Far too often people talk about cable as a convenient technology for tackling topographical challenges. But that’s where it ends. It’s a niche technology, they claim, nothing more.
In other words: Cable’s ability to avoid physical obstacles is used as an argument against it. How much sense does that make?
The great irony is that topography is far less challenging to deal with than traffic. Mountains don’t tend to move; rivers don’t suddenly switch their direction of flow; ravines don’t come out of no where.
In other words: Topography is simple. What isn’t so simple is human beings and the traffic they generate.
Traffic is far more complex than topography. And if there’s one thing we’ve seen in the last 50 years, standard transit technologies such as buses, streetcars and light rail are miserable at dealing with traffic challenges.
But if you think of traffic and topography as one and the same – that is, they’re both physical obstacles that impede movement – you quickly realize the only way to deal with traffic is to treat it like topography: avoid it.
Go above it, below it or around it. Just don’t try and tackle it head on.