

With Subway in the Sky, Valley Meets Plateau - yetanotherone
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/world/americas/with-subway-in-the-sky-valley-meets-plateau.html

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nanidin
I saw an interesting TEDx presentation by Jared Ficklin pertaining to gondola
systems as mass transit in a cit and how to get the American public to buy
into it[0].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoQmgSOB9n0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoQmgSOB9n0)

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chiph
This proposal was for a way to solve Austin's traffic problems. Given the
geography around here (hills, lakes, NIMBYs), I think it's a plausible
solution. But it looks like the city council is going to put streetcars (urban
rail) on the ballot at a starting cost of $600 million.

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nanidin
He gave the presentation in Kansas City during a big push for streetcars. The
streetcars are happening, and as far as I know the people in charge didn't
give any attention to the gondola solution. I live outside of the city proper,
so I haven't been following it too closely, but I do know that the streetcar
is very expensive and that votes for expansion have already failed.

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brianbreslin
How does the cost of this compare to elevated rail? Here in Miami we have a
very very limited 2 line elevated rail [0] that the estimates to expand it run
in the tens of billions of $. The idea of building retail into the parking
garage structure/stations is intriguing as it could get private developers to
underwrite the costs.

My other question would be (since I'm thinking Miami here), how would these
cable systems fare against hurricanes? I assume the cars would just be docked
in a safe building (parking garage structure).

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrorail_(Miami)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrorail_\(Miami\))

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jpatokal
Elevated rail, even monorail, is considerably more expensive, but also
provides far higher capacity. You can also increase capacity on a train line
relatively easily with shorter intervals and longer trains, while a gondola's
carrying capacity is essentially fixed.

Rough comparison between three recent 3rd-world systems:

\- La Paz gondola: 3000 passengers per hour per direction (pphpd), ~$10m/km

\- Mumbai Monorail: 10,000 pphpd, ~$20m/km

\- BTS Skytrain, Bangkok: >30,000 pphpd, >$100m/km (on recent extensions)

Gondolas make sense in hilly locales where hurricanes are not a threat (like
La Paz), they'd be a non-starter for both reasons in Miami.

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gaplus
I'm pretty sure a gondola can hold its own in a hurricane (as long as it isn't
running). Most urban systems use the same technology as alpine systems, which
have to withstand harsh blizzards.

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wallzz
Similar Aerial tramway are deployed in Algeria , where they are used as a
transport cars and not as a tourist cars, the system is quite useful, each
year it transport more than a million passenger.
[http://gondolaproject.com/category/installations/algerian-
go...](http://gondolaproject.com/category/installations/algerian-gondolas/)
[http://www.strmtg.developpement-
durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/cabl...](http://www.strmtg.developpement-
durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/cableways_MEDDLT_december2011.pdf)

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pash
Check out Nick Chu's blog, the Gondola Project [0], where he's been
documenting urban gondolas around the world for years.

Like La Paz, mountainous Medellin, Colombia has been building a system of
gondolas [1], the first line of which opened in 2004. There's a $500 million
system under construction in Lagos, Nigeria. And there are many smaller
projects getting started elsewhere, including possibly in Hamburg, Germany,
where voters will decide this week whether to fund a cable car over the Elbe.

0\. [http://gondolaproject.com](http://gondolaproject.com)

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metrocable_%28Med...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metrocable_%28Medell%C3%ADn%29)

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crdoconnor
Caracas and Rio, too.

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rtpg
This is pretty fascinating (though my fear of heights would not make me a
happy rider of these).

But the title really really bugs me. Subway in the sky? Do we call tramways
subways on the ground?

