A QUICK LOOK AT SOME OF THE STATISTICS THAT MAKE YOUR CITIES WORK (OR NOT): Forecasted average weekday boardings for the Jacksonville Skyway Express in 1995: 42,472 Actual average weekday boardings for the Jacksonville Skyway Express in 2003: 1,925 Number of lost passenger items the Toronto Transit Commission typically sells at auction per year: 44,000...
Sometimes models can explain things in ways words can’t. With that in mind, take a look at this fantastic Lego model of a 3S Gondola system. Is it perfect? Hardly. But pay careful attention to the acceleration and deceleration wheels. Those replicate pretty accurately the way in which detachable gondola systems are accelerated and decelerated...
I’m sure there’s plenty more trends that work to Urban Gondolas’ and Cable Transit’s advantage, but these are the first 12 I could think of. Feel free to contribute your own in the comments. The Rise of The Private Automobile. As the price of cars decrease rapidly due to Chinese and Indian manufacturers, private car...
In yesterday’s post, I alluded to the bizarre nature of term “3S.” Let me explain – and I warn you, this will make your head hurt: The cable industry differentiates technologies like Monocable Detachable Gondolas (MDG) and Bi-Cable Detachable Gondolas (BDG) based upon the ropes/cables used. Great, you say. That makes sense. Monocables use one...
Image by jonwick04. One of the rarest and most exciting (at least from an urban perspective) of all aerial cable systems is the 3S.
Yonah Freemak, the tireless creator of The Transport Politic yesterday wrote about The Gondola Project and a piece I wrote for Planetizen. Yonah takes the perspective that cable transit is an enjoyable, interesting technology and wades into the Form vs. Function debate I highlighted recently. Yonah is an excellent writer, one whom I respect deeply....
From the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs series: How to maintain and grease an Aerial Tram. Very informative. (Note: Aerial Tram segment begins at 1:40.) Thanks for pointing this one out to me, Nick!
These are both 100% true stories: During my undergrad, I took a course called “The Changing Geography of China.” Of the sixty or so students in the class, I was one of a dozen white people in the room (maybe). Much to the obvious confusion of the class, one of those dozen was the professor;...
Banff, Alberta, Canada has probably one of the most unique gondola systems in the world. Well, actually they’re all unique. I’ve rarely found two systems that are alike and that’s the both the technology’s blessing and its curse. Yes, each system is different and unique to its own situation. Systems can be configured in any...
You can find today’s post over at Planetizen, the world’s largest urban planning related website. In their features section (the scrolling banner at the top of the page) you’ll find a column I wrote for them this week entitled South America Incubates Cable Propelled Transit. The column focuses on how South America, like it did...