Next week Nick, Julia and I will be rehabilitating, refurbishing and revamping The Gondola Project. While the site continues to experience a growing readership and subscriber base, there’s simply too many usability issues. We want to make the site as useful and easy for people as possible and it just isn’t right now. Three things...
Rendering of a potential urban gondola station in Bucharest, Romania. Reports surfaced yesterday about plans for an urban gondola transit system in Bucharest, Romania. If the reports are true, the system will be one of the most ambitious and robust Cable Propelled Transit systems the world has ever seen. The system would be 10 km...
Jarrett Walker has posted the full introduction to his forthcoming book Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking about Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives. It’s well worth a read. Please check it out – and buy it when it comes out later this winter.
A strange thing happened during yesterday’s discussion of the spiralling costs of the London Thames Cable Car: Like any time before when the topic of urban versus resort installations comes up, the de facto response is: Well, duh, of course it’s more expensive to build in cities and for government. You’ve said it. I’ve said it....
Over the weekend it was announced that the estimated project cost for London’s Thames Cable Car (Gondola) has ballooned to an estimated £60m. For those interested, that means the system will cost roughly $100m USD per kilometer. With the possible exception of the Caracas Metrocable (whose finances are discussed here), the London Thames Cable Car...
A quick, fun look at the history of Zeppelin travel and its (im)possibility for future applications: Year which Zeppelin idea first materialized: 1874 Year which Wright Brothers first took flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina: 1903 Speed of initial Zeppelins: 21km/h Zeppelin length: 126m Bus length: 12m First successful Zeppelin: LZ3 Total kilometres travelled:...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit: The budget for the London Thames Cable Car has now increased to £60m. Originally estimated to cost £25m, the budget was revised just recently to £45m. This could quickly become one of the most expensive gondola systems the world’s...
Gondola Project commenter, Giorgio Betteto sent along these renderings of his concept for an intermodal urban gondola that can act as a transporter of goods. It’s a logical concept: Gondolas are already equipped with cargo delivery systems (think about the gondolas used to move your luggage up to a ski resort) and the technology could...
Frequent commenter Matt The Engineer has thrown his hat into the ring for an urban gondola transit system in Seattle, Washington. He outlines his concept at Citytank.org: Let’s take a sample Seattle route with 3 stops. Seattle Center to South Lake Union to Capitol Hill near light rail. Each of these neighborhoods is separated by...