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High-concept plan would connect downtown and the Foss
DAN VOELPEL; The News Tribune
Spire schmire.
I changed my mind. Tacoma doesn't need an impractical 400-foot-tall needle to adorn the corner of its new convention center.
But it desperately needs an easier, practical way for people to get back and forth between downtown and the Thea Foss Waterway.
Tacoma needs a gondola. Call it SkyLink.
The idea came to me two weeks ago while riding in a gondola up Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, Canada.
"I feel a column coming on," I told my riding partner. "We gotta get us one of these."
And we can do it for $6 million plus another $1 million a year to run it.
An expensive, impractical and unnecessary toy, you say? Au contraire. Place your bets on it.
We have four ways to walk between our newest waterfront people place and downtown - one of them pleasant, none of them easy, especially in wet weather.
We can ride light rail to Union Station, stroll across the Chihuly Bridge of Glass and negotiate the circular staircase around the Museum of Glass cone.
We can walk from Pacific Avenue down Hood Street near the Tacoma Art Museum along the recently abandoned railroad track, past the panhandlers and their sleeping spots under I-705. We can walk under I-705 at South 15th Street. Or we can scale the steel stair switchbacks under the Murray Morgan Bridge.
When I wrote in May about how the Foss Waterway had cool new places to eat and shop, North Tacoma reader Julie Turner called to say she'd wanted to pop in on those places on Dock Street several times but couldn't find a place to park.
The Foss Waterway, because of its narrowness, will never offer enough parking for everyone who wants to enjoy it.
With gondolas linked to the convention center, wannabe Foss patrons can stash their cars in the 600-stall parking garage under the center and ride three minutes to the waterfront, a breeze even in the rain.
Who else benefits? A lot of folks.
Convention-goers who want a quick trip to, say, the new Blue Olive Ultra Lounge & Bistro at Thea's Landing. Downtown workers who want a quickie lunch on the waterfront. Disabled or elderly locals and visitors. Residents of Thea's Landing, the marinas and the forthcoming Nearon Enterprises condominium development who work downtown. Guests of the future Foss Waterway boutique hotel who otherwise can't get to their seminars at the convention center without a hike or drive.
And, yes, tourists who want to fly over Tacoma in an urban gondola just for the novelty of it.
"Anything that promotes pedestrian access, anything that can move people and not ask them to take their car, I'm all for," said Don Meyer, whose job as executive director of the Foss Waterway Development Authority is to sell the waterfront to developers.
"Pedestrian access is critical. How you move people in and around the city core and the waterfront. Anything you add to that capability adds to the texture and interest down here," Meyer said. "It's one key link that's missing from our plans."
Not entirely. The City Council adopted a development plan for the Foss Waterway 13 years ago and in 1998 quietly adopted a 154-page package of amendments. On page 41 - last on a list of 19 recommendations - it says:
"Develop a secure, comfortable form of mechanical pedestrian transportation between the Northwest end of the Foss and downtown. This could be in the form of an elevator, escalator, motorized, ramps or gondola/tram."
The plan goes on to describe a "funicular railway" or two large trams running on a cable, moving people simultaneously up and down the steep hillside between Fireman's Park at South Ninth Street and Dock Street below.
Six years ago, you could argue Fireman's Park made sense as a terminus near the center of commerce. But downtown's center has shifted since then. A future gondola should move people from the former site of the convention center spire at South 17th Street either straight down to the waterfront esplanade next to the future hotel or diagonally north to South 15th Street next to Johnny's Seafood.
That's easily done, said Randy Woolwine, vice president of Doppelmayr CTEC Inc., one of the world's largest creators of gondolas, ski lifts and trams with 8,000 installations on five continents.
Gondola rides - traditionally a fixture at ski resorts- have started catching on as urban people-movers, Woolwine said.
"For a city, people are starting to realize it saves you from installing costly parking lots that use up valuable land and provides a tremendous convenience for the city," he said.
Lisbon, Portugal, installed one for the 1998 World's Fair. Rostock, a German port on the Baltic Sea, installed one last year along its Warnow River waterfront to carry tourists to its international horticulture show. The Niagara Parks Commission in Ontario, Canada, plans a $23 million, 3,800-foot sky ride with eight-passenger gondolas along the Niagara Falls gorge. The city of Portland plans a gondola connection between a hillside hospital and a medical research center in the North Macadam District.
In a 2002 report on Portland's gondola, a consultant stated that "the potential of a well-designed ropeway system - whether an aerial tramway or a gondola - to enhance the image of ... Portland is significant and should not be overlooked."
If you've read this far, you're probably wondering: How can Tacoma afford it? It can, and it won't cost you a penny more - unless you want to ride it.
Rider fees could pay for the annual operations.
Remember that Tacoma set aside $3 million for the $8 million spire, which will never be built. There's half.
Two minor changes to a law the Legislature passed to earmark a state sales tax rebate for the convention center would raise the rest. It's money that otherwise goes to the state.
Tacoma, Pierce County, Lakewood, University Place and Fife - as contiguous jurisdictions - already designate their sales tax rebate to the convention center.
The law would need to allow other cities - chiefly Federal Way, Puyallup, Sumner and Bonney Lake - to chip in too and broaden the uses for the money to include transportation links to the convention center. Logical and easy. Throw in naming rights and you can build it.
Let's hope Tacoma hasn't forgotten how to think big and bold. We haven't forgotten how blending innovation with a practical need once made us Tacoma's No. 1 Wired City, have we?
A sure bet on SkyLink would answer that question.
Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785
dan.voelpel@mail.tribnet.com
Tacoma SkyLink
Length: 3,000 feet
Towers: 10
Gondolas: 16 eight-passenger gondolas
Speed: 1,000 feet per minute
Peak capacity: 1,000 passengers an hour
Cost: $6 million (construction), $1 million per year (operations and maintenance)
Staff: An estimated 15-18 to operate and maintain
Down time: One week, two times per year for maintenance
SOURCE: Doppelmayr CTEC Inc., Golden, Colo.
DAN VOELPEL; The News Tribune
Spire schmire.
I changed my mind. Tacoma doesn't need an impractical 400-foot-tall needle to adorn the corner of its new convention center.
But it desperately needs an easier, practical way for people to get back and forth between downtown and the Thea Foss Waterway.
Tacoma needs a gondola. Call it SkyLink.
The idea came to me two weeks ago while riding in a gondola up Whistler Mountain in British Columbia, Canada.
"I feel a column coming on," I told my riding partner. "We gotta get us one of these."
And we can do it for $6 million plus another $1 million a year to run it.
An expensive, impractical and unnecessary toy, you say? Au contraire. Place your bets on it.
We have four ways to walk between our newest waterfront people place and downtown - one of them pleasant, none of them easy, especially in wet weather.
We can ride light rail to Union Station, stroll across the Chihuly Bridge of Glass and negotiate the circular staircase around the Museum of Glass cone.
We can walk from Pacific Avenue down Hood Street near the Tacoma Art Museum along the recently abandoned railroad track, past the panhandlers and their sleeping spots under I-705. We can walk under I-705 at South 15th Street. Or we can scale the steel stair switchbacks under the Murray Morgan Bridge.
When I wrote in May about how the Foss Waterway had cool new places to eat and shop, North Tacoma reader Julie Turner called to say she'd wanted to pop in on those places on Dock Street several times but couldn't find a place to park.
The Foss Waterway, because of its narrowness, will never offer enough parking for everyone who wants to enjoy it.
With gondolas linked to the convention center, wannabe Foss patrons can stash their cars in the 600-stall parking garage under the center and ride three minutes to the waterfront, a breeze even in the rain.
Who else benefits? A lot of folks.
Convention-goers who want a quick trip to, say, the new Blue Olive Ultra Lounge & Bistro at Thea's Landing. Downtown workers who want a quickie lunch on the waterfront. Disabled or elderly locals and visitors. Residents of Thea's Landing, the marinas and the forthcoming Nearon Enterprises condominium development who work downtown. Guests of the future Foss Waterway boutique hotel who otherwise can't get to their seminars at the convention center without a hike or drive.
And, yes, tourists who want to fly over Tacoma in an urban gondola just for the novelty of it.
"Anything that promotes pedestrian access, anything that can move people and not ask them to take their car, I'm all for," said Don Meyer, whose job as executive director of the Foss Waterway Development Authority is to sell the waterfront to developers.
"Pedestrian access is critical. How you move people in and around the city core and the waterfront. Anything you add to that capability adds to the texture and interest down here," Meyer said. "It's one key link that's missing from our plans."
Not entirely. The City Council adopted a development plan for the Foss Waterway 13 years ago and in 1998 quietly adopted a 154-page package of amendments. On page 41 - last on a list of 19 recommendations - it says:
"Develop a secure, comfortable form of mechanical pedestrian transportation between the Northwest end of the Foss and downtown. This could be in the form of an elevator, escalator, motorized, ramps or gondola/tram."
The plan goes on to describe a "funicular railway" or two large trams running on a cable, moving people simultaneously up and down the steep hillside between Fireman's Park at South Ninth Street and Dock Street below.
Six years ago, you could argue Fireman's Park made sense as a terminus near the center of commerce. But downtown's center has shifted since then. A future gondola should move people from the former site of the convention center spire at South 17th Street either straight down to the waterfront esplanade next to the future hotel or diagonally north to South 15th Street next to Johnny's Seafood.
That's easily done, said Randy Woolwine, vice president of Doppelmayr CTEC Inc., one of the world's largest creators of gondolas, ski lifts and trams with 8,000 installations on five continents.
Gondola rides - traditionally a fixture at ski resorts- have started catching on as urban people-movers, Woolwine said.
"For a city, people are starting to realize it saves you from installing costly parking lots that use up valuable land and provides a tremendous convenience for the city," he said.
Lisbon, Portugal, installed one for the 1998 World's Fair. Rostock, a German port on the Baltic Sea, installed one last year along its Warnow River waterfront to carry tourists to its international horticulture show. The Niagara Parks Commission in Ontario, Canada, plans a $23 million, 3,800-foot sky ride with eight-passenger gondolas along the Niagara Falls gorge. The city of Portland plans a gondola connection between a hillside hospital and a medical research center in the North Macadam District.
In a 2002 report on Portland's gondola, a consultant stated that "the potential of a well-designed ropeway system - whether an aerial tramway or a gondola - to enhance the image of ... Portland is significant and should not be overlooked."
If you've read this far, you're probably wondering: How can Tacoma afford it? It can, and it won't cost you a penny more - unless you want to ride it.
Rider fees could pay for the annual operations.
Remember that Tacoma set aside $3 million for the $8 million spire, which will never be built. There's half.
Two minor changes to a law the Legislature passed to earmark a state sales tax rebate for the convention center would raise the rest. It's money that otherwise goes to the state.
Tacoma, Pierce County, Lakewood, University Place and Fife - as contiguous jurisdictions - already designate their sales tax rebate to the convention center.
The law would need to allow other cities - chiefly Federal Way, Puyallup, Sumner and Bonney Lake - to chip in too and broaden the uses for the money to include transportation links to the convention center. Logical and easy. Throw in naming rights and you can build it.
Let's hope Tacoma hasn't forgotten how to think big and bold. We haven't forgotten how blending innovation with a practical need once made us Tacoma's No. 1 Wired City, have we?
A sure bet on SkyLink would answer that question.
Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785
dan.voelpel@mail.tribnet.com
Tacoma SkyLink
Length: 3,000 feet
Towers: 10
Gondolas: 16 eight-passenger gondolas
Speed: 1,000 feet per minute
Peak capacity: 1,000 passengers an hour
Cost: $6 million (construction), $1 million per year (operations and maintenance)
Staff: An estimated 15-18 to operate and maintain
Down time: One week, two times per year for maintenance
SOURCE: Doppelmayr CTEC Inc., Golden, Colo.
Well it sounds like Bill will have a new toy in town to play with and keep him busy on those weekends. :) However, I don't understand how it would cost $1 million to run each year. Someone messed up doing the math I think. :help:
