Posts Tagged: CUP Projects

05
Oct

2015

Medellin/Caracas, Part 1

Last week I travelled to Medellin, Colombia and Caracas, Venezuela to tour five of the most important CPT systems in the world. This is Part 1 of a photo essay on those systems. In this part, a brief overview of the history of cable transit in this part of the world will be explained. Image by Steven Dale.

HISTORY

Modern Cable Propelled Transit started in Caracas, Venezuela with the Mount Avila Gondola. This system was originally built in the middle of the last century to carry people from Caracas to the top of Mount Avila where the luxurious Hotel Humboldt had been built. Political and economic strife caused the government to leave for neglect both the hotel and gondola. The gondola itself was not reopened until 1999, after a successful rebuild.

The Avila Mountain Gondola In Caracas. Image by Steven Dale.

An Avila Mountain Gondola From Below. Image by Steven Dale.

A gondola passes over two original and well-preserved antique gondola cars at the Mount Avila Caracas Terminal. Image by Steven Dale.

The Avila gondola cannot, however, be truly classed as cable transit. It lacks integration to the local transit network and really exists more for tourists, not local commuters. It did, however, indirectly inspire the nearby city of Medellin, Colombia to pursue a fully-integrated CPT system to serve the impoverished and dangerous barrio of Santo Domingo. The system would take almost 5 years to open, from conception to fruition and would be the world’s first true CPT system. They would name it The Metrocable. The first line, consistent with the city’s existing Metro system, would be named Linea K.

A Linea K Metrocable Car in Medellin, Colombia. Image by Steven Dale.

The Metrocable over top the Santo Domingo barrio. Image by Steven Dale.

Gondolas depart a Linea J Metrocable station. Image by Steven Dale.

Metrocable Linea K would be an enormous success. Crime rates in Santo Domingo plunged and area investment skyrocketed. In the four years since Linea K opened, crime in Santo Domingo virtually disappeared, jobs have increased 300% and 3 banks have opened along the Metrocable route. With such an obvious success story, Metro officials had little trouble convincing decision-makers to open Linea J.

Unlike Linea K, Linea J would connect several smaller barrios in the western end of the city. These barrios suffered from similar economic conditions but did not have the population density that Linea K had. This was considered a good thing as Linea K suffered from overcrowding almost immediately upon opening, a situation not witnessed on Linea J.

A Linea J gondola. Image by Steven Dale.

Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela was not to be undone. The opening of the second Metrocable line in Medellin made Chavez lust after a similar system in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Within 2 years, Chavez’s dream would be realized with Caracas opening their own cable transit system in early 2010. It was also to be named The Metrocable.

Like the Medellin systems before it, the Caracas Metrocable would provide transit to under-serviced barrios with a history of crime and poverty. But unlike the Medellin systems, Caracas would feature enormous stations that included social facilities such as gymnasiums, police stations, community centres and markets. The Caracas Metrocable would also be the first in the world to feature extreme 90 degree turning radii at stations.

Gondolas enter and exit a station in Caracas. Image by Steven Dale.

The Caracas Metrocable. Image by Steven Dale.

The Metrocable loop between Medellin and Venezuela came full circle in early 2010. While Chavez was opening his first system in Caracas, Medellin was opening their third Metrocable line. But this time, the line looked more similar to the original Mount Avila system from Venezuela circa 1999.

While still fully-integrated into the Medellin Metro, the new Linea L services the Parque Arvi at the top of a nearby mountain in Medellin and requires an additional fare of 1,550 Colombian Pesos (roughly $1 US dollar). Linea L would give quick, affordable access to wilderness and parkland facilities that had previously only been accessible to wealthy land-owners in Medellin. This was a welcome change, given Colombia’s historically wide gap between rich and poor.

A Linea L gondola. Image by Steven Dale.

Medellin as seen from the Linea L, Parque Arvi nature preserve. Image by Steven Dale.

Both cities are engaged in major plans to expand their Metrocable offerings and cities throughout Latin America are embarking upon cable transit plans of their own.

Read Part 2.



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16
May

2010

Stop Being Professional

Everyone’s a Professional nowadays. If you get paid to do something, you’re a Professional. We have Professional Bloggers, Professional Trend-Watchers and Professional Competitive Eaters. Being a Professional is about as common as being a homo sapien.

I think it’s the direct result of our culture of credentials. If you’ve got the credentials, you’re a Professional. Competency is irrelevant if you’ve got the proper letters beside your name.

The late, great Jane Jacobs devoted a whole chapter to this problem in her final book Dark Age Ahead. “Credentialing, not educating,” Jacobs wrote “has become the primary business of North American universities.”

Our cities don’t need more Professionals any more than they need more credentials. What we need instead are ideas, action, creativity and competency. We need to stop judging people by their credentials and judge them instead by their competency, creativity and strength of character.

We especially need to be suspicious of those whose sense of esteem rests solely on their credentials and their alma mater. Esteem without competency, after all, is narcism.



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12
May

2010

A Good Week For Cable Propelled Transit

(This post was a little late coming in today. So much going on. Please accept my apologies.)

It’s been a good week for Cable Propelled Transit and Urban Gondolas:

Read more



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04
May

2010

If Only . . .

. . . there was a club for urban planners who just happen to be avid skiers.

If there were, then this would be the easiest thing in the world.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

01
May

2010

Flickr Galleries

As some of you already know, CUP Projects runs a Gondola Project Flickr Pool of images. Problem is, these pools are unwieldily beasts. Ours already has over 800 images in it and if we really put our minds to it, it could reach into the thousands.

Very hard to search, very hard to organize, very hard to use. It’s basically a shoebox with no order or logic. Moreover, plenty of wonderful images get lost in the shuffle due to copyright restrictions.

So to improve the functionality of our Flickr integration, we’ve started to use Flickr Galleries. Each gallery is a collection of up to 18 images curated under a specific theme. This way, we can group images in a variety of ways and offer commentary on the images. It also allows us to bring attention to wonderful, beautiful images that you’d otherwise not see on this site while still respecting the owners’ copyright.

This should make for a quicker, faster, easier and more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Right now we’ve only got 5 galleries created, but we’ll add to them over time. This is going to take a lot of time, however, so we’d love to have your help. If you’ve got a Flickr account (basic accounts are free), have a few minutes a week to spare and want to help, please drop us an email at gondola (a) creativeurbanprojects (dot) com to find out how you can pitch in. Alternatively, just send us some FlickrMail from within Flickr itself.

Check out our Image Gallery page, to grab the links to the various collections!



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

04
Apr

2010

Eight Transit Systems That Are Great Marketing Tools

When done right, public transit becomes more than just infrastructure. It becomes a symbol and a form of marketing itself. It becomes famous and accomplishes the same thing as any famous building, landmark or museum.

Here then, are eight public transit vehicles/systems that have transcended being merely transportation and are instead signals of sophistication, ingenuity, uniqueness, urbanity and efficiency:

The London Double Decker Bus.

The San Francisco Cable Car.

The Venice Gondolas.

The Paris Metro.

The Bangkok Tuk-Tuks.

The Chicago 'El' Trains.

The New York Roosevelt Island Tram.

The Toronto Island Ferries.

These are just a few of them, but there are certain dozens more. What transit systems do you think are as much marketing as they are transit?

And maybe more importantly, why do you think we spend our time using architecture and monuments as marketing but not infrastructure and public transit?

Creative Commons images by celesteh, Matthew Black, Oneras, ricardo.martin, haemengine, David Paul Ohmer, Doug Letterman & 416style.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

25
Mar

2010

Medellin/Caracas, Part 7

Two weeks ago I travelled to Medellin, Colombia and Caracas, Venezuela to tour five of the most important CPT systems in the world. This is Part 7 where I discuss the social mandate that underlies the Caracas Metocable. Image by Steven Dale.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed something problematic about the Caracas Metrocable: The stations are enormous. We’re not talking about just “big” here. We’re talking about “big enough for Cirque du Soleil to perform in.”

This is because the stations themselves are not really stations at all. Whut? Exactly.

In actuality, the Caracas Metrocable stations are full-service community centres with multiple neighborhood facilities all under one roof including a Cable Propelled Transit line. Most of these facilities are not yet complete and as such the stations have an eery empty quality thus far. The plan, however, is to have gymnasiums, markets, dental offices, police stations, medical clinics, theatres, libraries and all other manner of social services located within the 5 stations united by the Metrocable.

The idea is to have each station host one or two such facilities. As each station is linked to the other via Metrocable, those within the poor barrios can travel quickly and cheaply between those services in a way that simply would not have been possible before the Metrocable. When you consider this component of the plan, the Metrocable is less a transit line and more the connective tissue that holds together a network of social services.

Whether or not you agree with the political ideology behind Hugo Chavez’s plan, you have to admit it’s bold and unique. It’s also costly. The price of the Metrocable including stations/community centres has been reported as $265 million USD and I’ve heard numbers as high as $300 million USD. Considering the system is only 1.8 kilometers long, you could practically build a subway for that price.

The price of the gondola system, however, was modest. Everything necessary for the gondola system (the “electro-mechanical” cost in industry-speak) was only $18 million USD.

Consider that for a moment: Only 6-7 % of the total cost of the Metrocable went to the transit system and infrastructure itself. The rest was spent on the stations/community centres and land expropriation costs.

I want to state this plainly so that no one opposed to the concept of cable transit can use Caracas as an example of how expensive the technology is: The Caracas Metrocable did not cost $300 million. It cost $18 million. The additional monies spent were on community centre facilities and land expropriation costs that were separate from the transit system itself.

Once again (because the internet is great at taking people out of context): The Caracas Metrocable did not cost $300 million. It cost $18 million. The additional monies spent were on community centre facilities and land expropriation costs that were separate from the transit system itself.

Should some of those additional monies be allocated to station costs? Yes, but not the vast majority of it. The Medellin Metrocable (which uses similar MDG technology) Linea K cost $26 million USD in 2006; that included 1.8 kms of length and 4 stations. Linea J cost $50 million USD in 2008; that included 2.7 km and 4 stations. Linea L cost $25 million USD in 2010; that included 4.8 km and 2 stations. It would be fair to allocate an additional $10 – $20 million dollars to the cost of the Metrocable itself, but no more than that.

Perched high atop hills, the Caracas Metrocable stations are one small component of a much bigger network of community centres and social services. Image by Steven Dale

As a social experiment, it will be interesting to see how the Caracas Metrocable pans out. I, for one, am hopeful. Caracas needs these kinds of services, particularly in the barrios. One thing, however, I’m not certain of is the overt social message of the Metrocable. Many cabins are adorned with single word imperatives suggesting qualities which those in the barrio should aspire to and exemplify:

Sacrificio . . . Moral . . . Libertad . . . Equidad . . . Humanismo . . . Amor . . .

It’s an odd design choice that has nothing to do with the technology itself. But as one rides the Metrocable or sees them glide overhead, one can’t escape this blatant messaging. Granted, it’s hard to argue with the message: Sacrifice, Morals, Liberty, Equality, Humanity, Love. But at the same time, is it a transit agencies job to suggest how to behave? Maybe, maybe not.

In the western world we’re used to being told how to ride our transit. Hold the handrail. Exit by the rear doors. Don’t spit. Don’t litter. Give up your seat for the elderly. Mind the gap. These instructions transit agencies force upon us are nothing more than the practical application of the emotional instructions the Caracas Metrocable forces upon its riders.

Maybe we wouldn’t need so many rules and instructions in our transit systems if we simply had signs that read “Love” or “Equality.” Or not, I don’t know. It’s something I’ve wrestled with a lot since seeing it. Is it propaganda? No. But it veers pretty close to it and that’s what makes me uncomfortable. The message plays so blatantly upon emotions and that’s problematic. But at the same time, the sweet naiveté of the gesture is charming enough, innocent enough to catch even the most cynical observer off-guard.

I honestly don’t know. I’d love to know what everyone else thinks about this matter. Take a look at the images below and form your own opinion: Are the messages on the Caracas Metrocable propaganda? Are they amusing and pleasant? Are they harmless? Are they dangerous? What do you think?

Libertad. Image by Steven Dale.

Moral. Image by Steven Dale.

Sacrificio. Image by Steven Dale.

Amor & Humanismo. Image by Steven Dale.

Equidad. Image by Steven Dale.

Return to Part 6.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.