Can Gondolas Fix Urban Transportation Woes?

Can Gondolas Fix Urban Transportation Woes?

Most well known for their prevalence in alpine regions, urban gondolas — so-called ski lifts on the slopes — could be part of the next wave of technology that helps alleviate urban traffic.

Urban gondolas, says Gondola Project’s Steven Dale, are one of the fastest growing transportation methods in the world, though they’ve been widely used in industrial work — including mining and milling — since the 19th century.

So, what’s new or innovative about cable-drawn, electricity-powered gondolas in the sky? Most of the appeal comes in the technology’s low-cost deployment, environmental friendliness and ability to utilize air space rather than much-needed ground space.

This trend looks promising — cities like New York City, London, and Hong Kong all have urban gondolas of their own for transporting passengers across rivers, up mountains and through areas where mass transit options are lacking. Dale says, however, that the majority of the uptake of the technology has been within developing nations — a trend that could be explained by the technology's relatively low cost and quick installation times.

Cost and Time Savings

One of the most-cited arguments for urban gondola adoption is the huge cost savings it can afford. Michael McDaniel, designer at innovation firm Frog Design, says costs for installation range from $3 million to $12 million per mile, depending on a city’s current infrastructure. Those costs compare to about $400 million per mile to construct subterranean subways and about $36 million per mile to construct light rails systems.

"Cable-propelled transit systems are an almost ideal circulator, feeder and solver of last-mile problems," Dale says. "The technology can be implemented quickly with relatively little disruption to the urban fabric — and at a competitive cost to other transportation technologies. Cable-propelled transit's safety and environmental record, meanwhile, is unmatched by any other fixed link transit technology."

McDaniel also pointed out another fun win with urban gondolas in an interview with Wired: Not having to succumb to set schedules. "[Gondolas] essentially slow down to walking speed enough for you to get on or off of them," he told reporter Kevin Berry.

"You wouldn’t have a train schedule — they just come in intervals

"You wouldn’t have a train schedule — they just come in intervals. If you don’t like the creepy guy in one car, you just wait 30 seconds for the next one."

Cities Lighting the Way

Turning again to the Gondola Project, which tracks urban gondolas in the making, I asked Dale which urban gondola projects were of most significance to the future of the technology. He says that significance is tough to measure, but pointed to a few key projects of importance.

"The city of Medellin, Colombia, is significant because of its three existing systems and two others under construction. The city of La Paz, Bolivia is significant as they're currently in the process of building the world's largest network of urban gondola systems. The city of Lagos, Nigeria, meanwhile, is significant for the number of people their system is expected to handle — quite literally hundreds of thousands of riders per day."

Not a Comprehensive Solution

"In our work, we're always careful to remind people that we're not saying urban gondolas and cable cars are the best," says Dale. "They're simply one tool in a transit planner's toolbox. We believe that transit technologies should be complementary, not competitive. When implemented and designed properly, urban gondolas are remarkably successful — but only if they're designed and implemented properly."

London's Emirates Air Line, the gondola built for the 2012 Summer Olympics, may be the poster child for urban gondola projects gone wrong, The Atlantic's Henry Grabar wrote in April. "Though the cable car registered over 1.5 million trips between June and November, exceeding expectations, it proved virtually incapable of attracting commuters: In the two months after the Games ended in September, only one in ten thousand journeys was a discounted commuter fare," he wrote. Dale, weighing in as a source for Grabar's article, too, pointed to poor planning on part of the government, noting that the system was clearly not built with commuters in mind.

Have you ridden in a gondola or other cable-propelled transit system, such as a tram? What are your thoughts on its viability for commuter transportation in urban areas? Let us know in the comments below.