Post by Steven Dale
A strange thing happened during yesterday’s discussion of the spiralling costs of the London Thames Cable Car:
Like any time before when the topic of urban versus resort installations comes up, the de facto response is: Well, duh, of course it’s more expensive to build in cities and for government.
You’ve said it. I’ve said it. We’ve all said it. We’ll probably be saying it tomorrow.
But the question is this: Should it be?
We have no shortage of examples of tourist-oriented systems built in urban areas. Those systems are always more reasonably-priced than their transit-oriented brethren. And yet they both share the common variable of still being located in urban areas.
Why does the addition of a layer or two of bureaucracy justify an orders-of-magnitude extremely excessive cost increase for a product whose only real difference is said layer or two of bureaucracy?
Maybe that’s an incredibly naive question to ask. Maybe. But it’s also a question that needs to be asked.
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Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.