Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Friday, December 27, 2024

Lifts, tramways, and gondolas, oh my!

Flickr photo by Steven Wilson of the not in use gondola in Moab, Utah.

While looking up what was the deal in Moab, where there is an abandoned gondola--it's more than 20 years old and never opened--I came across the Lift Blog.

Two other resources are the Gondola Project and the Gondola Society of America.

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Originally, I was "against" gondolas, mostly because they were proposed more for scenic tourism (e.g., a proposal in Baltimore many years ago ("Baltimore gondola transit "plan" a waste of time?," 2007 blog entry, "Harborplace plans (maybe) include aerial cable cars," Baltimore Banner, 2023) than for "real" transportation reasons.  

But learning about active gondola transportation systems in La Paz, Bolivia, Medellin, Colombia, Mexico City and other places has made me realize that gondolas have a place in the urban transportation system, especially in topographically challenged areas, be it in South America or Portland's Aerial Tram.

Mexico City

Rendering, Georgetown, DC to Rosslyn, Virginia

A new $57-million aerial tram carries riders to and from a hilltop at Oregon Health & Science University, affording them wraparound views of the Willamette River, downtown skyscrapers and, on clear days, the snowy tops of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood. The tram ascends from the South Waterfront area, a formerly idle industrial zone that is Portland's next new neighborhood, and the streetcar line is scheduled to reach farther into it in July. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Rendering of a gondola to Dodgers Stadium.  To me, the major reservation is that its rider capacity would be much less than the potential demand.

There are proposals to do gondolas in the US, among the ones that seem to have backing are Georgetown, DC, Los Angeles to connect Union Station to Dodger Stadium ("Lawsuits, political backlash: Dodger Stadium gondola faces more roadblocks," "Let the Dodger gondola take flight. L.A. needs more transit option," Los Angeles Times), and Staten Island to New Jersey to better connect to the NJTransit system ("Why not a gondola?," Staten Island Advance).  

A billboard protests the proposed Dodger Stadium gondola project along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles . (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Of course, all have various levels of opposition, mostly virulent.

WRT Georgetown, I prefer a separated Silver Line subway which would also connect Rosslyn's Metro Station to Georgetown, but given the increasingly less likelihood this will come to fruition because of how DC's commercial property sector has been wrecked by covid's shift to Work From Home, a gondola might be reasonable. 

Gondolas have been very controversial in Utah because of the proposal to build one with public monies in Little Cottonwood Canyon, which would serve the Alta and Snowbird ski resorts, as a sustainable mobility measure ("It’s official — UDOT chooses the gondola for Little Cottonwood Canyon," Salt Lake Deseret News).  Despite the fact that many of the ski resorts in Utah and the Intermountain region have gondolas. 

The anti-reaction stems from scenic issues--although I think gondolas in the Alps prove it's less of an issue than people argue--and the belief that it is a giveaway to the private sector, rather than as a way to deal with serious traffic congestion generally and the fact that avalanches usually close the road a few times per year.

OTOH, the gondola would only operate in the canyon, and UDOT didn't provide much discussion in the way of getting people to and from the gondola by transit, as opposed to driving.  Plus, arguably, the canyon has more visitation in the summer than in the winter, and the proposal is to run the gondola only in the winter.

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