01
Nov

2009

One Summer In Switzerland . . .

. . . after graduating from planning school, I was visiting my partner’s family when plans arose to go hiking around her local ski resort.

Let me make this clear from the beginning:  I am no skier.  I’ve skied twice in my life with little success and those occurrences were on hills of inconsequential size.

In my humble opinion, nailing oneself to a couple of planks of wood and throwing oneself off of a cliff is not so much sport as it is suicide.  If that’s what you’re into, great.  I’m happy down here.

As such, I was unprepared for the journey up the 2000 meter high Melchsee Frutt.  I was also unprepared for my first gondola trip.

Just to clarify, prior to my experience in Switzerland, my understanding of a gondola was this:

Skiers

Skiing in Switzerland, apparently.

Wrong, I discovered.  A gondola was also this:

Also Skiing

Also skiing in Switzerland.

What kind of bizarre contraption was this gondola I asked myself.  Is it safe?  How many people can it carry?  How fast is it?  Is it safe?  Really?  But it’s just dangling by that cable?  Again:  Is it safe?

My worries were quickly put to rest.  The gondola was fast, comfortable and calm.  And if it wasn’t safe, no one seemed to care or notice.  I put my faith in the dozens of other Swiss passengers who showed little qualm about the vehicle.

As we ascended the mountain, however, a very curious event occurred.  On the ground beneath our car, about 25 feet below us, a pick-up truck whizzed by along a service road.  It was at that moment I had a realization:

There is no traffic 25 feet in the air!

After the hike I was curious:  Could this gondola technology be used in an urban environment?

I understood how ridiculous the idea was, so I secretly scrambled to uncover as much research as I could without anyone knowing.

Nevertheless, after a few weeks of digging, I’d uncovered enough research to suggest something I thought to be profound:  Gondola (later to be known as Cable-Propelled Transit) technology was not only an attractive option for urban environments, in many ways it was superior to our traditional family of transit technologies.

That experience, just over two years ago, sent me off on a bizarre hunt for information about what must be one of the most misunderstood and most underestimated transit technologies in history.  Sometimes the quest was borderline quixotic but it has always been exhilarating.

The Gondola Project is the culmination of that work.

Creative Commons images by bratha and ben.ramirez.



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Background / History
5
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02
Nov

2009

No City Wants To Be First . . .

but every city wants to be second.

The competitive drive to be number one just doesn’t seem to permeate City Hall and that’s understandable.  Infrastructure is terribly expensive and no politician or planner wants to embarrass themselves by green-lighting a future white elephant.

Cities are therefore remarkably conservative when it comes to infrastructure.  Cities tend only to adopt ideas and technologies that have already been proven in other locations, but sometimes even that strategy backfires:

The Portland Aerial Tram was the only Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) system to be built for public transit purposes in North America since New York’s Roosevelt Island Tram was built in 1976.

Portland Aerial Tram

Portland Aerial Tram

Unfortunately, the Portland Tram’s planners took all their cues from New York and decided on using aerial tram technology; the most expensive of cable technologies and the one with the least upside.

Roosevelt Island Tram

Roosevelt Island Tram

There were several other cable technologies Portland could have and should have considered, but didn’t.  Instead of being inquisitive, Portland simply did what New York did, seemingly unaware that New York’s choice of technology was due in part to the limited options the cable technology offered way back in 1976.

Playing Follow the Leader is fine when you’re in kindergarten, but when you’re all grown up you have to ask questions.  Hard ones.  And when you find answers, extrapolate from them and apply them to your own unique situation.

Images by William Beutler and CUP Projects



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Aerial Trams / History / Portland Aerial Tram / Roosevelt Island Tram
5
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03
Nov

2009

CPT Is Not A Cure-All

Cable-Propelled Transit is not a cure-all for cities or for poor planning.

Any fool can tell you that x is a cure-all for y.  Even I could do it and I’m about as foolish as they come (a point most wouldn’t argue with).  The question is, are you willing to just believe it out-of-hand, or are you going to be inquisitive and dig deep.

When people are angry, upset, frustrated or annoyed, selling panaceas is as easy as selling a stacked deck to a down-on-his-luck gambler.  One needs look no further than the War in Iraq, the “problem” of immigration or Rogaine to understand that people will buy into anything when they’re desperate for a solution.

Don’t do that with CPT.  Please.  Don’t do that.

Yes, cable technology has a wide variety of benefits over other transit technologies.  But it is, however, just a technology.  And as a technology, it is still susceptible to the incompetence, mismanagement and general bureaucratic lunacy that is the trademark of our humanity.

Due to the inherent simplicity and logic of its design, CPT can certainly correct for some of our societal defects, but it cannot cure them and it is certainly no immune to them.

Allow me the following analogy:  Vaccines heal nothing if not for those who administer them.  When administered negligently, a vaccine is useless at best and deadly at worst.  Administered with care and mastery, however, and the right vaccine can heal the world.



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Thoughts
0
Comments
04
Nov

2009

CPT Is Not A Monorail

When I talk to anyone under the age of 35 about Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) something almost always occurs:

Without prompting, my partner in conversation will typically invoke the near-legendary Monorail musical number in The Simpsons episode “Marge vs. The Monorail.” For those who’ve never seen it, the story turns around a schemingly tuneful huckster bent on selling the town of Springfield a monorail despite their better instincts:

It’s a classic episode and the analogy is apt. After all, advancing the idea of ski-lifts as transit appears to be hucksterism at its best.

The difference, of course, is that Cable-Propelled Transit is a demonstrable success and monorails aren’t. Monorails are rare in the world and are so prohibitively complex and expensive they tend to become technological albatrosses. Ask anyone in Seattle.

You may think otherwise, but selling monorails is hucksterism. Advocating for cable isn’t.

So for those of you out there biting at the chomp to make the comparison, let me say this: I’m a terrible singer, I don’t earn a commission on any cable technology sales, I don’t know Leonard Nimoy, and I’ve never worn a bow tie in my life.

So there.

 

Far Left: Not Me.

(Far Left) Not Me.



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Monorails / Thoughts / Voluntary Disclosure
13
Comments
05
Nov

2009

The Basics

Sometimes people want to answer complex questions when most people looking for answers just want the basics.

When I first began this work, there was one really basic question about Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) that dogged me and no one could answer it.  It was a question that also dogged the think tank that first sponsored my research:

Can gondolas turn corners, and if so, how?

The answer might be patently obvious to some people, but not to someone who’d never seen one do it before.

The reason the question was so important is simple:  For an aerial cable system to be useful on any sort of scale in an urban environment, the vehicles must be capable of turning corners.  That’s a limiting factor for any transit technology.

Unfortunately, there were no strong sources available to answer that question.  One could extrapolate, but there was no clear statement on the matter.

I cannot even begin to tell you how long it took to definitively answer that question (incidentally, the answer is ‘yes’).  Days turned into weeks with no conclusive answer.  There was talk of “angle stations” and “intermediate terminals” but no where did someone take the time to just say this:

YES!!!  GONDOLAS CAN TURN CORNERS!!!  HERE’S THE PROOF!!!!

Proof

Proof

You can barely make it out in the above picture above, but this photo of the Ngong Ping 360 shows gondolas making a right hand turn on the island before running parallel to the freeway bridges.

Research is time-consuming.  Private and public sector planners require straight-forward answers to simple questions so that they can focus their energies on other things.  We’re not engineers.

For people to want a technology, they have to understand how it works to the extent that it affects them.  People are selfish with their attention.  They don’t care how a car works, they just care if it has a cup-holder.  They don’t care how a computer works, they just care if it “has email.”

Here’s a good rule to live by:  Assume people know absolutely nothing about your technology, then reduce that level of expectation by half.  That’s a good place to start . . . the basics.

Creative Commons image by James Wheare.



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Basic Lessons / Ngong Ping 360 / Research Issues
0
Comments
06
Nov

2009

Voluntary Disclosure

In the interest of honesty, let me state plainly that I have, in the past, provided planning services for the Doppelmayr/Garaventa Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) in the world.  I maintain a relationship with them to this day.

Should this fact cloud your opinion of The Gondola Project or Cable-Propelled Transit?  Possibly.  Is this a potential conflict of interest?  Also possibly, which is why I am making this disclosure.

I do not work on commission. If CPT sales increase, I get nothing and I think that’s the way it should be. Nor am I paid to maintain this website.  I maintain this website because I love it and genuinely believe people should learn about CPT.

As I’ve said before, I do not believe CPT is a panacea or a cure-all.  Nor do I believe that it is applicable in all situations.  It is, however, a fine and deserving addition to the existing family of transit technologies.

In this space, I will not endorse the work, service or products of an individual Cable-Propelled Transit manufacturer.  The purpose of The Gondola Project is not to advocate for one company over another, but instead to spread the idea that CPT deserves mainstream acceptance and understanding within transit planning circles.

I will, however, provide objective critiques of individual systems and technologies so that people can learn from the good and the bad examples of cable technology.  You’ll find me to be very fair and even-handed.

Finally, the opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Doppelmayr/Garaventa, the Cable-Propelled Transit industry or CUP Projects.



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Voluntary Disclosure
0
Comments
07
Nov

2009

Basic Lesson 1: What is Cable-Propelled Transit?

Simply speaking, Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) is a transit technology that moves people in motor-less, engine-less vehicles that are propelled by a steel cable.

Proceed to Basic Lesson 2 to learn about Gondolas & Cable Cars



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Basic Lessons
9
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