If Caracas can use ski lifts as public transit what are the chances they could do something even more bizarre to ease one’s daily commute? Plenty apparently. Carlos Ocariz, mayor of the Caracas municipality of Sucre, has deployed 120 mimes into Venezuela’s most congested city. The mimes are tasked with taming the city’s notorious traffic and...
A couple highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit (slow week, sorry): Elected officials for ski area reject ski lifts – The Elected Officials Transportation Committee (ETOC) have rejected a proposal to study a concept plan to link all four ski mountains of Aspen, Colorado by cable cars...
In the Swiss suburb of Horw there exists one of the more fascinating applications of cable transit systems – this time in the form of a funicular. The private funicular is used to service a new development of low-rise apartment buildings that crawl up the side of a mountain. So new is this development you...
Often system length is used as an argument against Urban Gondolas and Cable Cars as a viable form of public transit. And while it’s true that most Cable Car systems are rather modest in length, that doesn’t mean they must be modest in length. That’s why we once wrote about the Norsjö Aerial Ropeway in Sweden....
We’ve been undergoing a pretty significant rebuild/reorganization of the site and it’s progressing well. One thing we’ve wanted to do is improve our integration with Flickr and expand our offerings. So while our Image Gallery Page lists only 12 different galleries, we’ve actually created a total of 35. They all can be viewed here. We’ll...
This started making the rounds on Friday and I suppose we’re obligated to pass it on: While we’re certainly advocates of “fun” transit around these parts, it’s worth throwing out the following: Maybe this Flash Commute was fun for Benny the Bull and his friends, but if you were one of the over-tired and...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit: Cattle farmers on the remote Dursey Island in Ireland are concerned that a weight restriction on the Dursey Island Cable Car will prevent them from moving their livestock to and from the island, effectively destroying a 2,000 year old...
For the upcoming 2 year anniversary of The Gondola Project, we’d like to dedicate a week purely to conceptual gondola plans created by Gondola Project readers. Concept plans such as those created for Pittsburgh, Seattle or Toronto invariably spur some of the most interesting discussions on the site and generate a lot of local interest....
Perhaps the oddest argument against Urban Gondolas is the boarding and alighting process. Oftentimes, people complain that passengers will be unable to board and alight these systems given the unique process involved: Generally speaking, urban gondolas move through stations at what is known as “crawl” or “creep” speed. While crawl speed can vary by system,...
Various media sources have been reporting that Makkah, Saudi Arabia has plans for 12 Urban Gondola systems throughout the city (here, here and here, for example). While that’s certainly exciting news, it’s not exactly true. The study that led to these reports explored only three routes with multiple technology and route configurations. The number of...