Says Durning:
I hope the idea for a gondola up Burnaby Mountain is revived – this time pursued with more vigour. It could also be an urban tourist attraction and perhaps SFU could ‘cash’ in on it.
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A Swiss-Canadian company unveiled a proposal over the weekend to build a privately funded cable car system across Toronto’s Don Valley, connecting downtown with the urban greenery surrounding the Evergreen Brick Works, a former quarry and industrial site turned environmental community center. …
Each car would be equipped with bike racks and be fully accessible for those with mobility challenges. Dale estimates it could attract between 500 and 1,000 riders a day, and between 220,000 and 515,000 a year.
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If they added bike capability to the SFU one every MTB rider in the region would get a pass and use it as a bike shuttle – poor-mans-Whistler-bikepark! (and a good source of weekend revenue for the system … Whisler charges $50 a day to get a bikepark lift ticket.
Metrocable in Medellin, Colombia, a cable car that is part of the transit system, moves approximately 30,000 people per day to poor communities high on the steep hillsides of the city. It coordinates with the other components of the transit system and is very cheap for users. The small city of Manizales, Colombia has a similar system on a smaller scale. .
Here are some of the reasons for inaction and opposition from the local Burnaby press.
http://www.burnabynow.com/news/contest-called-misguided-by-gondola-critics-1.412254
http://www.burnabynow.com/news/gondola-project-not-immediate-priority-for-translink-1.413924
I find it interesting that there is consensus that it would be cheaper than all those busses, also it would eliminate the need for the school to close when it snows … but for the flexibility for the initial cash outlay from translink (of which there is none, of course), it seems a bit of a no-brainer. The usual local opposition notwithstanding.
Oopps, should be a comma after ‘opposition’. It didn’t come from the local Burnaby press.
In general, I’m not in favour of PPP’s, but this may be an exception. It’s not a novelty nor a tourist attraction but part of our transportation grid.