Here's a less...harsh critique of gondolas by RMTransit. I was quickly skeptical of urban gondolas at first...I still am..but RMTransit made a good effort to present a balanced critique.
[Does Your City Need a Gondola? (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNr59pNkCHI&list=TLPQMTQwOTIwMjQPLOUYjtl49w&index=2&ab_channel=RMTransit) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNr59pNkCHI&list=TLPQMTQwOTIwMjQPLOUYjtl49w&index=2&ab\_channel=RMTransit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNr59pNkCHI&list=TLPQMTQwOTIwMjQPLOUYjtl49w&index=2&ab_channel=RMTransit)
We love streetcars (and light rail, subways and buses). But they all share limitations: having to stop at every stop. Having to wait for one, even with short headways, esp. during low service periods. And streetcars compete for ground-level land & resources, whether a dedicated lane or in mixed traffic.
And people don’t have to wait for gondolas, which will move slower, be more expensive, and move less people in a car?
If these suburbs won’t support basic mass transit, they won’t support exorbitant amusement park rides
We are less expensive than other transit modes, move up to 5 people the same as passenger cars (although average car occupancy is 1.5 people, plus a car sits idle 95% of the day), and we move faster than light rail, buses, or cars in the areas we serve because all trips are nonstop from origin-to-destination with no intermediate stops, unlike all ground-based traffic, which either has to stop at every transit stop and/or intersections.
Traffic, stopping at all the stops, lack of public interest to swap their car for using street cars...
There's a not insignificant attempt here to capture the attention and interest of motorists who don't already interface with an existing public transit solution.
Hi. We support mass transit. Buses, light rail and commuter rail are fantastic. Buses are great because lines, schedules and buses can be redeployed quickly as needed. However, even with the best headways, you still have to wait for buses, especially during low service periods. Light rail is amazing. But most passengers are drawn from only a 1/2 mile radius of a station, limiting reach & accessibility. We can feed significantly more passengers into existing transit cost-effectively, making transit work more effectively. Also, both buses & light rail have The Station Dilemma: place stations close together for accessibility, and trip times slow. Place stations further apart and trips are faster but stations are less accessible. We work with transit agencies & cities to address both problems, feed more people into transit and make transit work more effectively, a model that's been proven for urban gondolas in Portland, NYC, Mexico City, Medellin, La Paz, Quito, Santo Domingo and numerous other cities. We are not trying to replace existing transit (bus, light rail, commuter rail).
Cable cars have the same exact problem that rail has, which is a linear route with limited stops. Unless you happen to live and work within reasonable walking distance of the stops along its route it ends up taking longer and wasting more of your time than a car does. This is especially true if you normally combine stops on your daily route, say home to work to grocery to home, or home to doctor to work to home, etc. If you can figure out how to live a very linear life then a linear transportation mode would work well for you, assuming there aren't long waits between transit cars. If the amount of time you spend walking plus waiting in your daily commute equals an hour or more then at least a persona vehicle gives you route and schedule flexibility.
Conventional gondolas, yes. We make every trip nonstop from origin to destination with no intermediate stops. This significantly reduces total trip times. Board, select your destination, and the vehicle takes you there directly and bypasses all intermediate stops along the route. Also, vehicles can switch lines and connect to other routes. We wanted to solve the problem of linear routes with limited stops.
The DFW Regional Transportation Council's CERTT program is specifically intended to look at new emerging transportation technologies that can leapfrog existing technologies. Two prototypes have already been built and demonstrated the concept, fast build times, excellent user experience and low costs. The first global full-scale hardware pilot is scheduled to break ground shortly.
We are Swyft Cities, which implements the systems.
We support light rail and want to see more. But most passengers are drawn from only a 1/2 mile radius of a station, limiting reach & accessibility. We can feed significantly more passengers into existing light cost-effectively, making LRT work more effectively. Light rail is great, but has last-mile challenges unless you live or work right next to a station
We go even one better: twice the speed of the Disneyliner. And because all trips are nonstop with no intermediate stops, we take you directly to your destination. Imagine boarding at the Disney Resort and choosing whether you want to go the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT or Downtown Disney and it will take you there nonstop directly.
Mexicable in Mexico City is a great example. 13 stations across two lines. And if you wanted, it would have been to connect seamlessly to the subway, as every station integrated with either Mexico City's plentiful bus lines and/or subway.
Terrain is definitely not the problem we're addressing. Flat ground urban gondolas are becoming more popular in cities like Mexico City, Quito and Santo Domingo. Even though the traditional OG use case for gondolas is mountainous terrain like ski resorts, the same advantages of gondolas work on level ground too: minimal infrastructure, fast build times, and low build & operating costs, and feeding significantly more passengers into existing transit like light rail, bus rapid transit & commuter rail.
Hi. We support light rail and want to see more. But most passengers are drawn from only a 1/2 mile radius of a station, limiting reach & accessibility. We can feed significantly more passengers into existing light cost-effectively, making LRT work more effectively. Light rail is great, but has last-mile challenges unless you live or work right next to a station
Realistically, a gondola is a good transportation solution for distances within a few miles or so. Like connecting a DFW Airport Terminal to Centerpoint TRE station to Texas Live via gondola would legitimately be a pretty good investment for them. The ROW would be relatively cheap, the infrastructure would be relatively cheap, and the ride from the Airport to Texas Live would take about an hour.
Of course, it does get pretty windy here which would probably make a lot of people really seasick on the thing.
Flat ground urban gondolas are becoming more popular in cities like Mexico City, Quito and Santo Domingo. Even though the traditional OG use case for gondolas is mountainous terrain like ski resorts, the same advantages of gondolas exist on level ground too: minimal infrastructure, fast build times, and low build & operating costs.
Taking an hour to cover ten miles would be pretty bad. The TRE hits twelve stops and covers three times the distance in the same amount of time.
I do think the DFW-Centreport-Arlington travel corridor is an important one that needs some sort of service soon, but any service that can't cover that distance in half an hour or less would be a failure. It's gotta be more competitive with driving/taxiing to have an impact on traffic.
In our case, covering 10 miles would take only about 25 minutes regardless of how many stations along the route, because all trips are nonstop bypassing all intermediate stops.
Great example. Our sweet spot is 1-6 miles: trips too long to walk, and trips that 3/4 of people use cars for now. Our infrastructure is very minimal, especially at ground-level.
Framing this as a solution to traffic congestion is really a stretch. This reads more like a press release to support gifting tens of millions to an unproven gadget-system.
Just build mass transit. The efficiency of mass transit is ruined when you turn everything into individual "pods" that act like little personal cars. And in a system like this, with ground stops, you'd have to find the right of way for the specialty stops anyway.
If you want to knock down the commuter traffic, build commuter trains along the highways. Put them up on viaducts, make it look futuristic if that's needed. Sometimes I think city leaders will do anything except the known solution. Why are we trying to reinvent something, in a city that doesn't even do normal public transit particularly well?
Hi, we're not trying to be mass transit. But mass transit (LRT, BRT, commuter rail) needs help with last-mile connections. Urban mass transit draws most riders from only a 1/2 mile radius around a station. We can feed significantly more people into each station cost-effectively, making existing transit work more effectively.
Hi. We support mass transit. Buses, light rail and commuter rail are fantastic. Buses are great because lines, schedules and buses can be redeployed quickly as needed. However, even with the best headways, you still have to wait for buses, especially during low service periods. Light rail is amazing. But most passengers are drawn from only a 1/2 mile radius of a station, limiting reach & accessibility. We can feed significantly more passengers into existing transit cost-effectively, making transit work more effectively. Also, both buses & light rail have The Station Dilemma: place stations close together for accessibility, and trip times slow. Place stations further apart and trips are faster but stations are less accessible. We work with transit agencies & cities to address both problems, feed more people into transit and make transit work more effectively, a model that's been proven for urban gondolas in Portland, NYC, Mexico City, Medellin, La Paz, Quito, Santo Domingo and numerous other cities. We are not trying to replace existing transit (bus, light rail, commuter rail).
> If you want to knock down the commuter traffic, build commuter trains along the highways.
There's no better way to sell public transit to people than having a train zoom past them while they are sitting in bumper to bumper traffic. I used to live in Chicago and would love being on the blue line to O'Hare and seeing a sea of cars while the train zooms past at 50mph.
But I think it's a culture change. In Dallas and in most of the US, public transit is seen as something for poor people.
Tbh I go out of my way to bike past a shit load of cars when I see them jammed up in traffic for two reasons:
1. It's safer for me because they're all jammed up
2. Maybe some of them will get the idea that they could just buy a bike and that cars aren't the solution for every single trip
>Just build mass transit. The efficiency of mass transit is ruined when you turn everything into individual "pods" **that act like little personal cars**.
Some folks are desperate to maintain the antisocial nature of cars. They want to see and interact with their fellow neighbors as little as possible and that's pretty sad.
It's odd to me because people here are so nice but they really don't like interacting with other people. They'll get McDonalds delivered but pass three McD's on the way home from work.
Comparing it to where I moved from, New Orleans, it’s so weirdly antisocial here versus my expectations.
I knew pretty much everyone on my block to some extent or another. Very close to the couple in the other side of my shotgun house, some of the people who’ve been in the neighborhood for 50+ years.
Here I like vaguely know two of my neighbors. Only time I see people they’re walking. Everyone’s just in their fenced back yards. It makes me sad ): I made so many friends on the streetcar line.
They are as anyone who is in their path of construction can attest. The problem is expanding DART essentially ruins car transit in the areas of expansion because of the footprint it requires.
What do you propose people do? Everybody hates traffic, expanding car roads is also heavily disruptive to traffic, and adding more lanes never actually reduces congestion in the long term.
FTA:
Five North Texas cities — Dallas, Arlington, Plano, Frisco and DeSoto — are vying to become the first in the U.S. to pilot the novel transportation system known as Whoosh. The system consists of electric vehicles that resemble conventional aerial gondolas but use autonomous technology to move along an elevated network of fixed cables and rails. The concept comes from[ Swyft Cities](https://swyftcities.com/), a project that was born at Google but was spun out as an independent business aimed at innovating transit.
Fuck these stupid ass gadgetbahns made up by tech bros recycling old tech as "cutting edge" and distracting public officials from legitimate solutions. Hyperloop, straddling buses, driverless pods ... all bullshit. Not to mention anything described as "uber-like" should be a massive red flag to any sane person.
Dart's GoLink vans are on demand and uber-like. I think the fact that the articles put those two ideas together highlights the fact that they don't think people understand what on demand means.
Hell yeah! Would be awesome to be stuck 50 feet in the air inside a metal box without air conditioning the next time we have rolling blackouts during the summer. And bonus points if I'm lucky enough to get the one pod that hasn't been pissed in that day.
I mean, sure - it \*could\* be the next attempt. We said the same for autonomous vehicles and flying taxis; heck, even Zeppelins \*could\* be the next attempt.
None of the above \*will\* be the next attempt, but they all \*could\*.
I'd like to see it happen when the local governments are also trying to stop the light rail from expanding. Some fat oil cat is getting rich from all this traffic.
If only we could get some traffic control here up in Allen. I can ride my bike to do some grocery shopping but it's 2 miles away and crossing a 4-lane road (really a highway when you see how fast people drive) make me cautious. There's no way I would let my kids do it.
Roundabouts (to slow everyone down) in place of stoplights, and some pedestrian crossings are sorely needed.
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