Design Depot's spherical lattice towers.

The tower infrastructure associated with cable transit is justifiably maligned. It’s utilitarian and rarely pretty. But it doesn’t have to be.

Last year, the Royal Institute of British Architects tackled this very issue through their Pylon Design Competition. Now granted, that competition was specifically targeted towards electricity transmission towers, but the same applies here. (Note, you can see all the short-listed design concepts here.)

Flower Tower Concept by Gustafson Porter with Atelier One and Pfisterer.

As we’ve seen with systems like Portland and London, tower infrastructure can be a piece of artistry. Towers such as those are admittedly expensive rarities but only because they’re, well, rare.

That’s simple Supply and Demand working there. Beautiful towers are rarely in demand; which leads to non-existent supply; which, in turn, leads to increased cost.

The flip side of that, of course, is that if more beautiful towers are demanded, then the cost of beautiful towers will come down. And everything I’m hearing from cities contemplating cable propelled transit systems, suggests that change is not long off.

Cities (or more exactly, politicians and policy-makers) don’t like the idea of awful-looking lattice towers cluttering up their backyards and that’s likely to drive a sea-change within the industry. If not now, then some time in the near-to-mid future. The companies that figure that out and learn how to provide pre-fabricated, yet beautiful tower infrastructure will be at a clear competitive advantage in the urban market.

Remember: Ugly is nothing more than an opportunity to be beautiful.

In the meantime, take a look at a handful of tower designs (some realized) I managed to pull from around the web and imagine how you might use them in a cable transit design of your own:

Russia's Design Depot came up with this gorgeously whimsical take on the classic lattice tower.

Mulhouse, France's Tramway Pylons. Image via flickr user michallon.

Iceland's Choi + Shine Architects' award-winning "Land of Giants" transmission tower concept.

Enessere's wood and steel Hercules wind turbine.

The Stoos Funicular. Image by Steven Dale.

I love when I stumble across these kind of things . . .

Over the weekend I was visiting some friends in the alpine village of Stoos - a village I’d never been to.

I figured there’d be some form of cable-propelled transit system we’d need to use in order to get up the mountain and sure enough there was – an old inclined funicular built by Von Roll.

These moments always hold a special degree of intrigue for me.

See, the thing about the cable industry is that there are roughly 20,000 installations in the world. Couple that with numerous industry mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies over the last 30 years and you have a severe record-keeping problem.

Meanwhile, the handful of websites dedicated to the subject tend to be in different languages and aren’t great at sharing information. This presents a rather difficult problem in that dossiers of individual systems are almost non-existent. Even if you wanted to learn about every cable system in the world, you probably couldn’t.

On the flip side, it means there’s always plenty of mystery and anticipation which is always good for a curious spirit and inquisitive soul.

When I approach a system I’ve never seen before the inevitable question that races through my head is “will there be something interesting and/or useful about this one?”  More often than not the answer is yes. The flexibility, peculiarity and context specificity of cable systems means almost everyone has at least something interesting to say about it; some more than others.

So what’s so important about the Stoos Funicular?

It’s steep. Like as in, really, really, really steep. The picture above doesn’t really do it justice, but the effect of riding this thing is pretty overwhelming. Depending upon the degree of inclination, one feels as though one is about to fall forward out of one’s seat or leaning backwards at a precarious angle.

Befitting it’s age, it’s overall kind of thrilling, but not the most safe feeling trip in the world.

But that’s not what caught my eye.

What caught my eye is this:

Marketing materials for the new Stoos Funicular. Image by Steven Dale.

That’s a poster from the lower station of the Stoosbahn. Apparently, the old system is being replaced by the new one pictured above, – it looks like something wholly original.

According to Funimag, this new Garaventa-designed and built system will be the steepest 2 vehicle funicular in the world with a maximum gradient of 110%. That’s important because if you notice in the pictures above and below, the individual vehicle pods are hinged in such a way that the floors will remain horizontal at all times, no matter the vehicle’s degree of inclination.

You know you want to ride this right now. Image via Funimag.

In essence, this is the Doppelmayr-Garaventa group’s answer to Leitner-Poma’s Hungerburgbahn Hybrid Funicular technology - a very impressive project in it of itself.

The new Stoosbahn is due to open in 2013.

Or when we consider congestion pricing on roads, we enrage drivers who lose the privilege of free access to roads. Doesn’t matter that the roads will be clearer, thus creating substantial time savings. Drivers will still resist the change because they value the perceived right to free roads (and the tolls they avoid) more than than the value of decreased commuting times in the future.

Or when we claim a traffic lane for public transportation, widened sidewalks or bike lanes we further anger drivers who’ve lost precious road space. And again, it doesn’t matter that those concessions will make urban mobility generally better for everyone – including the drivers. Ironically, even if the loss of road space will ultimately lead to increased mobility, those drivers will lament the loss of geography far more than the increased mobility.

And when we remove or change locations of a bus or streetcar stop we often find our plans scuttled by a vocal group of residents who are forced by our policy to walk an additional two minutes from their house to their stop. Doesn’t matter that such a shift will decrease travel times for everyone along the route significantly. Doesn’t even matter that the policy decreases travel times for the wronged residents because these residents value those two minutes in the present they know far more than the imagined time savings in an uncertain future.

The phenomenon described above is known in economics circles as loss aversion and refers quite simply to people’s preference of avoiding losses over acquiring gains. Doesn’t matter if the gain is greater than the loss, people will still opt to avoid the loss.

It’s a phenomenon we don’t tend to apply to the field of public transportation planning all that often. But maybe we should.

In transport planning we sometimes ignore the human component of what we’re trying to accomplish. We get angry when what appears to be a completely logical and beneficial plan gets derailed (sorry) by a vocal minority who just can’t seem to understand the multitude of benefits our plan provides.

And that’s our mistake in thinking, not theirs’. You can always spot the frustrated policy-maker or transport planner, done-in by his own misunderstanding of the human condition, when they complain about people “just not understanding.”

It’s not that people don’t understand your plans, it’s that you don’t understand people.

It’s not that people don’t understand – it’s that they don’t care. Or maybe it’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they don’t value what you value. Quite simply, people value whatever they’re about to lose far more than what they’re about to gain. This isn’t about nimbyism or short-sightedness or the ignorant, unwashed masses; this is simply a case of human beings behaving like human beings.

It may seem illogical, but that’s they way it is.

Logical or not, that’s people. Deal with it.

Rendering of proposed Mt. Wellington Cable Car in Tasmania, Australia. Image from themercury.com.au.

A quick look at some of the highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit:

• An opinion article from the NY Times provides an interesting look into life on Roosevelt Island (home to the Roosevelt Island Tram) from a New Yorker’s perspective.
• After a new bridge is built in Mankele in South Africa, residents no longer need to use the dangerous makeshift cable car, known locally as the “segwaigwai”
• Dozens of passengers, including students from Vermont, were stuck in the Parc de la Chute-Montmorency cable car ride after a power failure. Everyone was rescued safely and this was the first time the system has malfunctioned in over 20 years of operations.
• Emirates Air Line continues to undergo testing (see video below).

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Angry Bird gondola cabin. Image from CNNGo.com

If you happen to be fan of both the Angry Birds video game and cable cars, you may wanna book a trip to Singapore as soon as possible. The Singapore Cable Car has just redesigned and retrofitted 30 of their cabins to celebrate the opening of an Angry Birds theme park on Mount Faber.

Guests riding the gondola will receive a complementary Angry Birds face mask and mocktail. Image from singaporecablecar.com.sg.

Upon arrival to the theme park, guests can participate in an Angry Birds game booth. To add to the “bizarreness” during June, three of the cabins will, “depict the Angry Birds chasing after an evil green pig“. What exactly that means I have no idea, but if somehow one of our loyal readers does happen to be in Singapore at that time please let us know.

While this design theme may appear silly at first, I think this is another great example of how cable car operators can use a CPT system as a marketing tool. This attracts attention and garner interest in the system. An urban gondola applying similar marketing principles may also spur additional ridership.

The reason I say this is because as we’ve discussed in the past, adding a bit of fun to transit greatly impacts people’s interest in public transport.

In the meantime, for more information and pictures about this promotional event, check out the Singapore Cable Car Facebook page here.

Image via Toronto Star.

Yesterday, the Toronto Star profiled Toronto’s “only cable-propelled transit” system – Pearson Airport’s Link APM cable car connector.

It’s a good article and worth taking a look at, especially as they discuss how an upcoming rail connection to downtown Toronto will integrate with the existing system. Apparently the rail line will arrive ”on a rail spur that runs right down the middle of the two LINK guideways.”

(One caveat though: As per the image above, the arm that connects the cars to the cable is not a bogie, it’s called the grip. The bogie is the wheeled carriage the vehicles travel on.)