#Aerial Rapid Transit

May 15, 2011
Sunday Statshot

Sunday Statshot with Nick Chu

A quick look at some of the things that make petrol pricing and transport work (or not): World’s largest proven oil reserves: Venezuela World’s cheapest gasoline: Venezuela Cost: $0.02/L ($1.40/L in Toronto) Cost to fill up Hummer: $1.50 US Average driving speeds in Caracas: 11-15 km/h Last year roads were built: 1970 Number of cars...

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May 14, 2011
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup

A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas and Cable Propelled Transit: Translink announces a public consultation process in regards to Vancouver’s Burnaby Mountain Gondola. It’s been reported that there are privacy concerns from nearby residents. This should be a good opportunity for both sides to hear each other out and (hopefully) find...

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May 13, 2011
Just For Fun

What Would Banning Cars in LA Look Like?

According to a team of architecture students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo an LA without cars would look very, very different (no kidding). It might even involve a few urban gondolas (at the 5:20 through till the 7:20 mark): Downtown Los Angeles from tam thien tran on Vimeo.  

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May 12, 2011
Thoughts

Selling Ski Lifts to Cities

If you’re the owner of a ski resort and you’re looking to buy a new lift/gondola/tram/whatever, you pretty much know who to call. For all intents and purposes, there’s only two companies out there and you’ve likely done business with one or both of them several times before. In other words, the lift companies’ respective...

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May 11, 2011
Victoria Urban Gondola

Urban Gondola Transit in Victoria, British Columbia?

Adding to the Western Canadian surge in interest in urban gondola transit (see here and here), frequent commenter Sean Turvey sends along the following link: Is it a good idea? Unlikely. There are clear problems with the concept – not the least of which is the 15 km long distance Colwood Councillor Brian Tucknott imagines....

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May 10, 2011
Thoughts

Public Transit: Dinner or Roomba?

Disruptive consumer products are naturally geared towards early adopters and spread because this small cohort of early adopting customers allow the products to get a toe-hold in the market. iPods, snowboards and microplane graters all benefitted from the fact that only a small fraction of the population needed to initially purchase them in order for...

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May 09, 2011
Automated People Mover

Switzerland’s First Automated Underground: Lausanne’s M2

Here’s how you do transit journalism: (Note: Some people have emailed me claiming the video to not work. If you’re one of those people, here’s the link.

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May 08, 2011
Sunday Statshot

Sunday Statshot with Nick Chu

A quick look at some of the things that make transportation subsidization work (or not): Transit subsidy: Difference between operating costs and passenger fare revenues Range of rail transit operating cost subsidies in US: 29-89% Bus transit: 57-89% Transit subsidy in LA: 82% Washington: 76% Average public transit operating costs per passenger mile for peak...

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May 07, 2011
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup

A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondola Transit and Cable Propelled Transit (there’s lots of good stuff this week, so read on): Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it: The CBC is reporting that residents under the proposed Vancouver / Burnaby gondola are upset to learn their homes are under...

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May 06, 2011
Design Considerations, Venice Cable Car / People Mover

How to (Cheaply) Beautify a Cable Car Tower

Julia passes on a link to the Venezia Cable Car which reveals how that city is dealing with the visual pollution of elevated transit infrastructure. It’s pretty brilliant: As we’ve argued and demonstrated before, elevated infrastructure need not be ugly – and there’s absolutely no reason we can’t do something with gondola tower infrastructure.

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