Yesterday, in Lenggries Germany, a gondola system malfunctioned stranding dozens of riders in mid-air. Helicopters were were used in the rescue. There were no injuries. The system was built by a subsidiary of Thyssenkrupp, a manufacturer with little experience in cable transit. Detractors of cable technology – I’m certain – will use this as evidence...
With most traditional transit technologies, there is little consideration about the variations within that technology. A bus is a bus; a streetcar is a streetcar; and a subway is a subway. Sure, there’s variation between suppliers and models, but those differences are negligible compared to the overall technologies themselves. That’s one of the real competitive...
You can say whatever you want about Light Rail, Subways and Buses. We can keep that debate going forever. But when it comes to a transit technology’s saunability… Cable’s clearly got them all beat.
I’m in transit to Vancouver today to tour the Peak 2 Peak gondola in Whistler, British Columbia. The Peak 2 Peak uses an advanced 3S technology, whereby vehicles are supported by two stationary cable spans while the third cable provides the propulsion. It’s one of the most sophisticated cable technologies there is. It enables vehicles...
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post titled What Do You Hate About Your City’s Transit System? The post was meant to get people thinking about their own local transit system and to contemplate why they just accept what their transit is rather than what it could be. I encouraged people to email...
What a wonderful phrase: “Gadget value.” I just stumbled upon it in an old history text book and instantly fell in love with the term . . . Gadget Value is the intrinsic interest a mechanism generates totally separate from it’s use. It’s why we love cars, trains and any other mechanism. Cable has massive...
I recently wrote an article for the Architectural League of New York‘s urbanism-themed website Urban Omnibus. The article, titled Off the Road and Into the Skies (click to read it), should provide you with a decent history of New York City’s Roosevelt Island Tram and some analysis of Santiago Calatrava’s botched cable transit proposal for...
Your children and/or grandchildren will think it’s cool. You will save lives because you’re implementing the safest form of mass public transit there is. You will save your city money which will make everyone at City Hall happier. Your peers will respect you for doing something different. You will have fun. You like fun, don’t...
It’s a new year, folks! Congratulations, we survived another one! My column yesterday attracted the site’s first Rabble and I don’t expect it to be the last. Among “thickslab’s” (please don’t post anonymously on this site, folks, and try to be respectful) concerns was the issue of passenger safety. I don’t mean in the sense...
I’d just like to thank everyone for the kind words and support the above article generated. I actually found out this article had landed after the fact. Myself and my partner, Gabriela, were driving home from visiting the Hungerburgbahn in Austria. I received a phone call on my cell from the Toronto radio station CFRB....