No matter how stressful your job is, it probably doesn’t compare to the stress Swiss acrobat Freddy Nook voluntarily puts himself under. This past weekend the 45 year old Nook tightrope walked across 5,300 feet of cable car rope at an elevation of over 10,000 feet above sea level. And to top it off: He...
A quick look at some of the things that make your cities work (or not) Happy Australia Day Edition: Australia’s unofficial national anthem: Waltzing Matilda % of Australians living in urban centers: 70 Size: 7.6 million square km Density: 3 persons per square km Human population: 22.5 million Cattle population: 23.3 million Sheep population: 79...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondola transit systems and Cable Propelled Transit: Greenwich Council approves the London Thames Cable Car. This was the second of two approvals needed for the system to move forward. For all intents and purposes, it looks like this thing is a go. Fares, apparently, have still...
(Voluntary Disclosure: Managers and Consultants associated with St. Louis’ CityArchRiver2015 interviewed me last month to assist them in understanding cable propelled and urban gondola transit. I received no compensation for this interview and the opinions expressed below are my own.) The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (also known as the St. Louis Gateway Arch) is easily...
Last year, when I had the opportunity to interview Metro Medellin about their Metrocable systems I stuck my foot in my mouth in a way only a North American could. We spent a couple hours going over the history, the successes and the failures of the system. When discussing the advantages of the gondola transit...
Ski hills are great and all, but the market’s limited. We’re not building any more mountains (except in Dubai) and the mountains we do have are being adversely effected by global warming – at least when it comes to ski conditions. That’s not much of a growth market. The urban market, however, is virtually limitless....
You want to build an urban gondola transit system in the hopes of attracting millions of tourists from around the world? Good luck with that. If you build one, and if you have tourists, you may very well get tourists riding your gondola, but that doesn’t mean tourists arrived because of your gondola. There’s a...
… is bound to be fraught with perils. Lacking the sufficient pitch, people are bound to imagine whatever they feel like. And there’s a very good chance that the image they conjure in their heads will be the exact opposite of what you desire. Tell someone you can use gondolas as transit and they might...
A quick look at some of the things that make your cities work (or not) Urban Sanitation Edition: World population: 7 billion Number of people worldwide defecating in public : 1.1 billion World population lacking access to basic sanitation: 2.6 billion Average toilet usage per day per person: 6 times Time spent on the toilet...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondola transit systems and Cable Propelled Transit: The Venezuelan Embassy in America celebrates the one year anniversary of the San Augustin Metrocable, praising the system for trimming travel times from up to 2 hours down to 9 minutes. In preparation for the Olymics, Russian resort town...