A quick look at some of the things that happened this week in the world of urban gondolas, cable cars and cable propelled transit: As part of their undergraduate studies, two students from ZHAW (Zurich University of Applied Sciences) have proposed an urban cable car for Zurich. The system appears to connect commuters from a...
As we’ve learned from the BUGA festivals in Germany (here and here), there are few things German-speakers love more than to look at flowers while riding cable cars. Why? Why not? Who am I to judge? And apparently this trend is not new: In the mid-part of the 20th century, Zürich hosted a horicultural fair and...
This is a guest post by Ross Edgar. The Swiss city of Zurich has a long heritage with the operation of funicular cable systems. At one time there were three funiculars within the city limits until the Dolderbahn was converted into a rack railway in 1973. Today, two funiculars remain in Zurich: the Polybahn in...
I recently read an article in Canada’s Globe and Mail that made me smile. The article, entitled Air-rail link to boost travel – and ‘wow’ factor, discusses how my hometown of Toronto “has been waiting for decades for a direct link between the airport and downtown” and how “at last . . . it’s finally taking...
Recently I was in Zurich, Switzerland and stumbled across this: What you’re looking at is Im Viadukt, a new commercial and shopping district built into the stone mason arches of Zurich’s Wipkingen Viadukt. Originally the Viaduct dates from 1894 and was used to ferry passenger trains into the core of Zurich. Like most elevated infrastructure, the...