Posts Tagged: Roosevelt Island Tram

09
Dec

2014

5 breathtaking gondola rides that should have made the Daily Mail’s list

Stanserhorn CabriO in Switzerland. Image courtesy of CabriO.

Stanserhorn CabriO in Switzerland. Image courtesy of CabriO.

Back in October, the Daily Mail posted their list of the most breathtaking gondola rides in the world. The inventory of cable car systems, which included Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Teleferico de Merida in Venezuela, and the rotating Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in California, is impressive, if a little bit obvious. So we rounded up five more gondolas that offer uniquely breathtaking rides. 

Stanserhorn CabriO (Switzerland)

Opened in 2012 as an updated alternative to the 120-year-old rail funicular, the CabriO cable car provides access to the top of Mount Stanserhorn in the centre of Switzerland. Beyond the thrill of ascending the mountain along 2,320 metres of cable, riders can venture into the open air to check out the scenery on the gondola’s second deck. (Pictured above.)

Peak 2 Peak (Whistler, Canada)

Ostensibly created to service the ski resorts at the tops of Whistler-Blackcomb’s two major mountains, Peak 2 Peak has gained considerable recognition for its record-breaking innovation. The almost entirely horizontal system stretches from Whistler Mountain’s Roundhouse Lodge to Blackcomb Mountain’s Rendezvous restaurant across 4.4 km of cable, more than 3 km of which is a free span — the longest in the world. At the time, its highest point (436 metres) held the world record for highest cable car. Discovery Channel even made a documentary about the construction of the system.

Peak 2 Peak in Whistler, BC. Image by Flickr user Dan Dan The Binary Man.

Peak 2 Peak in Whistler, BC. Image by Flickr user Dan Dan The Binary Man.

Roosevelt Island Tram (New York)

While not breathtaking in the natural majesty sense of the word, New York’s refurbished Roosevelt Island Tram nonetheless offers riders an impressive view of Manhattan, not to mention the waterfront skyline along the Hudson River’s east channel. Plus, this is the only CPT line to feature in a Spider-Man movie. 

Roosevelt Island tram. Image by Flickr user Chevar.

Roosevelt Island tram. Image by Flickr user Chevar.

Koblenz Rheinseilbahn (Germany)

The cable car system that services Koblenz was constructed specifically for the city’s turn playing host to Germany’s bi-annual Bundesgartenshau horticulture festival in 2011. Using advanced 3S technology, the gondola carries riders directly from downtown Koblenz to the area near the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress across the Rhine river — a trek otherwise requiring a roundabout surface route and a funicular.

Image by Flickr user Mundus Gregorius.

Koblenz Rheinseilbahn. Image by Flickr user Mundus Gregorius.

Mi Teleferico Red Line (La Paz, Bolivia)

The first of the three lines that make up the urban cable car system in Bolivia’s capital, Mi Teleferico’s Red Line opened in May of this year to the relief of the city’s gridlocked commuters. Aside from providing a convenient alternative to the traffic-clogged driving routes (the Red Line traverses its 2.4 km in around 10 minutes), the journey gives commuters a stunning view of the Andes and a look at the surrounding metropolis from nearly 500 metres up. 

Mi Teleferico's Linea Roja. Image by TheGamerJediPro (Wiki Commons).

Mi Teleferico’s Linea Roja. Image by TheGamerJediPro (Wiki Commons).



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11
Sep

2014

Cable Car Photo of the Week: Roosevelt Island Tram

Roosevelt Island Tram. Image by Flick user Paul Weber.

Photographer: 

Photo by Flickr user Paul Weber.

About:

Every Thursday, the Gondola Project team will select stunning captures of CPT lines. We hope this will continue to bring more attention to the technology and provide visually impactful examples of cable car systems worldwide. If you’d like to submit or nominate a picture for our “Photo of the Week”, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send us an email at gondola@creativeurbanprojects.com.



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16
Jan

2014

Cable Car Photo of the Week: Roosevelt Island Tram

The city's cable car.

Roosevelt Island Tram. Image by Flickr user Jay s Park.

Photo by Flickr user Jay s Park.

About:

Every Thursday, the Gondola Project team will select stunning captures of CPT lines for our newest feature: Cable Car Photo of the Week. We hope this will continue to bring more attention to the technology and provide visually impactful examples of cable car systems worldwide. If you’d like to submit or nominate a picture for our “Photo of the Week”, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send us an email at gondola@creativeurbanprojects.com.



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19
Sep

2013

Cable Car Photo of the Week: Towers in the City

Roosevelt Island Tram. Image by Charlotte Boffetti.

Roosevelt Island Tram. Image by Charlotte Boffetti.

Photographer:

Photo by Charlotte Boffetti (profile).

About:

On every Thursday, the Gondola Project team will select stunning captures of CPT lines for our newest feature: Cable Car Photo of the Week. We hope this will continue to bring more attention to the technology and provide visually impactful examples of cable car systems worldwide.

If you’d like to submit or nominate a picture for our “Photo of the Week”, we’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below or send us an email at gondola@creativeurbanprojects.com. 



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.

26
Jun

2013

Assessing User Experience on Urban Cable Cars via Social Networking (Yelp, Tripadvisor)

For many of us, we use social media and online review sites to make everyday life decisions. Websites such as Yelp or TripAdvisor can be great resources that help indecisive people, like myself, decide whether or not a restaurant deserves my Friday night patronage.

My personal experiences with crowd-sourcing websites has generally been quite positive — more often than not, a quick scan of reviews can paint a fairly accurate picture of the business.

And since we’re a transit blog built on fun and inquisitiveness, I decided to carry this notion to the world of Cable Propelled Transit. So a few days back, I asked myself: can we use social networking to assess the general receptiveness and desirability of urban cable cars?

Reviews of RIT on Yelp. Screenshot from Yelp.

Reviews of RIT on Yelp. Screenshot from Yelp.

My hypothesis, if you can call it that, is: if these systems are undesirable (i.e. unattractive, a rip-off, poorly designed etc.) in a city, as many detractors claim, surely this will be revealed in crowd-sourcing websites such as Yelp.

While the initial thought of compiling and analyzing user experience data from these websites sounds outright featherbrained, it occurred to me that the findings/implications might actually be the complete opposite. As regular viewers of Kitchen Nightmares know, online reviews can sometimes make or break a business (I won’t post the link here, but if you must know what I’m referring to, search Amy’s Baking Company).

So for my little back-of-the-envelope analysis, I decided to look at the a handful of city-oriented cable cars from across the globe which had reviews, namely: Portland Aerial Tram, Roosevelt Island Tram, Teleférico Madrid, Téléphérique de Grenoble Bastille, Singapore Cable Car, and the Emirates Air Line.

6 urban cable cars reviewed.

Six urban cable cars reviewed – Portland Aerial Tram, Roosevelt Island Tram, Teleferico Madrid, Téléphérique de Grenoble Bastille, Singapore Cable Car and Emirates Air Line. Images from Flickr – Creative Commons Commercial.

Before I began my research, I expected to find a mixed of reviews, both positive and negative. However, what I found was quite surprising — the average overall rating (out of 5) was 4.25 where the lowest was 4 and highest was 5. If you carefully read the reviews, there are very few 1 or 2 star ratings, with the majority of responses being praiseworthy. I quickly noticed that several common themes were emerging — most of which revolved around aerial views, price, and ride quality. A lot of the remarks are quite funny and appear indicative of the general issues surrounding a particular system. For example, my favourite one is from London’s Yelper Tom E. who had this to say about the Emirates Air Line:

Tom E's take on the Emirates Air Line. Screenshot from Yelp.com

I say that’s a fairly accurate assessment. Screenshot from Yelp.

 

Of course by this time, some of you are probably thinking, crowdsourcing reviews are inaccurate and can’t be trusted. While this is true in certain cases, I can’t honestly fathom why a user would take time out of his/her schedule to give a cable car system a fake review.

For the conspiracists out there, could a cable car operator potentially hire people to provide false accounts? Possible, but unlikely. Given the aggregate nature of Yelp where thousands of users write unfiltered reviews, it is likely that if a system is “problematic” in any way, shape or form, the amount of real reviews would counteract the fake ones. Also, I think most individuals are smart enough to weed out the garbage reviews.

So what does this little analysis mean for urban cable cars? My initial feeling is that online evidence reveals that user experience on the CPT system surveyed thus far are overwhelmingly positive. Even in situations where the initial system planning and design was controversial, once these lines become operational, most of these issues are forgotten.

Perhaps due partly to the novelty/rarity of these transit systems and the general “fun factor” of cable cars, CPT lines really do a great job in uplifting people’s spirits while offering them the opportunity to experience their city in a totally different manner.

 

In the future, for a more accurate and detailed assessment, it would be interesting to examine quality of the reviewers, analyze if opinions change over time, expand the sample size and analyze reviews from other websites like TripAdvisor. 



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17
Jun

2013

Privacy, Proximity and Urban Cable Cars: Roosevelt Island Tram

Last week I had a post which asked readers to identify if they saw anything peculiar with the Roosevelt Island Tram. We’ve received some great responses and Erik was able to pinpoint exactly what I was looking for.

We noticed that a new building was being constructed literally only a few meters from the existing Tram alignment with (presumably) little or no debate on how this affects privacy of future tenants. And perhaps strangest of all, the typical NIMBYism or NOMBYism, was absent.

A closer look. Image by Martina Komosa.

A closer look. Image by Martina Komosa.

An even closer look. Image by Nicholas Chu.

An even closer look. Image by Martin Komosa.

From my brief conversation with the Tram attendant, it appears that this building here will be of the mixed-use office/condo variety.

So of course, given the proximity of the RIT to the building, this brings up several questions about how urban cable cars and privacy are interrelated.

Why is it that some systems spark such huge debates on neighbourhood privacy (i.e. Portland Aerial Tram and Burnaby Mountain Gondola) while other cases (i.e. in Medellin and this one here) goes almost unnoticed? Is it context? Culture? Design?

I don’t have a precise answer nor am I a psychology major, but I presume the reason is somewhat comparable to the chicken and egg dilemma. In other words, if a Tram line exists prior to new tenants moving in, the CPT is automatically acceptable whereas if this situation was flipped around (Tram comes in after), there will be significant debate on privacy invasion.

Undoubtedly as more cities are now studying the implementation of CPT in dense urban areas, more planners and decision-makers must begin to fully understand and address this privacy issue and develop the appropriate mitigation strategies.



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12
Jun

2013

Tram Trivia: RIT, New York

So a few weeks ago I was in New York City for a short weekend jaunt. Obviously as a true transit geek, no trip to the Big Apple would ever be complete without a visit to the Roosevelt Island Tram.

Upon arrival, everything seemed normal for a Saturday night ride — there were few commuters waiting patiently while several tourists were noisily snapping away with their DSLRs (myself included).

Once the cabin arrived, we quickly boarded the carrier and took in the nighttime panoramic views.

However, halfway through the ride I quickly noticed something a litte unusual — something that you wouldn’t expect to see in a “Western” urban aerial system. Can anyone spot it?

Looking into Manhattan from Roosevelt Island. Image by Martin Komosa.

Looking into Manhattan from Roosevelt Island. Image by Martin Komosa.



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