Posts Tagged: Urban Planning

21
Dec

2015

The Grandmother Test

I recently met someone who disapproves of this whole Urban Gondola concept – which is fine, you’re entitled to your own opinion. He said it’s hard enough to get his grandmother to ride the subway (because she finds it terrifying), let alone a gondola.

According to The Grandmother Test (yeah, it should be called that) we should therefore stop everyone from building subways entirely. Probably not going to happen.

Yet when I pointed out the logical problem of The Grandmother Test, he basically just said urban gondolas are stupid. He wasn’t a skeptic; he was a cynic.

Whether it’s urban gondolas or any other great idea, if you spot someone who fails (passes?) The Grandmother Test, just walk away and don’t waste your time. There’s nothing you can do there.



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Thoughts
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08
Sep

2015

Reviewing Good Advice: Low Profile Urban Gondolas

This piece was first published on The Gondola Project in 2010 but it is still highly relevant and useful. It’s about keeping your head low to the ground being unobtrusive; useful advice from a Canadian.

There’s a story about Cable Propelled Transit, Aerial Ropeways and Urban Gondolas that only hurts the technology’s future. Unfortunately, the industry does little to stop the spread of this story.

The story is simple: If you build an urban gondola, you’ll have vehicles flying over tall buildings, hundreds of feet in the air!

This story is bad for cable. Here’s why:

Read more



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Urban Planning & Design
7
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24
Jul

2010

Obedience Training

If you work in a planning firm, city, political office, think tank, etc. where you might get fired or disciplined for mentioning or proposing the idea of urban gondolas, you probably didn’t want to work there in the first place.

Places like that are interested only in gatekeeping and maintaining the status quo. They’re interested in scaring you into obedience. Like we do with dogs.

You deserve a work environment where your opinions and your ideas are valued. Even if the ideas are ridiculous, you deserve an environment to express them, play with them and maybe even realize them.

You’re not a dog. You don’t need obedience training.



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.

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22
Jul

2010

A Wait Time Thought Experiment

According to the Transportation Research Board’s Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, wait times for transit are around 2 times more onerous to riders than actual in-vehicle time. They see that ratio rise to 2.5 times when wait times are coupled to transfers.

With that in mind, how long is the following journey:

  • A 5 minute walk from your front door to your bus stop.
  • A 7 minute wait for your bus.
  • A 10 minute bus ride to the LRT.
  • A 1 minute walk from bus stop to LRT stop.
  • A 4 minute wait for the next LRT.
  • A 15 minute LRT ride.
  • A 3 minute walk from LRT station to your destination.

Standard transit planning practice would say that the total journey time is 45 minutes. But is that accurate? Yes and no.

Yes, in the sense that it’s the actual journey time. No, in the sense that it doesn’t actually reflect the riders’ experience of the journey.

If the TRB is to be believed, the journey feels like it’s 58 minutes long, a 29% premium over actual journey time.

We know time flies when you’re having fun but the exact opposite is true as well.

So when you plan your transit models, shouldn’t you take the experience and subjectivity of your riders into consideration? After all, aren’t those the people you’re serving? Shouldn’t their experience be paramount?



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.

Thought Experiments / Urban Planning & Design
2
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13
Jul

2010

Never Meant To Be

Ski lifts were never meant to be used as public transit.

So what?

Locomotives were never meant to be used underground.

Wood was never meant to be used as lumber.

Pipe cleaners were never meant to be used for arts and crafts.

Cows were never meant to be used as beef.

Spaceships were never meant to be used by tourists.

Cell phones were never meant to be used as cameras.

Gold was never meant to be used as a store of value.

Wood rasps were never meant to be used as cheese graters.

Squid ink was never meant to be used to turn pasta black.

Computers were never meant to be used to watch movies.

Graphite was never meant to be used as pencil lead.

Satellites were never meant to be used for GPS.

Mold was never meant to be used as penicillin.

Mail was never meant to be used for direct marketing.

So what?



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.

Thoughts / Uncategorized
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02
Jul

2010

How Is This Even Possible?

A couple of days ago, Yonah Freemark published some statistics that should trouble anyone in the North American transit world:

Los Angeles plans a 13.8 km long subway line at a total cost of $6 billion. That works out to $435 million per kilometer.

Not to be outdone, New York is planning a 2.7 km long subway line at a cost of $4.5 billion. That works out to $1.6 billion per kilometer.

These are comically large numbers, especially in the case of New York. How are they even possible? And more importantly, how are those cities’ governments and citizens expected to pay for those systems?

Does a cost-benefit analysis really justify such huge expenditure for such a limited increase in coverage? And if so . . . who wrote the cost-benefit analysis?

More disturbing is to think about what the actual cost of these systems will be. Typically, capital cost forecasts for projects like these are severely underestimated. How the above numbers could be underestimated is beyond me, but history suggests that will be the case.

Inflate those numbers by 20-50% and you’re looking at something that’s no longer comical and is instead tragic.

Pro-transit or not, those are hard numbers to justify.



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.

Media & Blogs / Subway
5
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30
Jun

2010

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

We do things for reasons beyond money. That’s no surprise. We – as people – are motivated by a whole host of other factors. Check out this fascinating video/animation from www.theRSA.org on what actually motivates people. And at the end of it ask yourself: Do our cities, governments, societies (and transit systems) motivate us in ways that are appropriate to who we actually are and how we actually behave?





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.

Thoughts / Urban Planning & Design
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