As I said yesterday, elevated transport infrastructure don’t get no love. In this, the second of two posts, we wrap up our list of the 10 most beautiful examples of elevated public transport infrastructure from around the world. ANY CHARACTER HERE 5. Station Square, Forest Hills Gardens – Queens, New York ANY CHARACTER HERE...
Elevated transport infrastructure don’t get no love. Architects and urban designers decry their ugliness and their ability to rip apart neighbourhoods and very few people are willing to step up and argue against that point. But to prove that elevated infrastructure isn’t always the city killer critics claim, we asked readers of The Gondola Project...
The topic of dwell times has always been a gripping issue on the Gondola Project (see here and here). Arguably, this talking point is now increasingly important as more urban cable cars are built. And let’s be honest, in today’s fast-paced city centers, no one wants to spend a few minutes sitting in a station. We previously witnessed 40 second dwell...
Recently an incredibly intelligent individual casually said a few words to me during a meeting: “Design solves everything”. Strangely enough, I never thought about design in such an overtly simple manner. And by pure coincidence, a few days later I found an awesome example of this phrase in action that I just had to share...
If you have kids, taking them skiing is probably some of the most fun you can have together as a family. But what happens when just hitting the slopes is no longer enough? Well, the Märchen-Gondelbahn system in Grächen (Switzerland) decided to one-up their offerings by introducing specially designed “Fairy Tale Gondolas”. Since the 2011/2012 season, children...
This is a guest post by Billy Beasley. It is the second article of a two-part series examining innovative station designs found in recreational cable cars that could be useful for urban implementation. Click here for the first article. Heavenly Mountain Gondola (Nevada) In some situations, cabin parking may not be an issue — rather, it’s...
This is a guest post by Billy Beasley. For many years, some critics of urban gondolas have argued that they won’t work in dense city centers due to the lack of space to build terminals. These stations, especially for larger lift types like the 3S or Aerial Tram require larger buildings to house the important machinery...
As we’ve learned from the BUGA festivals in Germany (here and here), there are few things German-speakers love more than to look at flowers while riding cable cars. Why? Why not? Who am I to judge? And apparently this trend is not new: In the mid-part of the 20th century, Zürich hosted a horicultural fair and...
Today as there are basically only two major CPT consortiums left, general observations seems to indicate that cabin designs are rather limited — especially in urban MDG systems. While current passenger carriers are both functional and practical, it appears that most (not all) urban MDGs built by Doppelmayr and Leitner/Poma typically feature the Omega style...
Throughout our time on the Gondola Project, we’ve seen many transport systems install smart glass windows (i.e. Morizo Gondola in Japan and Bukit Panjang LRT in Singapore). However, these systems did not offer users the ability to control when the glass becomes “frosted” nor the amount of “frostiness”. Enter Boeing’s newest aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner. These planes...