A quick look at some of the things that make your country work (or not): Libyan Uprising 2011: Population of Libya: 6.5 million Population density of Libya: 50 person/km square % of population urban: 88 % of country covered by deserts: 90 % arable land: 1 Highest HDI (Human Development Index) in Africa: Libya Highest...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondola Transit and Cable Propelled Transit: A safety survey determines that the risk of a plane crashing into the proposed London Thames Cable Car would be equivalent to one incident every 15 million years. Global Dashboard discusses the use of cable cars (gondolas) as a tool...
As the world shifts rapidly from a rural-centric to an urban-centric model, so too will business, work, and the ability for people to survive, sustain and thrive. For all practical purposes, this transition has already occurred. Some of us will never leave the cities we’re born in; some of us will never see a countryside....
I spent the better part of a morning trying to track down an embeddable (let’s just pretend that’s a word, okay?) version of this news report on the urban gondolas in Algeria. Unfortunately, my search was in vain. Nevertheless, you should certainly check it out. Unfortunately it’s all in German (no offense to our German-speaking...
Most of us can’t afford to drive a BMW everyday to work. But what if you could ride a BMW everyday? The Siemens Group recently commissioned BMW’s subsidiary Designworks USA to design a new kind of subway train. Dubbed the Metro Inspiro, it is a train the likes of which you’ve never seen: Cork floors,...
Gondola Project reader Sean sent me a link to the above image. It dates from the 1950’s and comes from Vancouver’s regional transit authority, Translink, and was plucked from their archives. Even 60 years ago transit authorities recognized the need for grade-separation and rights-of-way for transit: “freeing the limited street space for commercial vehicles and...
A strong report on the Caracas Metrocable by Global Post. Unfortunately, the report makes the mistake of conflating the price of the cable line itself with that of the community-based infrastructure that’s co-located in the stations. This is a problem I previously highlighted and suspect will continue to dog the system. Nevertheless, try to keep...
A quick look at some of the things that make your cities work (or not) Happy Family Day!: Family Day: Statutory holiday Occurrence: 3rd Monday in February First Canadian province to enact Family Day: Alberta 2nd: Saskatchewan 3rd: Ontario Percent of Ontarians still working on Family Day: 40 Average family size in Canada: 2.5 people...
Not much to “roundup” this week, so instead, take a look at what the rest of the net is saying about delays to the London Thames Cable Car: The BBC summarizes how the London Thames Cable Car wound up in its current safety probe. 853 profiles the campaigners who halted the cable car. Transport for...
A Thought Experiment: For the last two years CableRailGyroCopter Inc. has developed projects in 10 North American cities. Each were to be purchased by the public sector for the purpose of providing public transit. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume each of the projects is two kilometers long and will cost $100 million USD...