Posts Tagged: Chairlift

28
Nov

2012

Double Loading Chairlift – Quick Silver Quad

One of the great things about blogging on the Gondola Project is that we never stop learning.

Recently, one of our readers sent us a link about a “Double Loading” chairlift called the Quick Silver Quad which operates in Colorado’s Breckenridge Ski Resort.

 

Double loading areas. Image from skilifts.org

Statistics from skilifts.org indicate that this system has a capacity of 3,600 pphpd and was built in 1999. Since this feature is very rare  (it’s the only example in North America), there’s little information about it online.

At this time, it’s unclear what implications this might have for cable transit. However, one question that immediately comes to mind is whether or not this design could be adapted in an urban gondola to increase capacity and improve loading times.

We’ll try and dig up some more information about it in the meantime but if anyone has more details about this and other similar systems, we’d love to hear about it. Thanks!



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23
Aug

2012

Skyride – Toronto’s newest Chairlift at the CNE (The Ex)

If you happen to live in Toronto, Canada, you’ve probably heard on the news or from friends/family that the CNE or “The Ex” opened its doors last Friday. For those not from Toronto, The Ex is an annual fair that runs during the last weeks of August until Canadian Labour Day Monday. It’s the country’s largest exhibition and 7th largest in North America with a yearly attendance of 1.3 million visitors.

This year the CNE travelled back into time and brought back a similar ride from the 90s. Dubbed as the fair’s “spectacular new permanent attraction”, Skyride is an amusement park chairlift which takes you from one end of the exhibition to the other. The Ex was previously home to another aerial lift, known as the Alpine Way Gondola but that system was dismantled in 1994 (after 28 years in service) to make way for the Direct Energy Centre.

So on opening day, I decided to venture into The Ex to experience what this new ride had to offer.

Novelty mixed with nostalgia makes for very long line ups. Image by Nicholas Chu.

After lining up for about 10 minutes, I was finally able to hop on the 2-seater lift. Once onboard, the ride gently whisks passengers above and across the exhibition grounds at a height of 40 feet.

Panoramic views of all the attractions and venues at the CNE. Image by Nicholas Chu.

Ride fits in nicely with the rest of the carnival attractions. Image by Nicholas Chu.

So after a breezy but refreshing 8 minute ride, I was dropped off near BMO field. Overall, the trip was fun while it lasted and with a one-way ticket cost of only $5 dollars, it’s certainly well worth the price considering that boneheads like me typically waste a minimum of $50 on carnival games alone.

Even the carnies themselves can't beat this game. Image from bestcarnivalcreations.com

However, as mentioned by commenter’s on the Toronto Star, some consider the Skyride as a rather half-hearted and disappointing attempt at bringing back an aerial lift to the CNE. Comparatively speaking, the Alpine Way Gondola was 700m long operating at a height of 100 feet while the Skyride is only 500m long operating at a height of 40 feet.

On the bright side, the Skyride is certainly a welcome addition to the myriad of midway rides at the CNE. However, from a pure public transit perspective, the optics and size of the system may further perpetuate and reinforce that cable is only suitable for carnival purposes. And who can blame them? This chairlift is really the only exposure that Torontonians ever get of cable technology.

If one day The Ex somehow regains its former glorious status as the preeminent venue to display the world’s newest innovations, CNE organizers may even convince and partner with a ropeway manufacturer to showcase the recent technological improvements made by cable systems. One can only dream what a demonstration 3S system would do for a city like Toronto.

A demonstration gondola system using 3S technology would certainly help people understand why CPT is viable. Not to mention that it'd give The Ex something to really boast about. Image by CUP Projects (Steven Dale).



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11
Apr

2011

Montafon, Austria

Julia sends along a link to a chairlift system in Montafon, Austria. So what do we make of it?

Image via Alpinforum.



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07
Jan

2011

Sugarloaf Chairlift Accident

An image from the scene of the Sugarloaf incident. Image via Boardistan.

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 may seem counter-intuitive to believe, the fact that you actually saw a news report about a ski lift accident is evidence of the technology being really quite safe.

According to the National Ski Areas Association:

  • there have been a total of 12 passenger fatalities involving ski lifts in the United States since 1973. This works out to 0.17 passenger fatalities per 100M passenger miles travelled.
  • An additional 3 fatalities involved employees, trespassers and other incidents. If one were to include these 3 fatalities with the 12 described above, one arrives at a figure of 0.21 passenger fatalities per 100M passenger miles travelled.
  • The last known gondola / aerial tram fatality occurred at Vail, Colorado in 1976; 4 passengers were killed.

Of course these numbers do not include non-ski lift area cable systems. But given the relative rarity of such systems in the United States, I think it reasonably fair to assume few if any additional fatalities. And while I could be wrong about this, I am unaware of any fatality in the recent history of aerial cable systems in urban areas of the United States. There have also been no fatalities associated with the Metrocable systems in Medellin and Caracas according to officials I interviewed last year.

Just to put things into perspective, the National Safety Council’s 2010 Injury Facts reports that in 2008:

  • 39,000 Americans died in motor-vehicle accidents;
  • 6,162 pedestrians were killed;
  • 6,700 died from unintentional public falls;
  • 3,800 died from unintentional public poisoning;
  • 3,600 people drowned while swimming in public areas;
  • 900 died while bicycle riding;
  • 129 died from tornadoes;
  • and 25 died from lightning.

That’s right, folks. You’ve got a better chance of dying in a tornado or lighting-related accident than you do riding in a gondola.

(I want to follow-up on this post with a comparison to other standard transit technologies. Data-gathering, however, is proving quite laborious. Stay tuned.)



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