. . . 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...
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...
I’m traveling today and am out of internet contact (why can’t more airlines fix that problem?), so we’re going to watch a video (like when your high school history teacher was sick with strep throat) It’s short, it’s in French, and it should inspire the transit wonk in all of you (especially starting at 0:56)....
Way back in the day (we’re talking 1872 here) Cincinnati, Ohio was clustered at the base of several small mountains. As the city grew and expanded up the sides of the mountain city officials had a problem: How were people and goods to be moved up and down the mountains? This was, of course, before...
When you actually examine the data (Bent Flyvberg‘s data is particularly illuminating) you see that Light Rail Transit’s (LRT) ability to heal a city’s transit woes are negligible at best and non-existent at worst, especially in relation to the costs associated with the technology. So why, then, do we keep coming back to LRT? Well,...
Less-Than-One-Minute (LT1M) wait times should be the goal of every transit planner because it is a principle that focuses on the user rather than the operator. What the user wants is simple: to be able to travel whenever they want regardless of schedule. Imagine . . . . . . if your front door only...
Here’s an example of how not to implement Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) in an urban area. The Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) desired a direct connection between their two campuses in Portland, Oregon; one at the bottom of a mountain, another at the top. A CPT system was a logical choice. I won’t discuss what I...
There are two major sub-groups of Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) technology: Gondolas and Cable Cars. Gondolas are supported and propelled from above by cables. Most people are familiar with this technology as used in alpine ski-resorts, however it is finding increased usage in non-alpine urban regions. Cable Cars on the other hand, are supported and propelled...
Simply speaking, Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) is a transit technology that moves people in motor-less, engine-less vehicles that are propelled by a steel cable. Proceed to Basic Lesson 2 to learn about Gondolas & Cable Cars
Sometimes people want to answer complex questions when most people looking for answers just want the basics. When I first began this work, there was one really basic question about Cable-Propelled Transit (CPT) that dogged me and no one could answer it. It was a question that also dogged the think tank that first sponsored...