I recently met someone who disapproves of this whole Urban Gondola concept – which is fine, you’re entitled to your own opinion. He said it’s hard enough to get his grandmother to ride the subway (because she finds it terrifying), let alone a gondola. According to The Grandmother Test (yeah, it should be called that)...
This piece was first published on The Gondola Project in 2010 but it is still highly relevant and useful. It’s about keeping your head low to the ground being unobtrusive; useful advice from a Canadian. There’s a story about Cable Propelled Transit, Aerial Ropeways and Urban Gondolas that only hurts the technology’s future. Unfortunately, the...
We briefly interrupt our scheduled Photo of the Week with an exciting new development from Google. Starting today, the search engine will let users preview dozens of major global transit locations worldwide with their newest Street View function. This includes 16 airports, 50+ train stations and get this, even the Ngong Ping 360 and Peak Tram in Hong...
Last Thursday, we briefly looked at AutoTrams – an attempt to combine the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) of both worlds in rail and bus technology. We’ve had a fairly robust debate in our comments section on the benefits and limitations of such a configuration. Then I thought, what would happen if you...
A quick look at some of the things that make walking and riding transit work (or not): Year when humans started walking: 1.5 million years ago Year when walking became a sport: 19th century (1801-1900) Year when most North Americans forgot how to walk: Post WWII Percentage of Americans not meeting 30 minute a...
People gotta’ get places. That’s why transit exists. And if the government or public sector can’t provide that transit, you can be certain the private sector will. Whether for better or for worse, they’ll provide things like these: ANY CHARACTER HERE
If I could think of one “Silver Bullet Urban Gondola Transit System” – that is a system that perfectly demonstrates the concept of Urban Gondolas and Cable Propelled Transit, I’d imagine this: Integrated by fare. The system must use the same fare system as the rest of the city’s transit grid. It must be a...
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...
Taken For A Ride is a documentary first broadcast on PBS in 1996. It tells the story of how a consortium led by General Motors, Firestone Tires and Standard Oil systematically worked to uproot the American streetcar network and replace it with roads, buses and private automobiles. The short hand for this incident is the...
Colin writes: I’ve been following your blog for a little while, and although my immediate impression was that the idea was absurd, that quickly morphed into “well why why hell not?” I’ve been a skiier/snowboarder for almost 35 years, and have ridden a lot of gondolas. One question I have is to do with queue control. I’ve found that...