New York’s famous Roosevelt Island Tram will be closing this spring for a complete overhaul. The system, built in the late 70’s is one of the few public CPT systems in North America and recently became fully-integrated into that city’s transit system. So if any of you are in NY in the next month, take...
Take a look at that picture again . . . Now take a look at this one: Looks like the same system, right? Well, you’re sort of right and sort of wrong. It is, indeed, the same system, but they’re in two different cities! For those who don’t know (and I certainly didn’t), the biannual...
I recently wrote an article for the Architectural League of New York‘s urbanism-themed website Urban Omnibus. The article, titled Off the Road and Into the Skies (click to read it), should provide you with a decent history of New York City’s Roosevelt Island Tram and some analysis of Santiago Calatrava’s botched cable transit proposal for...
Here’s an example of how not to implement Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) in an urban area. The Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) desired a direct connection between their two campuses in Portland, Oregon; one at the bottom of a mountain, another at the top. A CPT system was a logical choice. I won’t discuss what I...
There are two minor sub-groups of CPT technology: Aerial Trams and Funiculars. Aerial Trams are like larger Gondolas. I’ll discuss this technology in greater detail later. Generally speaking, however, Aerial Trams are (relative to Gondolas) an out-dated mode of Cable-Propelled Transit. Compared with Gondola technology, Aerial Trams exhibit longer wait times between vehicles; lower line...
but every city wants to be second. The competitive drive to be number one just doesn’t seem to permeate City Hall and that’s understandable. Infrastructure is terribly expensive and no politician or planner wants to embarrass themselves by green-lighting a future white elephant. Cities are therefore remarkably conservative when it comes to infrastructure. Cities tend...