It’s important to recognize that the term used to describe a Detachable Grip is detachable not attachable. Detachable grips are attached to a cable with heavy, industrial springs providing the pressure necessary to create the grip’s vice-like hold. Until a constant, targeted, external and specially-designed force is applied to pry open the grip, the grip’s hold is (for all...
If you’ll recall, cable cars, funiculars, aerial trams and urban gondolas are propelled by means of transit vehicles attaching themselves to a moving cable. Hence the term Cable Propelled Transit. But how does that occur? With Grips, that’s how. Grips are just what they sound like. They are like a fist grabbing onto a rope...
It’s easy to say we can’t do something, but that’s just a kind of mental paralysis created out of misinformed Rabble. Among other things, The Rabble said no one will ever want to carry around 15 hours worth of music in their pocket; eat green-colored coconut soup; or read about arcane business mythologies from a...
. . . are often touted as the answer to our transit woes. The idea is simple enough: When a transit vehicle approaches an intersection, the light changes to give it priority. Trouble is, there’s very little research to suggest it works and transit advocates such as Steve Munro continue to laud this technology without discussing its...
Just for fun . . . I threw together this game using Shuffle Brain’s Photograb widget. It’s a pleasing little puzzle game for those of you with a couple of minutes to kill. Enjoy!
I’m constantly asked how urban gondolas, cable cars and cable-propelled transit perform in bad weather. It’s an odd question because the answer is so obvious. The technology was popularized, after all, in alpine ski resorts. I don’t, however, begrudge the question. When I began my work on CPT I wondered the same thing. The question bemuses...
To use CPT properly you have to be creative, original, daring and ultimately a little bit mad. That madness is good and important, especially nowadays when cities viciously compete for talent and tourists. Homogenous, cookie-cutter cities no longer make the grade. People want remarkable. Light Rail (LRT), Subway and Bus technologies are useful (sometimes) but...
As I mentioned yesterday, the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) agency announced on Thursday that the Oakland Airport Connector would be a Cable Propelled Transit system. This was a major breakthrough by a cable technology as it competed head-to-head with two other self-propelled transit technologies and won. One of the reasons cited by BART for...
Yesterday morning, Bay Area Rapid Transit announced their selection of of the Parsons/Flatiron group to build the Oakland Airport Connector. This is a significant announcement for Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) because the transit technology selected for the installation will be a cable system designed and built by Doppelmayr Cable Car. The reason this is so...
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is a theoretical transit technology, the theory being that in order for public transit to compete with the private automobile, it must mimic the attributes of the car. PRT is typically imagined to have the following attributes: 1. People ride in personal vehicles of up to 4 people. 2. Vehicles are available...