There is a story of the scholar who, years ago, produced a dissertation that was loudly hailed as the best written and most valuable in a generation. A copy was reverently placed in the library files and the scholar, as an experiment, placed a crisp $20 bill among its pages. Every year he returned to...
For the last 3 months, myself and a team of 9 students from Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning have been working through the implications of what cable transit could mean for their city. A week-and-a-half ago, the team presented their findings in front of their colleagues, faculty and a 5-person panel of...
Right now, the major source of information about cable tech comes from skiing-related sources. Here’s five useful ones. They’re not all in English. And they’re not all up to date, but they represent some of the few resources cable’s got: Bergbahnen.org Lift-world.info Skilifts.org Funi Forum Ropeways.net Part of what holds cable back is a lack...
We can use ski lifts as transit!?! That’s a Eureka Moment and one that’s been happening to the urban transit community for the last 10 years. It’s big, it’s profound and it’s exciting. It’s also unwieldily and awkward because too much has been left uncovered and left unsaid. There are too many questions, too many...
(This is Part 2 of a 2-Part piece on the Bondada-Neumann Study from the late 1980’s. In Part 1, I focused on the issue of Familiarity. In Part 2, I discuss the differences in perceptions between planners with cable experience and those without.) Bondada and Neumann’s discovery that transit planners and engineers had little familiarity...
(This is Part 1 of a 2-Part piece on the Bondada-Neumann Study from the late 1980’s. In Part 1, I focus on the issue of Familiarity. In Part 2, I’ll discuss the differences in perceptions between planners with cable experience and those without.) In the late 1980’s two civil engineers from West Virginia University (WVU)...
It took me a while, but I’ve finally compiled all the comments left online to the Toronto Star article that appeared last month. Here, in a completely unscientific study, I present the results. Most of the comments left could be categorized in one of four ways: This is the worst idea I have ever heard...
Yesterday, in Lenggries Germany, a gondola system malfunctioned stranding dozens of riders in mid-air. Helicopters were were used in the rescue. There were no injuries. The system was built by a subsidiary of Thyssenkrupp, a manufacturer with little experience in cable transit. Detractors of cable technology – I’m certain – will use this as evidence...
What a wonderful phrase: “Gadget value.” I just stumbled upon it in an old history text book and instantly fell in love with the term . . . Gadget Value is the intrinsic interest a mechanism generates totally separate from it’s use. It’s why we love cars, trains and any other mechanism. Cable has massive...
Corners are important because all cities have them. If your transit technology cannot turn corners, you cannot exist in cities. It’s just that simple. As I said before, however, no one has taken the time to explicitly and simply explain how cable deals with them. For those who’ve never encountered Cable Propelled Transit before, you...