Just so everyone knows, I’m on vacation for the next week. I’m going to try to answer questions, comment and continue to post. Internet access is, however, very intermittent so please bear with me. Instead, it would be great if you all could answer/address each other’s questions.
Colin writes: I’ve been following your blog for a little while, and although my immediate impression was that the idea was absurd, that quickly morphed into “well why why hell not?” I’ve been a skiier/snowboarder for almost 35 years, and have ridden a lot of gondolas. One question I have is to do with queue control. I’ve found that...
Ski lifts were never meant to be used as public transit. So what? Locomotives were never meant to be used underground. Wood was never meant to be used as lumber. Pipe cleaners were never meant to be used for arts and crafts. Cows were never meant to be used as beef. Spaceships were never meant...
Have you ever noticed that the front-most and rear-most cars in a train are typically underused – indeed, sometimes empty! – even at the height of rush hour? Smart and experienced transit riders walk those extra 50 meters to the end of the subway platform and get a seat, while everyone else just crowds (miserably) into...
Year Leonid Murlyanchik started building his own personal subway: 1984 Passenger capacity for his fully-automated cars: 3-4 Distance Leonid can tunnel per day: 1m Distance tunnel boring machine can tunnel per day: 15m Island wide speed limit on Bermuda: 35km/hr Number of Chinese cities with population over 1 million in 2030: 220 Number of Chinese...
I recently spoke with a cable engineer who thought it completely absurd that people use Aerial Tram statistics to negate the feasibility of Urban Gondolas. When I told him such confusion was the norm rather than the exception, he became flustered. He simply couldn’t accept that people make that mistake. They’re two completely different performance packages!...
The first and most important thing necessary to understand about Cable Cars as opposed to aerial cable technologies is this: The two technologies are not fundamentally different. Knowing your way around Gondolas and Aerial Trams will help your knowledge about Cable Cars immensely. Both are characterized by passive vehicles being propelled along guideways for support....
London is looking at building an Urban Gondola (‘Cable Car’ as they’ve mistakenly dubbed it) for the 2012 Olympics. On first glance, the idea seemed somewhat suspect. It appeared to be more a Toy for Tourists rather than a genuine piece of cable transit infrastructure. Upon closer examination, however, not only does this project have...
In February The Gondola Project held a mini-competition. The winner was to receive their $50 prize by email money transfer. Matt Thredgold of Wellington Cycleways won. But as Matt lives in New Zealand and email money transfers are apparently a uniquely Canadian phenomenon (they’re awesome, by the way), Matt asked that his prize come in...
Aside from high-profile systems in South America, Urban Gondolas and Cable Propelled Transit systems are relatively obscure. Yet there is one other country that’s quietly been hopping on the band wagon. That country is Algeria.