New year, new idea: gondolas as public transport in megacities

The initial installation cost for a guideway would be more expensive than a simple cable-way, but would last much longer. Due to wear and corrosion, cables on gondolas have to be replaced at regular intervals, thus costing more in the long run. But the installation cost of a good PRT guideway design is still less expensive per mile than a paved road or light rail tracks.

In the UK there are around 28,000 deaths or serious injuries on the road every year. These are not caused by pedestrians and cyclists wilfully assaulting cars and trucks, but the converse. The whole notion that it is OK for people to travel as fast as possible regardless of the risk to others is flawed, and came about by a peculiar set of historical circumstances. It is not even as though traffic actually gets there much faster, typical average journey times in cities are only in the low teens in miles per hour. Transport should be regulated according to the damage it causes, and so the responsibility should be on the faster, heavier, more dangerous vehicles to give priority at all times to those using less lethal forms of transport. It is notable that even air bags are deployed for the benefit of drivers and passengers, with no effort going into cushioning the blow to pedestrians. Such wrong-headed and inequitable design needs to be stopped. I advocate woonerf in all built up areas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonerf We need to take back our cities from cars, and make them walkable and liveable. After all, most of us are pedestrians as well as drivers! In my view a fall in casualties to perhaps a quarter of present rates is achievable as a relatively near term target.

I would have thought that cable cars, bikes, buses, whatever gets people out of automatically jumping into a gas-guzzler and heading off at as high a speed as possible for all their needs would be good for EVs. Here in the UK I am a strong supporter of increasingly common 20mph speed limits. There really is no inherent right for people to be able to drive as fast as they can, at whatever risk to pedestrians and cyclists. Low speed, interfacing well with public transport - sounds like ideal for EVs to me.

Design studies/contest entries are like this all the time. Pie in the sky scores big points. Impractical is no matter. They're really just trying to make something startling more than anything. That's fine for them, but it bothers me when websites cover design studies as if they were real studies or products.

Yeah, I don't really see it myself. Overhead monorail, maybe.

Perhaps I was a bit harsh in my initial assessment. Upon some reflection, St. Louis, MO, put in the Gateway Arch, that has absolutely no purpose at all, but is way cool to visit and journey to the top to view the whole city. It has given St. Louis one of the most unique skylines in the world, which makes it stand out from many other midwestern towns like Cleveland, Cincinati, Memphis, etc. Given that it is low cost / impact to install, and very cheap to run and maintain, it miight differentiate Austin from most other cities in Texas that it would indeed be a net plus. It seems like it couldn't hurt, other than competing with their current push for EV's and their related infrastructure needs. I wonder if those Gondolas would need air conditioning, and what amount of energy that would require.

@ Dave Mart, Just curious, but why do you think that a commuter cyclist has more rights on a highway ( making no contribution for the up-keep) than five commuters in a car , whose taxes pay for the highway ?

Don't act like you know me, okay?