09
Dec

2014

5 breathtaking gondola rides that should have made the Daily Mail’s list

Stanserhorn CabriO in Switzerland. Image courtesy of CabriO.

Stanserhorn CabriO in Switzerland. Image courtesy of CabriO.

Back in October, the Daily Mail posted their list of the most breathtaking gondola rides in the world. The inventory of cable car systems, which included Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Teleferico de Merida in Venezuela, and the rotating Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in California, is impressive, if a little bit obvious. So we rounded up five more gondolas that offer uniquely breathtaking rides. 

Stanserhorn CabriO (Switzerland)

Opened in 2012 as an updated alternative to the 120-year-old rail funicular, the CabriO cable car provides access to the top of Mount Stanserhorn in the centre of Switzerland. Beyond the thrill of ascending the mountain along 2,320 metres of cable, riders can venture into the open air to check out the scenery on the gondola’s second deck. (Pictured above.)

Peak 2 Peak (Whistler, Canada)

Ostensibly created to service the ski resorts at the tops of Whistler-Blackcomb’s two major mountains, Peak 2 Peak has gained considerable recognition for its record-breaking innovation. The almost entirely horizontal system stretches from Whistler Mountain’s Roundhouse Lodge to Blackcomb Mountain’s Rendezvous restaurant across 4.4 km of cable, more than 3 km of which is a free span — the longest in the world. At the time, its highest point (436 metres) held the world record for highest cable car. Discovery Channel even made a documentary about the construction of the system.

Peak 2 Peak in Whistler, BC. Image by Flickr user Dan Dan The Binary Man.

Peak 2 Peak in Whistler, BC. Image by Flickr user Dan Dan The Binary Man.

Roosevelt Island Tram (New York)

While not breathtaking in the natural majesty sense of the word, New York’s refurbished Roosevelt Island Tram nonetheless offers riders an impressive view of Manhattan, not to mention the waterfront skyline along the Hudson River’s east channel. Plus, this is the only CPT line to feature in a Spider-Man movie. 

Roosevelt Island tram. Image by Flickr user Chevar.

Roosevelt Island tram. Image by Flickr user Chevar.

Koblenz Rheinseilbahn (Germany)

The cable car system that services Koblenz was constructed specifically for the city’s turn playing host to Germany’s bi-annual Bundesgartenshau horticulture festival in 2011. Using advanced 3S technology, the gondola carries riders directly from downtown Koblenz to the area near the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress across the Rhine river — a trek otherwise requiring a roundabout surface route and a funicular.

Image by Flickr user Mundus Gregorius.

Koblenz Rheinseilbahn. Image by Flickr user Mundus Gregorius.

Mi Teleferico Red Line (La Paz, Bolivia)

The first of the three lines that make up the urban cable car system in Bolivia’s capital, Mi Teleferico’s Red Line opened in May of this year to the relief of the city’s gridlocked commuters. Aside from providing a convenient alternative to the traffic-clogged driving routes (the Red Line traverses its 2.4 km in around 10 minutes), the journey gives commuters a stunning view of the Andes and a look at the surrounding metropolis from nearly 500 metres up. 

Mi Teleferico's Linea Roja. Image by TheGamerJediPro (Wiki Commons).

Mi Teleferico’s Linea Roja. Image by TheGamerJediPro (Wiki Commons).



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.

Just For Fun / Media & Blogs / Thoughts
0
Comments
05
Jan

2015

New Year, New Gondola Project

The Rheine and The Moselle

Back in November, the Gondola Project celebrated its fifth anniversary (!) by expanding its staff to include an Editor-in-Chief — namely, me. 

Over the course of its 1,892-day existence (so far), the creators of this site have been working tirelessly to provide readers with an informed yet accessible overview of all the cable-propelled transit developments around the world, and to educate people about every aspect of this particular technology while also introducing them to a wide range of other under-the-radar urban planning and alternative transit ideas.  

Going forward, we’ll be increasing the frequency of posts and looking to include a number of new voices, as well as refining our approach to the cable car primer section. The goal here is to create an engaging and informative entry point for cable transit news and views, while developing a comprehensive guide to the most important systems in the world and the technologies that make them work. 

I’ll be overseeing the site’s evolution, bringing nearly a decade of journalism and magazine editing experience (city/culture editor and infographic creator at The Grid, staff writer at Eye Weekly, freelance writer for Spacing, Report in Business, Exclaim!, etc.) to the table in order to enhance the overall look and feel of the Gondola Project.

Stay tuned for lots of exciting developments. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @CUPprojects and look for us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest (coming soon). 



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.

Media & Blogs / Updates
2
Comments
12
Jan

2015

5 Amazing LEGO Cable Car Systems

LEGO cable car. Image by Flickr user Pascal.

LEGO cable car. Image by Flickr user Pascal. (Creative commons.)

LEGO lovers have always known that the colourful toy bricks can be a (nubby) pathway to a future in architecture or urban design. Last month, The Guardian wrote an in-depth piece exploring just how useful LEGOs might be to actual life-sized city-building endeavours. We’re partial to seeing how people translate CPT technology into something that could carry those tiny smiling figures around a small-scale city or up to the peak of a plastic mountain. Here are a few of our favourite LEGO cable cars:

Detachable 3S — Kuppelbare Seilbahn
The detailed work here is nothing short of mind blowing—especially everything involved in moving the cabins around once they’re detached.


Read more



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.

Just For Fun
1
Comment
14
Jan

2015

Going… Across? The Future of Elevators is Here

MULTI elevator. Image courtesy of ThyssenKrupp.

MULTI elevator. Image courtesy of ThyssenKrupp.

From mobile devices to urban planning, space is always at a premium. Ever-smaller devices like smartwatches are able to do infinitely more than the average home PC of a decade ago, while developers are stacking compacted living quarters higher and higher into the sky. Minuscule gadgetry has existed for centuries; the very idea of vertical living, however, has really only been with us for a little less than 100 years. And the (literal) rise of the skyscraper era is directly linked to the development of the modern elevator.

Outside of the go-anywhere elevator featured in the ending of the 1971 film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the basic idea of the elevator has remained more or less unchanged since it debuted. But whether glassed-in or high speed, they still only go up and down.

That is until late last year when German company ThyssenKrupp announced its MULTI elevator, which can go up and down as well as side to side. Instead of the traditional cables, the cabin is moved by magnetic force. (Bloomberg Businessweek has an excellent visual rendering of how it works.) Directional improvements aside, the new technology also means that cabins are considerably lighter and will be able to travel more efficiently through buildings. Accompanying the story was the staggering statistic that elevators take up 40 per cent of the space in an average condo tower. Read more



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.

Other Transit Techs / Thoughts
0
Comments
21
Jan

2015

Temporary Cable Cars: Where Are They Now?

Bundesgartenschau 2005 in Munich,. Image via Wiki commons.

Bundesgartenschau 2005 in Munich. Image via Wiki commons.

One of the biggest advantages of CPT technology, is that it’s relatively easy to relocate a system, or parts of a system, to another location — sometimes for an entirely different purpose. While it’s not unheard of to see decommissioned subway cars get recycled (the TTC in Toronto recently sent some cars to Nigeria), you can effectively decommission any CPT and then relocate it anywhere in the world. 

Here are a couple examples of this type of relocations.

Floridaebahn in TK. Image by Flickr user Jean Jones. (Creative commons.)

Floridae Bahn in Venlo, Netherlands. Image by Flickr user Jean Jones. (Creative commons.)

Floridae Bahn (Netherlands)
Built as part of the 2012 World Horticultural Expo in Venlo, Netherlands, this 1.1 km, two station system was dismantled that same year and shipped over to Silvretta Montafon, one of the largest Austrian ski resorts.

Rostock Sielbahn, 2003. Image by Arnold Schott (Wiki commons).

Rostock Sielbahn, 2003. Image by Arnold Schott (Wiki commons).

Sielbahn Rostock/Sielbahn Munich (Germany)
Another temporary construction for a flower show, the three-station Sielbahn system transported visitors around the site of the 2003 Federal Horticultural Show in Rostock, Germany. From there, it was moved to Munich for the 2005 edition of that same event. Over the course of the 13 total months that the Sielbahn was operational in both cities, the system moved close to 2 million passengers. After Munich, the system components were dismantled and sold for use in ski lifts in the US, Austria, and elsewhere in Germany.



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.

Infrastructure / Thoughts
0
Comments
26
Jan

2015

A Line in the Water: Cable Ferries Are Coming to B.C.

Cable Ferries BC
The phrase “cable ferries” might evoke images of tiny urban transit planners who descend on a city in the middle of the night and install a shiny new gondola system throughout a gridlocked city. Oh, wait: ferries, not fairies. As amazing as the previous scenario might be, we’re interesting in drawing attention a far more reality-based sort of cable ferry. Namely the one being installed between Buckley Bay and Denman Island on the eastern side of Vancouver Island. 

We’ve only mentioned cable ferries a couple of times before, but this is neither anything similar to the aerial car transporter featured at the Volkswagon factory in Bratislava, nor is it the sort of fantastical underwater submarine gondola that existed briefly in Marseilles during the late 1960s. Instead, this BC cable ferry is more or less a standard ferry boat—the type seen all around Vancouver and Vancouver Island—that is pulled across the channel by a cable rather than powered by a traditional boat engine.

There are hundreds of these types of cable ferries around the world, including dozens of them in Canada. At 1,900 metres in length, this Buckley Bay-Denman Island link will use a tricable system (one “drive” cable and two “guide” cables). The bonus feature is that it would be the longest cable ferry in the world when it’s scheduled to open in the summer of 2015. Read more



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.

Oddities
1
Comment
04
Feb

2015

Creative Advertising Concepts on the Singapore Cable Car

Sky Art Gallery, Singapore Cable Car. Image by Twisstii (OIC)

Sky Art Gallery, Singapore Cable Car. Image by Twisstii (OIC)

We’ve mentioned the Maokong Gondola’s famous Hello Kitty–themed cable cars a number of times before when talking about both advertising strategies and the effect of fun on ridership (and because, well… Hello Kitty). But those loveable cabins aren’t the only instances of combining interesting visual concepts with the uniquely visible presence of cable propelled transit.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of linking French resorts La Plagne and Les Arcs/Peisey Vallandry via double decker cable car, Rossignol skiwear designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac lent his own special flourish to the outside of the cabins. 

But one of the most consistently impressive systems when it comes to branding concepts has to be the Singapore Cable Car. Here are a few creative designs in recent memory:
—
1. Sky Art Gallery
In 2011, Singapore’s Organisation of Illustrators Council (OIC) was given free reign to create 10 illustrations (pictured above) that would adorn the cable cars in celebration of the state’s 46th National Day.

2. Angry Birds
In 2012, the insanely popular app-based game was already everywhere, so it made sense that it would also appear on the cable car cabins.

3. DC Super Heroes
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the city’s cable car, the cabins were wrapped with logos and characters from DC comics. Riders were also offered an augmented reality option that seemed to put Superman, Batman, and their spandex-wearing buddies right there in the cabin.
—
So as the Singapore Cable Car shows, gondola systems can be constantly rebranded and renewed to generate new interest amongst riders. Can you think of other cable cars that have creative advertising concepts?



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.

Just For Fun
0
Comments