Posts Tagged: Music

29
Feb

2012

Gondola Tunes

In Aspen you can play your iPod in a gondola. Just hope none of your friends want to listen to Nickelback... Image by The Ski Channel.

Commuting to work on public transit can give you a chance to catch up on sleep , read, do work, avoid the hassle of finding parking, etc etc. However, it can also be stressful — overcrowding, lack of personal space and unfamiliarity with transit routes can all be frustrating.

But now the Silver Queen Gondola in Aspen, Colorado may offer a simple improvement by letting riders play their own music. That’s right, each cabin features an onboard MP3 dock. One reason this works is because a gondola is a small, contained vehicle. While you’d never get an entire subway train to agree to a song or even genre of music, if you were commuting with a small group of friends or acquaintances,a consensus is most likely reached.

While this add-on is no panacea to the ills of riding transit and could potentially be a source of irritation to some passengers, it does demonstrate the opportunities for personalizing travel experiences, especially with CPT technology.

Who wouldn’t want to add a little fun and enjoyment to their daily commute? Now the only problem will be deciding on who’s Ipod to use…

Thanks goes to Anna Hill for informing us of this system. 

 

 



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.

Just For Fun / Questions / Thoughts
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28
Feb

2011

The New York Subway As Musical Instrument

Alexander Chan is a musician, artist and and employee of Google Creative Labs in Brooklyn, New York. He’s also created one of the most magnificent interpretations of a subway map I’ve yet to ever see:

ANY CHARACTER HERE

ANY CHARACTER HERE

As Alexander explains on his blog, the piece, titled Conductor:

. . . turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA’s actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute, then continues accelerating through a 24 hour loop. The visuals are based on Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 diagram.

The piece follows some rules. Every minute, it checks for new trains launched from their end stations. The train then moves towards the end of the line, with its speed set by the schedule’s estimated trip duration. Some decisions were made for musical, aesthetic, and technical reasons, such as fading out routes over time, the gradual time acceleration, and limiting the number of concurrent trains. Also, I used the weekday schedule. Some of these limitations result in subtle variations, as different trains are chosen during each 24-hour loop.

The result is hypnotic. An enchanting work that is both equal parts familiar and entirely unique.

I could easily imagine video panels scattered throughout the NYC subway system providing interested riders with an original and whimsical view of the commute they’ve taken every day of their lives but never considered it in such a beautiful and compelling way.

Public transit needs more things like this.

You can experience Conductor live here.



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.

Heavy Rail / Oddities
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