Israeli-Canadian architect, Moshe Safdie, apparently hates cable cars — especially the one that’s currently being planned for the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem. Since its inception a few years back, the controversial project has faced several hurdles, including the withdrawal of a French construction company due to political sensitivities. Some commentators have...
About three weeks ago, a few “portal towers” were spotted in Moscow’s VDNKh amusement park. Today, it appears that a number of futuristic “space pod” cabins have now been mounted on the park’s ropeway as it prepares for testing and commissioning this Fall. We’re not sure where the designers got their inspiration from, but the...
Many modern urban ropeways and their manufacturers are easily recognizable based purely from their cabin designs. For instance, monocable detachable gondolas (MDGs) built by Doppelmayr use the OMEGA carriers from CWA while the Leitner Group (Leitner ropeways and Poma) uses the Diamond cabins from Sigma. However, before the industry experienced a flurry of mergers at/near the turn...
As gondolas experience tremendous growth in the urban and recreational transport market, many decision-makers are now beginning to realize that ropeways are amongst the world’s most sustainable forms of transport. For instance, not only are gondolas able to create direct environmental benefits by producing less carbon emissions per passenger kilometre than trams and buses (under...
At the expense of sounding overly dramatic, the Dresden Suspended Railway may very well be the world’s most fascinating or perhaps unusual urban transport line. Built in 1901 on the slopes of the River Elbe, the 273m long system takes 4.5 minutes to climb 84m from the lower district of Loschwitz to the top...
Walt Disney World Resort recently released new details about their Skyliner transportation system (here, here and here) — a topic I’ve been researching in hopes of a more fulsome analysis in the near future. During that research, however, I came upon something rather arcane that to a lot of people is probably rather mundane. But,...
Thanks to our readers and the internet, documenting unique designs for Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) systems are now easier than ever before. Notable examples that immediately come to mind include the Finnish Sauna Gondola, the Singaporean Skyscraper Station and the Chinese Arching Roadway Tower. Unfortunately, it seems that lax record keeping in the industry has meant that many unique ropeway designs created...
Many cities today find themselves embroiled in polarizing transport modality debates. Other (intelligent) cities meanwhile don’t see a conflict between transit, local roads, pedestrians and highways — they simply think in 3 dimensions. Case in point: the Kitakyushu Monorail. Thanks to reader Ben H. for sending us this awesome photo to once again demonstrate how great...
— After 2 months of testing, new footage of the Brest Cable Car (French: Téléphérique de Brest) has surfaced online. The cable lift operates in an aerial tram configuration — however, unlike your typical aerial tram, the manufacturers (Bartholet) have built an incredibly unique system known as the “saut de mouton à câble” or SDMC Concept. With this design, the two...
Wondering whether choice of rope really matters? Look at it this way: If you were responsible for building a tram in your city, wouldn’t you want to know all you could about the track? Awhile back, the Gondola Project posted an article about the often-overlooked issue of the weight-bearing cable or “rope” is it’s known...