Posts Tagged: Steven Dale

05
Oct

2015

Medellin/Caracas, Part 1

Last week I travelled to Medellin, Colombia and Caracas, Venezuela to tour five of the most important CPT systems in the world. This is Part 1 of a photo essay on those systems. In this part, a brief overview of the history of cable transit in this part of the world will be explained. Image by Steven Dale.

HISTORY

Modern Cable Propelled Transit started in Caracas, Venezuela with the Mount Avila Gondola. This system was originally built in the middle of the last century to carry people from Caracas to the top of Mount Avila where the luxurious Hotel Humboldt had been built. Political and economic strife caused the government to leave for neglect both the hotel and gondola. The gondola itself was not reopened until 1999, after a successful rebuild.

The Avila Mountain Gondola In Caracas. Image by Steven Dale.

An Avila Mountain Gondola From Below. Image by Steven Dale.

A gondola passes over two original and well-preserved antique gondola cars at the Mount Avila Caracas Terminal. Image by Steven Dale.

The Avila gondola cannot, however, be truly classed as cable transit. It lacks integration to the local transit network and really exists more for tourists, not local commuters. It did, however, indirectly inspire the nearby city of Medellin, Colombia to pursue a fully-integrated CPT system to serve the impoverished and dangerous barrio of Santo Domingo. The system would take almost 5 years to open, from conception to fruition and would be the world’s first true CPT system. They would name it The Metrocable. The first line, consistent with the city’s existing Metro system, would be named Linea K.

A Linea K Metrocable Car in Medellin, Colombia. Image by Steven Dale.

The Metrocable over top the Santo Domingo barrio. Image by Steven Dale.

Gondolas depart a Linea J Metrocable station. Image by Steven Dale.

Metrocable Linea K would be an enormous success. Crime rates in Santo Domingo plunged and area investment skyrocketed. In the four years since Linea K opened, crime in Santo Domingo virtually disappeared, jobs have increased 300% and 3 banks have opened along the Metrocable route. With such an obvious success story, Metro officials had little trouble convincing decision-makers to open Linea J.

Unlike Linea K, Linea J would connect several smaller barrios in the western end of the city. These barrios suffered from similar economic conditions but did not have the population density that Linea K had. This was considered a good thing as Linea K suffered from overcrowding almost immediately upon opening, a situation not witnessed on Linea J.

A Linea J gondola. Image by Steven Dale.

Meanwhile, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela was not to be undone. The opening of the second Metrocable line in Medellin made Chavez lust after a similar system in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. Within 2 years, Chavez’s dream would be realized with Caracas opening their own cable transit system in early 2010. It was also to be named The Metrocable.

Like the Medellin systems before it, the Caracas Metrocable would provide transit to under-serviced barrios with a history of crime and poverty. But unlike the Medellin systems, Caracas would feature enormous stations that included social facilities such as gymnasiums, police stations, community centres and markets. The Caracas Metrocable would also be the first in the world to feature extreme 90 degree turning radii at stations.

Gondolas enter and exit a station in Caracas. Image by Steven Dale.

The Caracas Metrocable. Image by Steven Dale.

The Metrocable loop between Medellin and Venezuela came full circle in early 2010. While Chavez was opening his first system in Caracas, Medellin was opening their third Metrocable line. But this time, the line looked more similar to the original Mount Avila system from Venezuela circa 1999.

While still fully-integrated into the Medellin Metro, the new Linea L services the Parque Arvi at the top of a nearby mountain in Medellin and requires an additional fare of 1,550 Colombian Pesos (roughly $1 US dollar). Linea L would give quick, affordable access to wilderness and parkland facilities that had previously only been accessible to wealthy land-owners in Medellin. This was a welcome change, given Colombia’s historically wide gap between rich and poor.

A Linea L gondola. Image by Steven Dale.

Medellin as seen from the Linea L, Parque Arvi nature preserve. Image by Steven Dale.

Both cities are engaged in major plans to expand their Metrocable offerings and cities throughout Latin America are embarking upon cable transit plans of their own.

Read Part 2.



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.

20
Nov

2014

Cable Car Photo of the Week: Aichi – Morizo Gondola

Expo 2005 Aichi, Japan. Image by Flickr user Dom Pates.

Photographer: 

Photo by Flickr user Dom Pates.

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.



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.

30
May

2010

Cost Is Relative With Urban Infrastructure

The good folks over at US Infrastructure have invited me to blog for them on occasion. So, of course, the first blog has to do with the Caracas Metrocable and how various people (including The Economist) choose to portray the costs of civil works projects.

Please check out Cost Is Relative With Urban Infrastructure.



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.

11
May

2010

True Story:

One Sunday last month, I was standing at a subway station and the overhead monitor informed me that the next train was to arrive in 9 minutes.  30 seconds later, it anticipated an arrival in 7 minutes.  Two minutes later the monitor said the train would arrive in 6 minutes.  3 minutes later, the train arrived, but was out of service.

Hint:  If your solution to a problem is to actively broadcast the degree to which you’re deviating from a planned action, ensure that your description of the deviation is more accurate than the deviation itself.

Better yet, stop wasting time and money on systems like this that are designed solely to respond to symptoms of a problem. Attack the problem, not the symptoms.



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.

10
May

2010

Forget The Gatekeepers

Idea Suppression is the Gatekeeper’s business and it used to be a good business to be in. The pay was good and the costs were low. If you were in the Gatekeeping business, you really didn’t have to do a whole lot of work to do your job well. To suppress an idea all you had to do was prevent the idea from having a platform.

Idea Suppression and Platform Prevention went hand-in-hand.

As I’ve said before, this whole Urban Gondola / Cable Propelled Transit idea didn’t have a hope 20 years ago. 20 years ago there were just too many Gatekeepers.

Today there’s still too many Gatekeepers, but the tools we now use to maneuver around them has increased exponentially. Use these tools properly and Gatekeepers cease to matter. Today, everyone’s got a platform, everyone’s got a voice.

Gatekeeping is now a lousy business to be in:

  • Platform Prevention is expensive at best and impossible at worst.
  • No one respects the Gatekeeper. Gatekeeping is as disreputable today as DDT was a generation ago.
  • Gatekeepers can be willfully ignored, fully and completely.

I’m sure this is upsetting to the Gatekeepers Union (how awesome would it be if such a thing actually existed?) because it makes their job irrelevant. Why bother hiring a Gatekeeper – or building a gate in the first place – when everyone’s just going to hop the wall anyways?

Not everyone’s going to agree with Urban Gondolas, just as not everyone’s going to agree with LRT, PRT or BRT. And that’s a good thing. But the fact that some fool from Toronto can shout “gondola” and have people pay attention shows just how ineffective and worthless Gatekeeping is as a profession nowadays.

Today any idea has a fighting chance and there’s not a Gatekeeper in the world who can do anything about it.



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.

04
May

2010

If Only . . .

. . . there was a club for urban planners who just happen to be avid skiers.

If there were, then this would be the easiest thing in the world.



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.

01
Apr

2010

Children, Transit & Play Trains

When I was a child, my mother had a very simple rule when we were taking public transit:  If I misbehaved, we walked . . . no matter how far from home we were.  I knew perfectly well that my mother didn’t want to walk home any more than I did so one day I decided to call her bluff.

Four hours later we arrived – by foot – at home.

Children, like everyone else in public transit, are people that need to be designed for.  Children get restless when in a confined space . . . unless they are distracted by something.  Why do you think Ikea has a playground and restaurants have coloring books?  Adults do not perceive time the same way children do.  For adults, half an hour is gone in an instant.  For children, it’s an eternity.  Why don’t we ever take this into consideration?

If transit planners want to keep people and families using transit throughout their lives we should be designing systems so that parents look forward to – rather than dread – the experience of taking their easily-distractible children on a subway.  This, I suspect, is one of the major reasons behind young parents almost inevitably gravitating to the private automobile.

One of the most delightful distractions I can remember as a child was the front seat of a subway or the backseat of a streetcar or bus.  In these locations a child can witness first-hand what the vehicle is experiencing and are mesmerized by it.  To this day, I still see children clamoring for space in these prime locations.  Like me in my day, these kids tend to be quiet, behave and just generally watch the world go by, causing little concern for their parents or other passengers.

Unfortunately, current transit design practice eliminates these prime viewing spots.  Rear windows in buses have been replaced by air conditioning units and trains (both the light and the heavy kind) reserve the front of the train almost exclusively for the driver.  What’s a kid to do?

How about this:  Why not reserve a small and designated section of subways just for kids to play around in?  Nothing dangerous, just a place where kids can be kids.  That, I think, would make the experience more enjoyable for everyone.  In fact, it may actually attract ridership as parents would be nagged to death by their children who want to ride the “play train.”

One rule, however:  No adults in the ball crawl.



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.