Post by Steven Dale
I was recently at a friend’s 30th birthday party back in Toronto and I was flying solo. I was at a table of old friends.
Maybe I should rephrase that. It was a table of people who were old friends of each other’s. I was the odd man out. They didn’t know me, I didn’t know them. No big deal.
The topic – as is typical in congestion-plagued Toronto – shifted to transit and the typical debates over buses vs. streetcar vs. light rail vs. subway.
Now in situations like this I have to be careful. I’m not going to jump up and down with the word “gondola” frothing at my mouth because that would just be strange and awkward.
So I generally just keep that information to myself and instead flex my transit nerd credentials by demonstrating how Toronto’s new light rail vehicles and lines aren’t actually light rail . . . which is what I did.
Out of no where a man at the table piped up with this idea he’d read about in some paper (probably either here, here or here) about using ski lifts as public transit.
No word of a lie, he turned to me and asked “so does that, like, work?”
An hour-long discussion ensued with most people coming around onside.
Sometimes the most satisfying part about my work are tiny, wonderful moments like that.
I love stuff like that.
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