.

Matt Thredgold of Wellington Cycleways won. But as Matt lives in New Zealand and email money transfers are apparently a uniquely Canadian phenomenon (they’re awesome, by the way), Matt asked that his prize come in the way of two CDs via Amazon Canada.

In exchange for that exception, Matt promised to post images from his recent trip to Valparaiso, Chile. For those unfamiliar, Valparaiso has the largest network of functioning Funiculars in the world, most dating from 100-150 years ago.

Clearly, I was happy to oblige. Click here to see the wonderful results.

This is how research is going to happen more and more. The old model used to be one or two researchers scouring obscure publications and writing obscure publications that no one’s ever going to read. That model is quickly dying if not already dead. And that’s a great thing. The internet’s simply faster, cleaner, cheaper and more efficient than peer-reviewed journals and government reports. Some people will fight to maintain the status quo, but it’s a losing battle because that old model was/is expensive, time-consuming and prone to all kinds of suspect Gate-Keeping.

Nowadays things are very, very different. Now things move at lighting speed and change doesn’t require millions of dollars. You don’t have the time or resources to get to Valparaiso, Chile? No problem. There’s a bicycle advocate in New Zealand whose already been there, done that. Send him a couple of CDs and he’s happy to help out. You’ll have your pictures and research next week.

Here’s the great irony: Matt and I managed to “broker” our deal in nothing more than a few minutes. A couple emails, a couple blog posts and a quick trip to Amazon. The CDs themselves, however, took 5 months (5 months!) to arrive on Matt’s doorstep.

And people wonder while snail mail and compact discs are dying businesses.

Thanks again, Matt!

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15
Jun

2010

Cable Misunderstandings on The Transport Politic

Yonah Freemak, the tireless creator of The Transport Politic yesterday wrote about The Gondola Project and a piece I wrote for Planetizen. Yonah takes the perspective that cable transit is an enjoyable, interesting technology and wades into the Form vs. Function debate I highlighted recently.

Yonah is an excellent writer, one whom I respect deeply. Yet while Yonah is generally positive on the concept, I have to point out one interpretive misstep and one factual misstep that he makes. First, Yonah’s interpretive misstep:

It’s true, of course, that it makes little sense to build a gondola in many cities — many places lack major elevation changes or large natural obstacles that preference an investment in a mode of transportation that simply goes over everything that’s around it.

I’ll be the first to admit that gondolas aren’t for every city, but I would never say that it makes little sense to build a gondola in “many cities.” Like so many, Freemark assumes that the technology is only appropriate for cities characterized by natural obstacles and or large elevation changes. Why? No reason is given.

I prefer to look at the technology as one that can exploit rather than just deal with natural obstacles. Rivers, valleys, parks and electricity corridors become usable space for transit that other technologies would not be able to utilize. This is a classic case of using what you have to your advantage.

Furthermore, Yonah misses the fact that traffic is an even greater obstacle in urban settings than “natural” obstacles. At least natural obstacles are static over time and space and can be planned for. No such luck with “unnatural” obstacles such as traffic, street protests, cyclists, and pedestrians. Worse still, standard transit technologies such as Buses, Streetcars and Light Rail only contribute further to traffic problems. Not so with cable systems.

Yonah’s second misstep comes when he says this:

There are of course major limitations to aerial vehicles like the gondolas Dale has highlighted; their maximum running speeds are relatively slow and they lack the ability to handle anywhere near the capacity of traditional train systems.

Two problems here:

Firstly, Yonah confuses “maximum running speed” with average speed. As I point out here and here, average running speed is all that really matters in an urban setting. Maximum speed is basically irrelevant. Just ask that guy in the Ferrari whose been stuck at 10 km/hr in dense rush hour traffic. Just because a vehicle is capable of operating at 100 km/hr doesn’t mean it will, which is why Light Rail vehicles today are built to a maximum speed specification well below what they were in the past. (Toronto Streetcars and Light Rail vehicles famously operate an average of around 13 km/hr but are built to operate at 100 km/hr).

Because cable transit systems operate outside of all other forms of traffic, vehicles are actually able to reach their maximum speeds. So while the maximum speed of a gondola may be less than the maximum speed of a streetcar or light rail vehicle or bus, it’s ability to operate outside of mixed traffic completely negates that. Yonah also completely ignores the issue of wait times, a stat with which cable has no peers (see here and here).

Secondly, Yonah is right about one thing: Cable cannot approach the capacity of standard train systems. Here, however, I have to assume that he’s talking about commuter or heavy rail (subways). In that sense, yes, he’s right. But one of the things he misses is that few North American cities are building heavy rail systems because the capacity demands just aren’t there.

(Danish scholar Bent Flyberg, for example, has demonstrated that rail projects generally meet with ridership half of what was forecasted. This perspective is echoed by the US Department of Transportation and Harvard economist Don H. Pickrell.)

We therefore should be examining Light Rail and BRT capacities not Heavy Rail because Light Rail and BRT are currently what everyone is building. And when you look at the offered capacities of most Light Rail or Bus Rapid Transit systems in North America, rarely does one find a line that eclipses the 4,000 pphpd mark. Currently, aerial cable systems can reach up to 6,000 pphpd.

Like speed, we have a choice to build technologies that have a theoretical maximum capacity which we will never use or we can build a more modest technology that can easily provide what is required. If the two technologies were the same price, yes, go for the more robust one every time.

Problem is, LRT and BRT is anywhere from double to triple the price of cable on a per-rider-per-kilometer basis, (with far longer wait times and worse safety levels to boot.)

I duly appreciate the attention and generally favourable impression of cable Yonah’s article gives. I just think it important to recognize the deep-seated misunderstandings of the technology (in specific) and transit (in general) that exist (check out the Neumann-Bondada studies) and how those misunderstandings may preclude us from considering a truly revolutionary technology.

Remember: Cable Propelled Transit and Urban Gondolas aren’t just cool or interesting; they’re deeply simple and practical, too.

Update: Since posting this today, Yonah Freemark has posted a response of his own at the end of his original post.)

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