Note: Nick Chu is presently on vacation in China but still managed to smuggle the follow observations out from behind The Great Firewall. A quick look at some of the things that make urbanism in China work (or not) – all stats from The Concrete Dragon by Thomas J. Campanella: Percentage of Chinese population living...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas and Cable Propelled Transit: Gordon Harris, CEO of the Simon Fraser University Trust, finally speaks out in support of of the Burnaby Mountain Gondola. Mr. Harris had recently come under fire for refusing to comment on the project despite being the brainchild of the entire...
We talk a lot about station profile and architecture here at The Gondola Project. So I thought it might be fun to track down some little know systems that most of us have probably never even heard of (let alone seen). As these are all systems with little publicly available information or research, we’re basically...
Over at Makeprojects Jeff describes how he designed, built and installed an 100-foot long wood and steel pipe funicular for the purposes of “people/firewood/beer moving” at his family cottage. And despite Jeff’s wood and steel pipe funicular looking about as safe as one can expect a homemade wood and steel pipe funicular to look, it’s...
Here are five things that are likely to occur with Cable Propelled Transit technology in the near future: ONE. A new competitor will enter the market. Arguably and to some extent, the urban public transit market is being ignored by the existing cable transit industry. That’s too huge a market to ignore. How long do...
For our new readers: Despite the fact that systems like the planned London Thames Cable Car are often officially called “Cable Cars,” they are more often than not Gondolas. This can be confusing to cable transit novices. To make it easier: Cable Cars are supported from below (like cars) and Gondolas are supported from the top...
As of last month The Gondola Project has been around for 1.5 years. In the next 6 months there’s going to be a lot of changes to the site. Admittedly, we don’t know exactly what those changes will look like, but we know things need to evolve and be shaken up. Nevertheless, we thought it...
A quick look at some of the things that make bike-sharing work (or not): Number of bike share programs worldwide: 200 Number of bike-sharing schemes earning yearly profits: 0 Number of US cities with Bike Share programs: 10 Number of bikes in Washington’s bike share program: 1,000 Number of members: 12,000 Cost of subsidization per...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas and Cable Propelled Transit: For Burnaby Mountain Gondola enthusiasts only: An excellent op-ed piece in Burnaby Now by Gordon Price about judging the controversial Burnaby Mountain Gondola on its own merits. For Hungarians only: The Budapest Tourism Conference announces plans for what appears to be...