As we’ve demonstrated before, cable cars, ropeways and gondolas are amongst the safest transit technologies in the world. But that doesn’t mean accidents don’t happen. A few days ago in Pakistan a cable car system snapped, sending 8 passengers plunging into the swollen Indus river below. No survivors were reported. A similar incident occurred last...
Last week a German paraglider crashed into the cables of a Bavarian gondola. The incident trapped 20 people in the gondola for 17 hours overnight. There were no injuries or fatalities and all parties were rescued via helicopter. Does this mean gondolas are unsafe? No. It means accidents happen. For example: During the Christmas season...
Last week in British Columbia, a 25 year old woman spent 12 hours overnight stuck in an Excalibur Gondola cabin at the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort. The woman was unharmed and the incident was chalked up to “human error.” Problem is, incidents like this will always put a damper on things. Anytime a city wants to...
Last week a chair lift at Sugarloaf Resort in Maine derailed injuring 8 people, none seriously. Nevertheless, the story was all over the news and internet. But as I’ve argued before here, the degree of media coverage a given technology’s failure causes is inversely related to the chance of that failure’s occurrence. So while it...
The elevator is the world’s most used form of transit. Full stop. Arguably, it defines contemporary urban culture even more than the private automobile. It is so common, so normal, we never even think about it. It is ubiquitous to the point of invisibility. According to a wonderful article about elevators in the New Yorker, there are...