As we declared last week, this week is going to be dedicated to unravelling some of the mystery surrounding Algeria’s rapidly expanding Urban Gondola plans. Algerian cities have many topographical challenges and it appears that the government has renewed it’s interest in ropeway technology as a means to combat those challenges. The challenge for us,...
A quick look at some of the things that makes air pollution in your city tolerable (or not): Percentage Americans living in cities with breathing air that’s dangerous to their health: 50 Number of top 10 most polluted cities in US located in California: 8 Most polluted American city: Bakersfield Number of premature deaths due...
A few highlights from around the world of Urban Gondolas, Gondola Transit, and Cable Propelled Transit: Inhabitat is reporting that a group called Green Gondola Campaign plans to reduce the Telluride Gondola’s electricity usage by 20% through the installation of a series of solar panels throughout the surrounding mountains. Could the cable industry be taking...
The Algerian Gondolas have been something of a black box to The Gondola Project. We know they exist. We’ve seen pictures of them and we keep hearing more are planned. Beyond that, we know virtually nothing about them and still can’t seem to find a reliable way to gather intelligence and research on them. Then...
Here’s a question: Why is it that the stations for bottom-supported cable car systems are almost never staffed with attendants whereas aerial systems always are? This is something that just occurred to me the other day and I have no answer for it. Thoughts?
Last week a German paraglider crashed into the cables of a Bavarian gondola. The incident trapped 20 people in the gondola for 17 hours overnight. There were no injuries or fatalities and all parties were rescued via helicopter. Does this mean gondolas are unsafe? No. It means accidents happen. For example: During the Christmas season...
Remember: Light Rail Transit (LRT) isn’t always Light Rail Transit. And that goes for all forms of public transportation. Anyone recall our CPT / ART debate? While we may like to pretend we work and live in a scientific field, the world of city-building and transit is anything but scientific.After all, there’s no official taxonomy...
Tomorrow we return to “normal” operations here at The Gondola Project. Having just returned from a month-long sabbatical from the site I’m hoping to be refreshed, renewed and reinvigorated. Thanks so much to Julia, Nick and Ryan for keeping the site going while I was away and thanks to all the readers who stuck with...
In terms of financial viability, public transportation in North America is a perpetual loser. However, rumours have it that some transit agencies abroad break even or even make a profit. So let us take a closer look into one of these transit agencies – Hong Kong’s MTR (Mass Transit Railway) – and see if its...