With Link running mostly north to south, what’s the best way to serve neighborhoods to the west and east of the line? The highways (I-5, SR-99…) run north/south, too, and Seattle’s hills get in the way. Gondola technology might be a good way to address this issue. Gondolas’ ultra-high frequency speeds up transfers, and grade separation provides reliability. East-west trips are usually short, so a gondola’s limited speed isn’t an issue. While South Lake Union (SLU) and Capitol Hill have been booming and growing significantly, bus route 8 has been struggling to make its way up the hill, and gets into severe traffic congestion along Denny Way causing long delays. A decade ago, Matt Gangemi and Matt Roewe, an engineer and architect respectively, proposed a gondola line connecting the Sculpture Park, Seattle Center, SLU, and Capitol Hill along John Street. Connecting the recently-renovated waterfront and Seattle Center’s cultural opportunities with the SLU tech centers and housing and Capitol Hill nightlife should be part of the mayor’s and Chamber’s plan to revitalize downtown Seattle and make it more attractive to tourism.
Recently Ross and I discussed various alignments. It would be nice to serve the center of Seattle Center directly akin it did during the Seattle World Fair in 1962. Running along Thomas or Harrison Street might be better than John Street. You could also extend the line beyond Broadway to serve Kaiser Permanente hospital and the business district at 15th Ave E.
One way to build such a gondola line would be to add another lid over the waterfront railroad for a waterfront station. From there it could continue to Denny Way along Eagle Street, and then along 2nd Ave N into the Seattle Center with a station between Climate Pledge Arena and the International Fountain. This would be close enough to serve both the Arena and other event spaces further north. From there the line could go east along Harrison Street with potential stations at Dexter, Fairview and Broadway before reaching its end at 15th Ave E:
If you don’t want to cross the Sculpture Park, you could go along Broad Street and 3rd Ave N passing by the Chihuly Garden. Not quite as central for the Seattle Center, the station would be closer to the Monorail terminal:
If you would rather serve the Bell St Conference Center / Cruise Terminal, Belltown and Amazon offices instead of the Seattle Center, you could start at the Cruise Terminal and continue with a few stations along Bell St (Link stations in red) and continue along Olive Way:
All of these lines follow existing right-of-way. Stations could be built above intersections or may need some extra land. In 2015 Matt Roewe (Via Architecture) worked on a preliminary design for a gondola between the ferries wheel and the Convention Center along Union St. Even though that short line was never built, his design shows how a gondola could be integrated into an existing downtown street:
Station design may look similar to what San Diego had considered a few years ago, or you could borrow designs from gondola lines in Mexico City, Haifa or Paris (under construction).
Like how RapidRide G transformed mobility along Madison Street, any such gondola line could make the Denny corridor far more attractive. Connecting the waterfront, SLU, and Capitol Hill more reliably and frequently with a gondola would be a major improvement to people’s transit mobility for both neighborhood trips and as a feeder to Link.
PS: For my prior gondola posts, check out: Bellevue College and Issaquah.
I think the idea has huge challenges left unaddressed.
Stations:
If this gondola is to replace a local bus, it should have local stop spacing. Otherwise, if passengers must walk significant distance to reach the station, why wouldn’t they just take Link, which already serves Capitol hill and will serve SLU and LQA by the time this gondola could realistically be built? But gondola stations will be extremely costly. Not quite Link station expensive, but the magnitude of cost will be closer to that than to a bus shelter. The stations will need to be staffed, have multiple* elevators for street access, property acquisition, and have their own specialized maintenance. So you either have few stations with marginal utility compared to link and bus 8, or you have a system which costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
Routing:
It has to connect with Link and the central Capitol hill bus routes (8, 11, 43) to function as part of the network, right? That means John street or Denny way. But neither of these streets are straight lines, rather they are crooked. John street is further south on the lower slope of Capitol hill than it is elsewhere. Some buildings will have to be demolished. Denny way only has one significant kink in its path (at Boylston) but luckily that is angled in a way more amenable to gondola wire turns. Oh yeah, and both of those routes can’t go farther than 15th Ave E without demolishing a major hospital building at Kaiser.
Financing:
This project will likely cost between $200 million and $2 billion by my very rough estimate. King county metro simply doesn’t have that kind of money laying around; if they did they wouldn’t be cancelling and delaying rapidride bus projects. Sound Transit doesn’t have anything like this in their voter-approved projects list. Which means that whoever builds this will need new legislation with a major new funding source. Everyone is strapped for cash right now, exacerbated by the incoming federal funding debacle. Which means that no politician would be able to pass an expensive measure for a wild new transportation solution for an area that will be getting light rail anyway. This would be politically/financially infeasible for the next 4 years minimum. Optimistically if everything changes by 2029 and a measure can be passed, with a highly optimistic 3 years of Seattle Process planning, 3 years of design, and 3 years construction, we could maybe see this complete by 2038 if we’re very lucky. 2040’s would be my guess. And even getting legislation off the ground** is unlikely.
* Multiple elevators: stations would need multiple elevators/escalators, otherwise when one breaks down or needs maintenance the whole station becomes useless.
** Pun intended.
If this gondola is to replace a local bus
No one said this would replace a bus. If anything it is designed to complement a bus. The 8 runs on Denny. This would run three blocks north of it. This means that riders avoiding having to walk those extra few blocks both ways. For example here is a trip from Republican & Fairview to Republican & Broadway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/2gMQKQL4BaBPipVq9. The trip started at 9:00 AM and took 26 minutes. Much of the time was spent walking or waiting. With a gondola that trip would take about four minutes walking, less than a minute waiting and a couple minutes actually riding the gondola. That is a time savings over roughly fifteen to twenty minutes.
Otherwise, if passengers must walk significant distance to reach the station, why wouldn’t they just take Link, which already serves Capitol hill and will serve SLU and LQA by the time this gondola could realistically be built?
Because it would take a lot longer. Using Link for a lot of trips would require a lot more walking and a lot more waiting. Link will not serve South Lake Union very well. We don’t know exactly where the stations will be but one will be at roughly Denny & Westlake and the other will be at either Harrison & Aurora or Mercer & Aurora. They are still a fairly long walk from various places in South Lake Union (and the gondola stations). From Fairview & Harrison it would be about a ten minute walk to the Denny Station (https://maps.app.goo.gl/VytmWApXEtrFXf79A) or a ten minute walk to the closer of the two Aurora stations (https://maps.app.goo.gl/TJh3JZFzBxNLkkaW9). This means a gondola station helps cover a lot more of South Lake Union.
Now consider someone who is half-way between a Link Station and a gondola station. It would be a five minute walk either way. If they are headed to Capitol Hill the gondola would be much faster (because there is a lot less waiting). So the gondola doesn’t have to have an advantage in terms of proximity to be better for some trips.
But more to the point, it often does. Link does not cover all of South Lake Union. It does not cover anywhere in the Cascade neighborhood. This would cover a lot of places that Link leaves out.
It has to connect with Link and the central Capitol hill bus routes (8, 11, 43) to function as part of the network, right?
No. It can be a couple blocks away and still connect quite well. Imagine for a second that they somehow managed to build the gondola on John. Assume that I am trying to get from Northgate to Fairview & Republican. I take Link to Capitol Hill and then take the gondola. Now I walk three blocks north from the gondola (on Fairview) and I’m there. Great. Now imagine the gondola runs on Harrison (as shown). I take the train and walk three blocks to the gondola. Once I get off the gondola I’m there. Either way I walk three blocks.
Now compare it to the Metro 8. Again the 8 connects really well with Link. But because the street (and the bus) curve south a block I would have to walk an extra block after I get off the bus.
That is really the key to this this — where it adds value. The only east-west transit corridor — for the foreseeable future — is Denny/John. To get from anywhere north of Denny (in South Lake Union) you need to walk north. You might as well walk north on Broadway instead of walking north on a street like Fairview. Not only that, but because of the curve of the street you often save a block of walking in the process. Think of them as complementary routes — the Metro 8 serves John/Denny, while the gondola would serve Harrison. Not all of Harrison, but enough to justify its construction and operation.
In terms of the overall network it is worth noting that it would run on Fairview (where the 70 currently runs). This means a trip from Eastlake to Capitol Hill would be dramatically faster (mainly because the wait for a gondola is so short).
This project will likely cost between $200 million and $2 billion by my very rough estimate.
Probably much closer to $200 million. Gondolas just aren’t that expensive. It wouldn’t have to be all or nothing, either. The east-west gondola is a lot more useful in my opinion. The other gondola would offer some general functionality but be more geared towards tourists. It would be similar to the streetcar (in both price and function). Sure, some locals might find it handy, but it wouldn’t be an essential part of our transit network. In contrast the east-west part would be very useful right off that bat — saving a huge amount of time for many riders.
You are right, the county wouldn’t pay for this. Nor is it likely the city will pay for this either (even if they give up on the CCC streetcar). ST would be the one paying for this and that does seem unlikely unless ST3 just collapses. But that is a possibility and if that happens a lot of ideas that had a lot of merit (such as a Metro 8 subway) would resurface. This would provide some of the functionality of such a subway while being a lot cheaper.
You say that this is designed to complement route 8. A parallel route, a few blocks away, kind of like the parallel between 48 and 8 through central district that you want to get rid of to save money? Why not just run a bus on the Lakeview Blvd bridge over I-5? It could serve SLU and northern Capitol Hill and save a boatload of money compared to the gondola.
Isn’t one of the issues with the proposed reroute of the 8 to Harrison that the densest neighborhoods, which are south of Denny (Belltown, the Denny Triangle), would suddenly be 4 or 5 blocks from east-west transit, losing good service? Isn’t one of the advantages of a gondola that it can go above a street without really impacting the ROW?
It might make more sense to replace the worst parts of the 8 with a gondola on Denny (or John if that’s really not possible) and follow the plan to reroute the 8 to Harrison, where there isn’t much congestion. That way, service on Denny is preserved and improved, while the 8 gets sped up, and more areas of SLU have frequent transit.
Why not just run a bus on the Lakeview Blvd bridge over I-5
It wouldn’t be as fast or as frequent. For a gondola to succeed it has to have plenty of demand and offer an advantage over other options. Gondolas avoid detours as well as traffic lights and congestion. They also have very good headways (measured in seconds not minutes). It’s main disadvantage is speed (which is why it usually doesn’t make sense for longer trips). It costs money to build but not that much to operate. The cost is essentially shifted from how often it operates (multiplied by the time it takes to do a run) to the cost of operating each station. This makes it different than a bus or train (where running more frequently costs more). It is generally only appropriate for short, urban routes (like this one). There are very few places where any form of transportation would get a lot of riders for relatively short trips — this is one of them.
But we shouldn’t ignore the fact that this avoids a detour. As I write this — at noon on a weekday — it is a seven minute drive between the first two stations (Broadway & Harrison to Fairview & Harrison). Thus this would be faster than driving — at noon — even if you ignore parking. It would be much faster than a bus that looped around.
It is worth noting that the trip I outlined has an obvious alternative: walking. As the crow flies it is only a kilometer between those stops. Normally this would take ten to fifteen minutes. But walking — just like driving or biking — requires a detour. It is roughly a half hour walk (https://maps.app.goo.gl/dedQfV4Bj4XK1Jyo6). It is this detour that (in part) adds value. If the freeway didn’t exist and the streets just went straight across we wouldn’t be having this conversation. There would be a bus running on Mercer from 23rd to Queen Anne Avenue (if not Elliot). People would just walk along Harrison from South Lake Union to Capitol Hill.
Isn’t one of the issues with the proposed reroute of the 8 to Harrison that the densest neighborhoods, which are south of Denny (Belltown, the Denny Triangle), would suddenly be 4 or 5 blocks from east-west transit, losing good service?
Yes. A bus on Harrison can not keep going west. It runs into the Seattle Center and must turn either north or south. Thus it either backtracks to Denny (making it really slow) or it doglegs to the Seattle Center (using Mercer or Roy). The latter is fine but it leaves the hole you mentioned. You really need to serve both corridors. Serving both with buses coming from Capitol Hill would be problematic. There would be a service disconnect. It would be difficult to justify twice the service west of Fairview. It makes a lot more sense to have one of the buses go on Boren. It also makes sense to leave the 8 alone and have the Boren bus go on Harrison for a couple reasons. First you minimize turns. Second, both buses would be fairly linear. This would definitely reduce the value of a gondola as riders could take the 8 and transfer to the Boren bus. But that is still a transfer and even if the buses are running frequently (every ten minutes) it is still time consuming for such a short trip.
Thus this would still be quite useful even if the buses served the same area. In that sense it is not that different than light rail. Think about a Metro 8 subway for a second. If we built it we would still have a version of the 8. It would just be slower and probably less frequent than the train while serving a slightly different corridor. A gondola is basically just a scaled down Metro 8 subway. It is slower, but in a lot of cases that doesn’t really matter (the distance is short enough). Meanwhile, it would be a lot more frequent. Mostly though it would be much, much cheaper to build.
In principle, you can run both a gondola and a bus. If you’re going between Capital Hill and the Seattle Center or the waterfront, you’d take the gondola. If your destination is somewhere along Denny Way, you’d take the 8. If traffic is snarled on Denny, e.g. with an event at the Climate Pledge, you might walk a bit further to catch the gondola instead of dealing with the 8. It seems like this would also serve as a rapid, direct connection between the Seattle Center and the waterfront and cruise terminal–something that really should exist. Not just for the tourists either–thousands of people work in and around those cruise ports and the waterfront. So I like the idea, though getting it funded might be a challenge. Still, if it was a single issue vote, it might pass in Seattle, but likely not county-wide, so it would seem to be a SDOT project rather than a Metro project.
To get from SLU or Seattle Center to Capitol Hill on Link will require some 10 floors of escalators to get between lines at Westlake. This will make Link quite time consuming for many trips inside Seattle.
It’s a good point. Many people — including many of our leaders — ignore or refuse to recognize that transit in Seattle is a three dimensional challenge. DSTT2 is particularly deep.
One has to look at the low ridership at the Chinatown Station ridership in San Francisco to understand that depth does matter.
And add to the issue, ST lacks redundancy so if one escalator goes down the alternative (stairs or a long elevator wait) is not convenient.
I totally agree. If anything a long term rapid transit solution that can carry a lot more riders and can better serve a growing city in 20 years (like a subway) until the flying cars arrive.
This gondola would’ve saved me a boatload of time on something like my last public transit to Seattle. I attended a film festival at SIFF Downtown, on the weekend when the downtown Link tunnel was closed, and ST used shuttle buses to connect the Capitol Hill and Westlake stations. The constant stop-and-starts from traffic and intermediate stops on the bus probably tripled the time Link takes in that journey, and reminded me of why I much prefer trains/metros/light rail instead of buses when given the chance. A gondola from Capitol Hill that had a stop near SIFF Downtown would’ve saved me time and confusion.
There is an infinite better set of uses than a gondola for that kind of money. From basic sidewalks, to bike lanes, to more brt lines. A gondola is nothing more than a tourist pet project in Seattle which the private sector should pay for if it wants.
Our southern neighbors have 100,000 daily riders on theirs (Mexico City), practically none are tourists. Riding the 8 between SLU and CapHill can be challenging due to its unreliable schedule due to traffic. How else do you suggest addressing this issue?
[Thread-hijacking spam.]
[Thread-hijacking spam.]
[Thread-hijacking spam.]
Delta, I assume you are a woman. And also new to thus forum. My apologies if this is not true. I’m afraid you will find this forum to be very male dominated and security concerns to be trivialized. So you will get these sort of “everyone knows” responses. I hope that this doesn’t discourage you from sharing your concerns.
Delta,
urban gondolas usually have an intercom/speaker system, some even video to call for help. The travel time from one station to another is quite short, therefore you could just switch to the next cabin if you don’t feel safe.
While cities like Medellin, La Paz, and Mexico City are not known to be extra safe, their gondola networks have a reputation as a safe transit system used by locals of all genders and abilities.
There are no women in Mexico, Central America, or Portland? Only men ride the gondolas there?
Mike, every place is different. For example, on India’s commuter rail, they had to designate one car of each train specifically for women, because of the high prevalence of sexual assault and gang rape. I’ve never been to Mexico City, but here on the west coast USA, we have simultaneous crises of fentanyl, untreated mental health issues, and homelessness. Notice how the back of the bus is 90% men outside of peak commute hours, because the front of the bus is safer by proximity to the driver? Notice how the elevators at Westlake station reek of urine, because it’s one of the few places downtown where someone can be alone to relieve themselves, and this would be true of gondola cars too. On Portland’s aerial tram, there’s an operator in the car with you, and sufficient ridership per car that there’s always other passengers which adds safety. If I was looking to mug somebody to get my next fix (or worse), this gondola would be perfect, because you can selectively board right behind someone riding alone, and be guaranteed a few minutes alone with them.
Maybe this isn’t a dealbreaker for the gondola idea, but it is certainly a major drawback for many potential riders.
For each gondola boarding point, I’d advocate for two people to handle car sorting, at least one customer service person, and at least one security person. As for the faregates, by all means install them. Why Link doesn’t have them at the busy stations I’ll never know (but that’s a discussion for another post).
Why all the gondola talk? Why not invest in the transportation system we have than add another on top. Ballard and west Seattle have been waiting over 20 years for their monorail/light rail that was passed, maybe take a look at connecting the street cars and replacing more rapid routes with trolleys, light rail, or another monorail. If you want to add something add something that makes sense with the current plan. Look at the Salmon bay railway that’s being talked about in Ballard connecting the BLE to golden gardens via the Ballard terminal railroad tracks. That’s practical and is using existing infrastructure rather than cluttering our already crowded roads. I think we need to focus on connecting more of Seattle than trying to save folk from a transfer since the areas are already connected… the street car (slu) or monorail (city center) to the link (cap hill)
I don’t get it either tbh. Even Sound Transit spent time and money studying the idea for West Seattle during the West Seattle design process when some people suggested it and they said the idea wouldn’t pencil out as an alternative for a variety of reasons, including both cost and ridership. Alongside the fact that it would legally require another vote to spend the funds on a gondola instead of a rail project as is stated in the feasibility study by Sound Transit.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/sound-transit-feasability-report-regarding-aerial-gondola-from-west-seattle-20220407.pdf
The West Seattle gondola concept is a much further distance than this one is. The corridors are not comparable.
Gondolas are much slower than rail or buses. The kind proposed here with cars that disengage and engage spinning cables must operate even slower than single ones with vehicles affixed to a cable like Portland or Roosevelt Island (or an elevator). That pretty much restricts their utility to very short distances (say under 1.5 to 2 miles).
The fastest such gondola in the USA is at the Steamboat ski resort, and moves at 15.5 mph.
That may sound slow, but it’s a bit faster than typical city traffic when you factor in stopping at intersections, and is slightly faster than the 15 mph speed limit of Link in the tunnel.
Glenn, link goes 35-55 in the tunnel except for the westlake turn. Not sure where you are getting the 15 mph number from.
DM, urban buses go about 10-15mph on average.
Link isn’t really an alternative as the route is too steep, wouldn’t be able to handle the stop spacing, and would be 10times as expensive. It would also take longer to get down to and up from subway level than the travel time.
There are really two issues with a West Seattle gondola. One is speed. It is far enough to make a difference. The other is capacity. Ridership to and from West Seattle tends to be very peak-oriented. With a connection to Link at SoDo there would be big surges in ridership. (West Seattle is a textbook case where an open BRT system makes sense. They already have a lot of the busway built and the travel pattern matches it.)
A gondola here doesn’t have any of those problems. The distance is short which means that speed is not an issue. For the trips that the gondola would cover it would outperform a typical Link rail line. Link runs every ten minutes midday — this will run every few seconds. So most of the time it would be quicker to use a gondola rather than Link (for this corridor).
Capacity surges are also not a big issue. There is very strong all-day demand and not particularly high peak demand. This is the opposite of West Seattle. The mode is appropriate for this corridor while it is not for West Seattle. The only reason a West Seattle gondola got any traction at all is because ST has pursued an even more inappropriate choice for the peninsula (Link).
“ There are really two issues with a West Seattle gondola. One is speed. It is far enough to make a difference. The other is capacity.”
I do not think enough people in Seattle like to apply objectivity in supporting or trashing different kinds of transit modes. There seems to be a lot of value given to emotional preferences.
It reminds me of how I see agencies take input without telling the public the outcomes in a quantitative way. They ask opinions like should the station go at one corner or go instead across the street without explaining tradeoffs like cost or walk time or number of stairs, for example.
You’re just too rational, Ross! lol
*****
The biggest issue I see with this gondola is that it’s redundant to local bus service without being triggered by another reason like excessive overcrowding or faster or better access. The right geography (elevation over a short distance) is there, but does it address some other transit problem? Would Metro consider it additive or would it instead replace an existing bus route? What would the ultimate travel time advantage be after taking into account that gondola stations likely won’t be at street level — and is that advantage for a trip that has a high volume?
These are the kinds of rational questions that need to be asked if the idea is going to have merit.
Good points, Al, one of the challenges with the 8 is that it gets stuck in traffic, the other is that it is overcrowded between SLU and CapHill and then continues south with far less ridership. If most of the ridership between SLU and CapHill would be carried by the gondola, then the 8 could just provide local coverage service along the whole route, probably at slightly lower frequency. The gondola may even reduce ridership on the highest ridership segment between CHS and Westlake as some people currently rather walk (or take bus/tram) to Westlake and take Link up the hill to CapHill. Yes, a proper ridership study should be done before committing to spend such money. My goal was just to initiate a conversation about how to address the specific limitations of the Seattle’s transit system with an alternative mode.
The biggest issue I see with this gondola is that it’s redundant to local bus service without being triggered by another reason like excessive overcrowding or faster or better access.
It would be faster if by “faster” you mean it takes less time. Even with the “platform penalty” (the time it takes to get from street level to the gondola platform) it would take a lot less time because the gondola would be a lot more frequent *and* the trip would be fairly quick. For the particular trips that this would offer it would not only take less time than riding a bus but it would be faster than driving. Partly this is due to avoiding traffic and traffic lights but it also has to do with avoiding the giant detour that is I-5. At noon on a weekday it takes somewhere between 6-9 minutes to drive between Harrison & Fairview to Harrison & Broadway (https://maps.app.goo.gl/3nis9fqgz7d9YPBe7). Travel time on the gondola would be about 3 minutes. Thus it isn’t *just* the traffic on Denny. It is also the geography.
Because of the geographic advantages — for certain trips — it would still be valuable even if they fixed the 8 (and ran it a lot more often). The only question is whether there are enough riders to justify the expense. Would enough people take this trip?
Hard to say. But it likely compares well to the vast majority of projects within ST3. Never mind the rail projects (most of which are dubious) — consider some of the BRT projects. Stride 3 will cost over half a billion dollars and right now there are about 1,200 riders (round trip) taking the 522 north of Lake City. In contrast there are about 6,000 riders (round trip) who ride the 8 along this corridor. Now obviously many of the riders of the 8 would not ride the gondola (and vice-versa). But it gives you a rough idea of the overall demand in this very urban part of the city. Yet the 8 is famously slow. In contrast the 522 is very fast (most of the way, most of the time). It is hard to see how spending that kind of money on the 522 is justified but spending that kind of money on a fast alternative to the 8 is not.
Which is not to say that either of these projects should be a priority. It is quite likely that the most cost effective thing — by far — is just to spend money on right-of-way (in a more sensible manner). This means taking lanes in various places (where we can easily take them). It is quite possible that Stride 3 could save hundreds of millions of dollars if they simply ask drivers to live without a dedicated turn lane in Lake Forest Park (just as they do on Maple Leaf). But if we are going to build really expensive BRT and light rail projects then it at least behooves us to consider gondolas for the areas where they could be a good value.
@Glenn in Portland,
Link does not run at 15 mph in the tunnels. Not even close.
There is a speed restriction under the UW of 30 mph (IIRC), but that is because the UW insisted that Link not interfere with sensitive science instruments on campus. It’s the same reason the rails are attached to floating slabs as opposed to being directly attached to to the invert.
@Al S,
“The biggest issue I see with this gondola is that it’s redundant to local bus service without being triggered by another reason….”
Exactly. There just isn’t any reason for Metro to build something like a Gondola.
Generally speaking, a bus on this route would be safer, cheaper, have higher ridership, serve more stops, and be more adaptable to changing conditions. There just isn’t any reason for a gadgetbahn like this.
@Al S,
“ What would the ultimate travel time advantage be…”
Not much. End to end travel times would be similar, and any investment in bus signal priority would benefit all buses operating along that route whether or not they served the same ultimate destinations. So much more bang for your buck if you went the bus/signal priority route.
This is a solution in search of a problem.
Generally speaking, a bus on this route would be safer, cheaper, have higher ridership, serve more stops, and be more adaptable to changing conditions. There just isn’t any reason for a gadgetbahn like this.
Now you are arguing against Link. When did you turn into Smarter Transit?
“ What would the ultimate travel time advantage be…”
Not much.
Not true. Just to review here:
1) Between any two points it is faster than driving — at noon.
2) Headways would be much better than Link or any bus.
It is bad enough that you don’t bother to research this yourself but you ignore the comments when others have done the work. One more time, here is a trip between the first two stations, starting at noon: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4kHZBVNwcVVCbEEm9. A person taking a bus would arrive 24 minutes later. Google says walking takes longer. A gondola would make the trip in under five minutes (including wait time). That is a time savings of over fifteen minutes even when traffic isn’t a big issue!
To say that is “not much” is absurd. Again, this is the time savings that occurs all day long.
Gondolas are like streetcars or subways lines. They are appropriate in some areas and not in others. The same goes for investments in buses. RapidRide G is clearly a good value. Would it be a good value in Mill Creek? Of course not. This is not an obvious case where a gondola is a great value but it is a better value than *most* of the ST3 projects.
Agreed. I know there’s tons of fantastical ideas for Seattle transportation but this blog can’t be serious for seriously considering a gondola as a feasible solution.
I disagree. Gondolas have their place. It is an idea that was covered by the Seattle Times (for good reason) as they are used in cities across the world. It is far more practical than the streetcars, which we are considering extending. Gondolas offer distinct advantages over buses (while streetcars only offer extra capacity — something we don’t need). They are basically a poor-man’s metro. They can avoid traffic as well as natural (and man-made) obstacles. Thus they are both consistent and often faster.
But there are significant differences. A metro train is much faster and can carry a lot more people. But gondolas have some advantages over metros. They are extremely frequent. Thus they make sense for
short journeys where you have a lot of all-day ridership (like this). Mostly though, they are cheaper to build. They really don’t make sense in most of the city but this is one area where they would.
No one is saying it is the next thing we should build. But we are building plenty of other projects that are far more dubious. It is easy to argue that we should just focus all of our efforts on improving the buses (it is would likely get us the biggest improvement for the money). But even after that is all done there may very well be places where a metro (or gondola) would add a lot of value.
Ross B.
Can someone write on the feasibility of using the monorail authority to build Ballayto UW.? Especially since Ballard might not get light rail until 2050 (if ever) and the likelihood of Dow “Wes Seattle light rail now and forever” Constantine the likely next head of Sound Travel.
@mdnative
there’s a couple draft ideas about reusing burke gilman as a street car or also just going over the previous ballard to uw plans. didn’t think there was much interest so didn’t prioritize them
> Can someone write on the feasibility of using the monorail authority to build Ballayto UW
like on 44th/45th?
correct. it is not April 1st yet
@mdnative — If I remember right the monorail authority required the line to be elevated (maybe even monorail). I can’t find the actual ballot details though. It was Initiative 53 which you can find here: https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/seattle-facts/ballot-initiatives#20002004ballotinitiatives. But that is pretty vague and the link on that page (which I thought would have more details) has nothing.
It might be easier (if it comes to it) to ask the legislature for the right to tax ourselves (as a city) from scratch.
I think it’s important to remember the Blog is now 100% volunteer, and so the work posted on the Blog will be whatever is of interest to the writers. Anyone interested in contributing to the Blog is strongly encouraged to reach out to contact at seattletransitblog dot com. From there, I’m happy to help new writers turn their ideas into content for the blog, from outlining to formatting to final grammar-checking.
Why all the gondola talk?
Because one of the writers likes writing about them. No one is suggesting this is the most important transit issue. Not even close. But we have covered light rail quite thoroughly. We have covered every bus restructure plan in great detail, including dozens of proposed changes. We have written numerous articles about commuter, regional and even high speed rail. We have covered streetcars, passenger ferries within the city and other forms of public transit that are probably not appropriate for this area. This is a reasonable idea that would likely be a good value by most metrics.
Fair enough and I get what you’re saying by the want for an added east west transit in that area, I think as a concept it would be cool and might work. I suppose my own bias living in Ballard makes this just another downtown project. From someone who has a hard time reaching any sort of transit this seems like another option for people who already have several.
So cool idea, I think rather than criticizing your idea I should write out my own, as a whole though I think ideas on how to get more people connected would be better than adding another transit idea to the downtown core.
Ballard is certainly underserved when it comes to transit. I’ve been a big proponent of a Ballard to UW line for that very reason. It would transform Ballard and the rest of the north-end by providing fast east-west transit to go with the fast north-south transit. Likewise many of us want to build Ballard Link first and want it to be automated (with smaller train cars, smaller stations and better frequency). We would initially connect it to Westlake (to get it built sooner) with a future extension up to First Hill (and then southeast towards Judkins Park and Mount Baker).
In the meantime we keep fighting for better right-of-way on the various buses. I’m excited about the changes for the 40. They keep chipping away at the congestion that the 44 encounters — it would be nice if they moved more aggressively on that. I would like to make a bunch of changes to the bus network to better connect Ballard with the rest of the region (for example, this: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1aiyxTQSBn3SnlABGXMCAoDaBCEhQfl7t&usp=sharing).
From a coverage standpoint there has been talk about resurrecting the 17 and maybe running a bus (or extending the occasional 44) out to Golden Gardens. Both are borderline projects that struggle under inadequate funding and the continued driver shortage.
Matthew,
Many modern cities use a mix of transit modes: Mexico City, Paris, London, Moscow… Seattle already does (monorail, tram, trolleys…), adding one isn’t such a big deal. They all have different advantages and disadvantages. I would love to reuse existing infrastructure, but there is none which connects SLU with CapHill, but great demand as you can see from Metro 8 ridership. Due to traffic delays, the 8 has been one of the worst on-time performance. Even if we would provide a dedicated bus lane, buses would need get stuck on cross traffic.
Zach,
This is a local line, it would need to be operated by the city (such as our trams) or KCMetro, not Sound Transit. (their “study” was not well researched btw, the author didn’t even read some of the resources he quoted)
I see the gondola conversation as a subset of a badly needed structural discussion about our “spine” in Seattle. Do we want to create short distance ribs to feed the spine or do we want to weave a network of transit services that cross-cross the City like a weaved blanket? The gondola idea is a subset of the rib idea.
It also is a subset of cable power. There are plenty of other cable technologies like elevators, diagonal elevators, inclines, counter-balances and horizontal guided people movers. Even an escalator tower is a mechanical version of cable pulled technology. So if a rib approach is what works, then all the cable technologies to connect places to Link or each other should be objectively assessed before rushing to recommend a gondola specifically .
Seattle has an unfortunate recent history of choosing modes first and applications second. That’s the genesis of so many of our transit technologies and so many of our past failures. Even though the gondola idea has merit, I have concerns that a gondola advocacy is merely a new chapter of this mindset. Imagining a different technology is intoxicating and exciting, but it comes with productivity risks.
I would much rather see a targeted assessment of how to connect SLU to Capitol Hill Station better. It’s glaring to me that we have many multi-story buildings that appear to be within walking distance of Link and other buildings on a two dimensional map, yet the elevation differences combined with how the grid north of Denny is severed at I-5 make the areas disconnected.
Finally, I could see this connection being possible by simply moving the planned Ballard Link transfer station to Capitol Hill rather than be at Westlake, combined with an aerial track profile between Seattle Center and I-5 above Mercer Street. That would lower the elevation difference enough to allow for more standard transit propulsion technologies like light rail.
> Why not invest in the transportation system we have
The transportation system we have already is multi-modal, but the transit modes we have do not serve the corridor in question very well, and cannot practically be made to do so due to geographical limits. It is therefore worthwhile to consider a different mode, which could offer better service for that heavily-travelled corridor, which could be integrated into the transportation system we have.
I am pro-gondola by default, regardless of any valid arguments against them. To whatever degree gondolas are impractical is outweighed by the fact that they’re neat.
lol
Billy Clark
Actually this is a very good argument. A gondola to West Seattle would be way cooler than any “commuter rail”. Of course there’s how many people will it carry and how much will it cost, but those things can be worked out.
A gondola? Seriously? As a taxpayer and transit advocate, I’d much rather see any of the following:
1) grade revision/reinforcement/expansion along Belmont Ave/Roy St to accommodate buses
2) an entirely new overpass over I-5 for buses only
3) Lidding over I-5, thus creating more communal space
But even if there was legitimate consideration on such a project, there are other transportation issues – such as MLK/Rainier and Aurora Ave – that should be taken up before this.
The I-5 overpass itself might well cost more than the entire gondola? Anything having to do with urban expressways is going to be incredibly expensive.
With just about any project there would be a good argument for building something else instead. I’m really excited about the improvements for the 40, but shouldn’t we be making the 8 faster first? I like the added bus lanes for the 7, but shouldn’t they start from downtown and move towards Rainier Valley (since that is where most of the congestion is)?
If you are suggesting these as alternatives there are differences:
1) This would be significantly slower all day long. I’m not saying we shouldn’t run buses that way but it wouldn’t offer the speed and frequency advantages of a gondola.
2) Between Lakeview and Denny that would be extremely expensive (as Brandon mentioned).
3) Lidding would be great but unlike the areas to the south it would not be easy given the grade between Eastlake and the freeway (https://maps.app.goo.gl/xMosfGBCfY7gwZ5f6). It can be considered a trench from Capitol Hill but from below it is just a giant wall. You would have to build up quite a ways to then cap it off. You would have to then add a bunch of stairs and ramps up to the top of the lid. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have value but it would be especially expensive and not nearly as nice as lids to the south. This is why the city only studied the area south of Denny (https://lidi5.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/lid-i-5-feasibility-study-summary-report-final_20-1222.pdf). The organization pushing for more lids have focused there as well as the north end (between 45th and 50th). This particular section is not an area that lends itself to capping.
While a cap would still be nice it wouldn’t offer the same advantages as a gondola. It would not be a quick and easy walk up the hill.
Rough cost estimate:
In 2006, the Portland aerial tram cost $57 million final cost. It spans 3300 feet and 2 stations. By your diagram, the route would be ~2.36 miles (12,460 ft) and have 7 stations. That’s 3.7 times the length and 3.5 times as many stations. We’ll average those to 3.6 times as much construction. Then to account for inflation, Seattle’s higher wages and land acquisition costs, and the insane growth of infrastructure construction costs since 2006, we’ll multiply by a factor of 3. So $57 million x 3.6 x 3 = $615 million.
The Portland Aerial Tram has two larger cars that move back and forth (up and down) between two stations each in a cable. This proposal appears to be a continuous cable with smaller cars that attach and detach from spinning cables at multiple stations.
Not all gondolas are designed the same way.
I’ve
Most of the cost of the Portland tram was born by the construction of the station to connect with the hospital on a steep slope. That was a very challenging and expensive project. Kirkland recently did a study for a 3 station line along 85th for $81m. Ross estimated $200m for this line, that sounds right.
Ross estimated $200m for this line, that sounds right.
Don’t quote me on that :)
Seriously, I am no expert when it comes to gondolas. But my understanding is that they are relatively cheap. Not that 200 million is pocket change. That kind of money for improving the buses could go a really long way. But it is much cheaper than building a subway line (which this should be compared to). As I mentioned up above it could easily be built in stages. I would start from the east. Just the connection between the Cascade neighborhood (Fairview) and Capitol Hill would be huge. Each additional stop adds additional functionality. The weakest part would probably be Seattle Center to the waterfront, although it might be relatively cheap. It would add tourist value with just enough local support to run all year.
Does anyone have any recent ridership data for the Portland ariel tram?
I don’t think it is useful to compare an aerial tram to what’s proposed here. More appropriate might be Mexico City’s Cablebus which has seen daily ridership of 100,000 riders.
Portland Areal Tram really isn’t public transit, so comparing ridership isn’t really appropriate. Unless you have some sort of connection with OHSU, the fare is $8.50 per round trip.
Remarkably, the Portland alternative is also bus route 8, and it also spends a bunch of time in traffic.
There’s also not much at the top other than the several hospital complexes. It’s a bit like what would happen if you put the UW medical center on top of Queen Anne, then replaced Queen Anne with mostly forest and a few random houses. It’s no Capitol Hill or First Hill.
Anyway, they logged a bit over 1 million passenger trips for the 2023 fiscal year:
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2023/00058.pdf
Man, I totally missed the Issaquah post & comments are now turned off.
I support this one more. There is a real break in the road grid that would be difficult to bridge (pun intended), and Seattle Center & Cap Hill station are both high ridership destinations that otherwise are hard to travel between.
Yeah, this seems like the most likely place for a gondola although I would still consider it borderline. It should be studied and compared to other projects.
It does check off all of the boxes though. It has plenty of all-day demand. This is ideal as it allows you to serve a lot of people without worrying about the capacity limitations of gondolas. Every trip would be faster than driving at noon. It has appeal both from a tourist/recreational as well as practical standpoint. Some people would take it just because it is fun while others would take it because it is the fastest way to get to their destination.
Seems like a massive waste of money to me.
Also I don’t feel like being forced to sit in close proximity to people like that. How many homeless involved stabbings are going to happen on this thing per year?
Modern gondolas are quite spacious, they even have place for standing if you don’t want to sit next to a person you don’t know.
https://www.doppelmayr.com/en/cwa-cabins/stella/
we got buses already. better and faster
Buses would not be faster. In fact this would be faster than driving (at noon).
The primary value of these gondola articles is to identify corridors where gondola technology makes sense, and where other cities that don’t have our political/car-centric mindset might build them. You may disagree with particular corridors, but at least somebody with some knowledge of the field is proposing them so we can evaluate them.
There’s two approaches to transit network design: ideal and pragmatic. Ideal is what would really work best for the largest cross-section of the population, and would generate the highest ridership and non-car mobility freedom. Pragmatic is how to get from here to there: what can we realistically convince the powers that be of and we have the resources for.
You need both ideals and pragmatics. Ideals to identify what’s best and how far we are from it, and pragmatics to identify what we have more of a chance of accomplishing.
These gondola proposals are on the ideal side. The first step is to identify whether a network with them would make people’s trips easier than any other alternative, and whether they could be built faster and less expensively than other alternatives. If the answers to those are yes, sensible cities would build them, and are building them.
Then once we know the ideal network (rail+gondola+bus), we can compare it to the status quo or other alternatives. That’s valuable in itself, even if the powers that be would never agree to it.
Then we get into pragmatics: what can we convince the powers that be of, or what incremental improvements would get us at least closer to the ideal network.
Martin said nothing about which agency would build it or how it would be funded, or how it would interact with ST3’s Link plans or other things. All that would be decided AFTER the powers that be express some openness to the concept. So far they haven’t done that, and the proposal is less than a day old. I doubt the powers that be will consider it, just like they’ve never considered our Metro 8 subway concepts or single-tunnel (no DSTT2) solution. But we still need a clear-headed view of how much what they are building doesn’t meet people’s needs, and what a less-expensive solution could be.
(By less expensive I mean comparing the Denny, West Seattle, and Bellevue College gondolas to the respective Link projects. Recognizing that Ballard is left out of these gondola corridors, so it would need an alternative; e.g., faster bus service, a north Seattle gondola, etc.)
“You may disagree with particular corridors, but at least somebody with some knowledge of the field is proposing them so we can evaluate them.”
But what are Martin’s credentials in relation to transit planning if we may ask. Like I’ve googled him and there’s not much information on his knowledge on transit planning than “transit and cycle” advocate in places like the South Seattle Emerald. His field of study is computer science from what I can see on his LinkedIn, but again no mention transit planning expertise. If he has any actual transpiration planning experience either here or in Germany (as that’s where he’s from and studied his degree), it’d be nice to know from him because then it’d make more sense why he advocates for Gondolas.
And I’m not trying to discredit him for clarity sake for not having experience like an actual transit or urban planner. Framing his experience in context would just be helpful for all us trying to understand where he’s coming from on this.
He comes from a country that’s more open-minded about transit modes and level of service, and has applied that to learning about similar innovations in other countries and other American cities and bringing that knowledge to STB. That’s not being a professional transit planner or transit engineer, and I’ll let him describe his professional skills if he chooses, but in an case being a passenger-observer and listening to the professionals is also valuable in evaluating networks and identifying what could work in Pugetopolis that others are overlooking.
I’m neither a transit planner nor engineer, but grew up in Germany with a fascination of various transit technologies. I have not only studied them across the world, but also met with architects, vendors (mostly European) and consultants who build urban gondola technology for a living (Kirkland, Portland, NYC, VancouverBC etc) as well as considered local projects (ferris wheel line, Elliott Bay line etc). World Transport Policy and Practice also tapped me in Nov’23 to write an overview of gondola technology.
> Why all the gondola talk? Why not invest in the transportation system we have than add another on top. Ballard and west Seattle have been waiting over 20 years for their monorail/light rail that was passed, maybe take a look at connecting the street cars and replacing more rapid routes with trolleys, light rail, or another monorail.
I think it’s fine, though kinda wish these gondola posts would go a bit more into transit details. It is hard to know how to judge these proposals. There is no estimated travel time or estimated construction cost.
Otherwise we could also just be drawing subway line proposals every day.
I mentioned travel time on the Bellevue line, but on this line I don’t expect very many people to ride the full length of the line. Most will only go a few stations as you may catch Link for example. Then travel time is negligible, frequency of 10-20sec is far more important. Construction cost vastly depends on how fancy a station you want to build, $200m is just an order of magnitude, meaning a bit more than a RapidRide line, but far less than a rail line.
> Most will only go a few stations as you may catch Link for example.
Actually yeah where exactly are your proposing stations along this line? I’m a bit confused. is it just stations at the terminal of the line above or are there a couple stations in the middle.
The proposed mid-stations are marked with a dot. With gondolas, any change in direction requires a station (or at least a quasi station where the gondolas turn but may not allow disembarkment).
@Martin
That’s quite close stop spacing for an urban gondola. bolivia’s urban gondolas are not that close together. Also I’m a bit confused where will station be built then if you are stopping that frequently. aka if you stop infrequently than the wire is pretty high in the air and it’s not in the way of buildings. but everytime to stop it’ll have to come down. if you stop every couple blocks that wire will hit a building.
It doesn’t seem that close. From the Seattle Center to Capitol Hill is about one kilometer. There would be four stations. Just glancing at the Metrocable in Medelin there is a line that is 1 km and has three stations. Having a lot of stations adds to the cost but provides more value.
The only station I thought was obvious was the one on Broadway. If you are going to serve the Seattle Center then you might as well go as far as possible and the location works if you then end up going south (to the waterfront). I wouldn’t bother with a station at Denny (that would just be a place where the gondola changes direction).
Probably the most challenging part is where to put the stations in South Lake Union. The buses (and streetcar) travel on a bunch of different roads but the three main ones are 7th, Westlake and Fairview. By serving Fairview you serve almost all the Cascade neighborhood. For example let’s say I’m at Yale & Republican, a fairly dense urban neighborhood. I want to go up to Capitol Hill. I can’t walk the direction I’m headed (I-5 blocks it). I have to walk around or catch the 8. It is not that short of a walk to the gondola. But it is still closer than walking to catch the 8 and much more frequent (and is a lot easier and more pleasant than schlepping up the hill). If the station moves over to Westlake though, it isn’t worth it. I’m heading to the 8.
If there was only one station in SLU then I guess it would be Westlake. That puts you in the middle of South Lake Union and connects to the 40. But the biggest transit corridor is a bit to the east (around 7th). That gets you the 5, 28 and E Line (and is a block away from the 62). I think the combination works even if it is a bit close together. It is still about a ten minute walk between 7th and Fairview (https://maps.app.goo.gl/4BuoLqxw1Nu2dfyg6). There would be people making that trip via the gondola. You essentially cover South Lake Union (unlike Ballard Link).
Yes, WL, stop spacing is higher as Seattle has plenty of hills which make walking more difficult. Mexico’s Cablebus 2 line has 7 stops on 6mi meaning spacing is almost 3 times higher. You could skip the Denny station, but that makes some good transfers more difficult. The other stations are about the same distance as the Portland tram.
Stop spacing is comparable to the orange line in La Paz:
https://www.lapazlife.com/the-worlds-highest-cable-car-ride/
What is the station access from the street? An elevator at every station?
That depends on the station design. The Sculpture Park station may be at ground level to allow easy access from the Elliott Bay trail. Same potentially for the Seattle Center station. Along existing roads it would be easier to locate the station above the street or intersection and provide elevator/escalator or access to adjacent buildings such as the Monorail connects to Westlake Center. As the stations are fairly small, they can be erected with minimal disruption with prefabricated concrete components as in Ankara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GfdxCDBBss or Mexico City https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1PVWRcH86I
My major question: How do these urban gondolas handle riders who require wheelchairs or other assistance? My only experiences with gondolas are in theme parks like Disney or events like Expo 86 in Vancouver, and I recall the cars bunched up at the terminals and people had to hurry up to step into them. I also recall the motorized “Peoplemover” in Disney’s Tomorrowland, where warning signs said, “Must be ambulatory to use”.
I’m asking as I have older relatives who need wheelchairs, and my sister-in-law’s mother uses a motorized scooter; she has one of those diseases where she cannot stand upright without holding onto a brace or a wall (MD, MS, or something similar, I’m not sure). Would there be ways for them to board the gondolas with their wheelchairs/scooters, regardless if there were Metro employees assisting passengers on and off the cars like in Disney?
For the record, the only city with an urban gondola I’ve been to at is Portland, and I was unaware of its existence at the time (2008). I will be on an Alaska cruise soon, and the Icy Strait Point port has gondolas to various points in the area out of necessity (elevation, distance, and avoidance of bears).
The cabins move very slowly in the station so that people in wheelchairs can just ride into them. Some even provide a push button so that the cabin stops totally briefly. See for yourself: https://youtu.be/uaE7a7vFdS0?si=jkf3ej4FlUzXBghx&t=121
The video shows an attendant.
“The video shows an attendant.”
Yes, that one does, but gondolas with the latest technology can be fully operated remotely. They have no gap between platform and cabin and sensors everywhere. You may still want to have roaming security as Link does.
https://www.leitner.com/en/company/news/detail/leitpilot/
It’s not explained well in the gondola posts, but there are two major types of gondolas.
The first — like those used in Portland and NYC (Roosevelt Island) — are basically outdoor cars that can hold as many people as a bus being pulled back and forth like a sideways elevator — so they are pretty easy to design for wheelchairs. The big concern seems to be instability with higher winds but even that can be mitigated by having guidance cables and systems in place. They are securely fixed to a cable that spins and just like an elevator they slow down when they arrive at the end point.
The second kind, like Martin proposes here, is for smaller cars that attach and detach from a constantly spinning cable. This means that they first hook into the cable then let go of the cable with every trip. They often carry a small number of riders. These are what someone may find in an amusement park or zoo. These are trickier to secure a wheelchair. I would expect that an attendant would be needed at each station to monitor passengers including securing wheelchairs before they take off or pause. Keep in mind that gondola cars would keep arriving every few seconds so they would start to queue up if one got delayed.
Of course the origin of the word “gondola” is for water taxis in Venice and other places so the word can be used to describe all types of setups.
Personally, I think that a Capitol Hill to SLU as two-station gondola (the first type) would be easier to provide accessibility but they can’t operate at a high frequency. The second type that Martin proposes looks more labor intensive but has the high frequrncies.
Some “ski trams” carry nearly a hundred people, and they’re fast, reaching high speeds between the end stations, unlike hanging gondolas which amble along about ten to twelve miles per hour. Faster than that and the dewiring and rewiring gets to be sketchy.
As you note, though, there are only two cars with a tram-style “gondola”, so the longer the trip, the longer the headways.
Not to mention that a gondola doesn’t hold 68 passengers like a metro bus and when non-paying homeless or druggies decide they’re going to camp in a gondola, there needs to be real fare enforcement and ejection of the person otherwise these gondolas become flying homeless tents.
[Moderation edit: The rest of these rapist/druggie/homeless-passenger rants will be deleted as thread-hijacking spam, especially repeats by the same person. Gondolas have one unique feature that impacts safety: a small driverless capsule. I left the thread above intact to address those issues. But these rants are blowing the rate of misbehaving passengers way out of proportion to reality. The same kinds of things have been said about every bus/Link route, and we can’t keep relitigating the same side issue in every article. -MO, ND]
The London “Dangleway” has a capacity around 2,500 per hour per direction, or about the same as 37 of those 68 passenger buses per hour.
A considerable portion of the expenses and construction costs came from corporate sponsorship, which doesn’t happen with buses.
Talk about a pet project that will cost millions and generate low benefit. It will be the ultimate boondoggle and poster child for what not to build for generations to come
Why not just build an underground rail system like any normal metro cities?
Seattle has one of the worst weather rainy and windy.
Gondola seriously? It will make downtown look more congested
“ Why not just build an underground rail system like any normal metro cities?”
What’s normal?
Most US cities have central areas that are flat to gently sloping. That’s suited well for steel wheeled trains. The terrain of the East Coast major cities are mostly that way, with Midwest cities and Texas cities being very flat for the most part in their central areas.
Seattle has steep areas both inside the Downtown core and in surrounding neighborhoods.
Other bigger US exceptions are San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati — but even those have the Downtown core flatter than Seattle. And guess what? Gondolas are a form of cable-pulled transit. San Francisco has cable cars and Pittsburgh has inclines — both other forms of cable-pulled transit!
And many major non-US cities with steep hills also have cable-pulled transit. Istanbul, Haifa, Hong Kong, Budapest quickly come to mind in addition to Mexico City, Medellin and La Paz.
So it actually appears “normal” to have cable-pulled transit lines in cities with lots of steep long hills like Seattle.
Seattle compensates a bit by having electric trolley buses — but there are many routes where the grade of the street turns segments into an amusement park experience.
Maybe a gondola or an aerial tram isn’t right for every setting in Seattle but the technology behind them isn’t unreasonable to consider. Keep in mind too that cable-pulled technology has worked for over a century around the world (including Seattle with several lines in the past) so it’s not some experimental technology either.
They’re working on building your “underground rail system” alrwady, but at ≈$1 billion per mile, there are a bunch of places it won’t go.
London’s gondola operates just fine in the rain there.
Would love to get the express bus from Northgate to SLU back online, though😏
My major structural question: earthquakes. Mexico City gets a lot of them, how do the gondolas hold up? We get some quakes up here, too, I wonder if EIS studies for a Seattle-area gondola would say that our topography is too unstable to build a line.
I’m not a structural engineer, but I’d assume a gondola would fare better in an earthquake than most rigid guideways. Riders on a gondola might lose their lunch if they the line moves a lot between two shaking pylons during a major quake, but it’s not hard to build pylons to modern seismic standards.
With a quick search, I found this article about the Cablebus in Mexico City after a recent 7.1M earthquake: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/mexico-cable-car-stuck-earthquake-b1916542.html
Seems like the main problem is what to do when the power goes out since occupants can’t evacuate along the guideway like they could with train tracks. In the video, it seems like most folks assumed the sudden stop of the drive wire caused more swinging than the earthquakes.
Japan has 170 aerial lifts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_lifts_in_Japan). Japan is the most advanced country on earth when it comes to earthquake readiness. If the big one hits I would be a lot more worried about our freeways and our old buildings than any gondola we decide to build.
If a gondola here gets the green light, by all means bring in Japanese consultants to help design earthquake-resistant gondola infrastructure. Heck, even if Seattle never got earthquakes, invite them still; you can do far worse for engineering expertise than the Japanese.
When the big one hits, the I-5 collonades will be toast.
It seems like there are a lot of comments here that are based on ignorance of gondolas. It is one thing to argue that they aren’t the best choice here. But to essentially argue that they just aren’t a worthy form of public transport is silly. They are found in dozens of cities — including cities that have much better public transportation than we have in Seattle. Many cities are building more of them based on the success of similar systems. They aren’t that common in the United State but the US is a clear laggard when it comes to public transit. Hell, we can’t even have open gangways on our metros, let alone automate them.
But most of all, Seattle is not a special snowflake with unique problems. We have crime — other cities have crime. We have homeless — other cities have homeless. We have earthquakes — other cities have earthquakes. These are all issues but other cities have already dealt with them because (quite often) they have it worse.
Gondolas have their advantages and disadvantages. Same goes for every mode — including light rail. You want to argue that it is just isn’t worth it here, be my guest. I feel that way about the CCC (streetcar project). But even though streetcars don’t make sense there doesn’t mean they don’t make sense anywhere which is essentially the argument a lot of people are making. That is just silly. Similar gondolas have been built around the world and they have made a huge difference in terms of transit mobility.
I think when most people think of gondolas, they think either of theme parks or ski resorts. Gondolas as a practical means of mass transit seems to be a concept from the most recent few decades, compared to the century-old uses of streetcars, buses, subways/light rail, automotive taxis, and even horse-and-buggy taxis.
Any concrete proposal for urban gondolas, therefore, will require more education efforts, like Martin’s comments in this article. And that will require even more time to gain acceptance by the general public; most new ideas need that.
Bicycles get the same bad rap. Because America is so screwed up that riding a bike is thought to be in most places absurdly perilous due to the proximity to auto traffic, bikes are constantly thought of as a children’s toy. Or at best, weekend warrior fitness equipment.
But what they really are transportation. In fact they are the absolute best transportation solution to the last mile problem afflicting all of sprawly America.
Gondolas and bikes are both easy to mock, but that mockery is born of ignorance.
There is one appeal for gondolas that should be mentioned: level floors. Some Seattle buses go up and down steep hills and that makes standing on them or holding something big difficult. It’s my biggest issue with RapidRide G but it’s also an issue with Metro routes on Olive Way in Capitol Hill.
Do the proponents (of gondola and monorail) have suggestions for the capital funding, operations, and ROW? Is a maintenance base required? All the support beams and stations need significant ROW. ROW is scarce; one can see that as the modes fight over it.
Gondolas qualify for federal funding just like rail projects. There are even public/private partnerships which fund and operate lines on behalf of municipalities. One of the stations usually has extra space for a little maintenance branch so that it is easy to take some cabins out of operation for any type of cleaning or maintenance. As cabins neither have motors nor breaks, there is little to do maintenance on.
Our RapidRide lines have required massive road work. For a gondola you need to do a small foundation for each tower. Matt Roewe suggested to place the towers in the parking strip (see picture). So you lose a few parking spots or some sidewalk space. The stations may need extra space. Ankara built some stations on top of intersections and roads. You may lose some parking for the escalator/elevator.
[spam – see mod note above]