10 replies to this topic

[Peter]

Baltimore to hear plan for ski-lift style gondola service

Picture floating high above Pratt Street in a ski-lift style gondola, soaring over the Inner Harbor on a seven-minute journey from the Convention Center to Fells Point.

Trey Winstead of Winstead Brothers LLC has been studying, planning and engineering such a 1.3-mile route along overhead cables for six years. Now, along with his brother Peter Winstead, he's ready to pitch the plan to put Baltimore on the cutting edge of urban aerial transit to the city's design panel.

"This is going to be the best new attraction in the country," said Winstead, a civil engineer who came up with the idea with his brother after they moved to downtown Baltimore in 2002. "It will help put us on the map as an extremely innovative city."

Unusual transit ideas are nothing new for the Inner Harbor, but they've remained just that -- ideas. City officials backed an elevated "people mover" in the 1970s, before Harborplace was built, but never came up with the funding. Then a similar idea arose, and fizzled in the early 1990s when Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened.

The Winsteads have spent the past several years promoting their vision of a $40 million privately operated system called Baltimore's SkyLine as efficient and environmentally friendly and an ideal connector to light rail, shuttles and the proposed public transit Red Line. Since completing a $38,000 state-funded ridership study more than a year ago, they've lined up investors and put together a construction and design team.

Now, they need the backing of the city.

Winstead met about a month ago with Mayor Sheila Dixon, and on Thursday, will show his proposal to the city's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel.

"It's certainly an intriguing idea," said Sterling Clifford, a Dixon spokesman. But "there are a great many unanswered questions."

The mayor's office is reviewing comments from city agencies and hopes to make a decision on whether to support the gondola proposal in the next 60 days, Deputy Mayor Andrew Frank said Tuesday.

To build the system, the team would need a franchise agreement approved by the City Council allowing four terminals and 20 supporting poles to be built on the public right of way, Frank said.

Some concerns

"We're very impressed with what the team has put together," Frank said. "They have a thorough and compelling presentation about the benefits of aerial gondolas. There are some concerns -- most notably surrounding the aesthetics of 20 or so (support) poles constructed from east to west."

The team, which Trey Winstead said includes Whiting Turner Contracting Co. and Banks Contracting Co. as contractors and San Antonio-based Overland Partners as architects, will likely get some feedback on the aesthetics from the design panel on Thursday.

As proposed, eight-person cable cars would carry passengers 95 feet above Baltimore's downtown waterfront, arriving every 10 seconds at each of four terminal stops: the Baltimore Convention Center, the World Trade Center, Pier 6 and Thames and Caroline streets in the new Harbor Point development under way between Harbor East and Fells Point.

The brothers project charging $7 for an all-day pass, with a projected 1.9 million riders -- tourists, commuters, students -- a year.

Ski-area business

Grand Junction, Co.,-based Leitner-Poma, which builds cable transportation systems, would build and operate the gondola system. Seventy percent of the company' s worldwide aerial gondola business now comes from ski areas, with 20 percent built for recreation or tourism purposes, said Alain Lazard, who handles special projects for the company.

But 10 percent of the new gondola business --the fastest growing segment -- is to serve as urban transportation. So far no U.S. cities have the gondolas. One system was started in Philadelphia across the Delaware River but has been stalled for years, while another is being studied in New York to take passengers from Manhattan to Governor's Island to Brooklyn, Lazard said.

Small footprint

"They have become more and more sophisticated and more reliable," Lazard said. "The beauty of those systems is they don't interfere with traffic at all, and the footprint is so small."

Other cities with some form of aerial transit include Portland, which runs the Portland Aerial Tram, and New York City's Roosevelt Island Tramway. Both systems use trams, which carry more passengers than the smaller gondolas.

Winstead said if the necessary city approvals come though, the system could be built in 18 months and up and running by the end of next year.

"We'd be the quickest and cheapest way through the Inner Harbor," he said. "We'd also be the most fun."

[Peter]

From the article's comments:

"This idea is definitely "up in the air." This may be a stupid question, but how do we get to the gondolas? Do we use elevators, or what?"

"Wonderful idea -- BUT --- remember the air balloon ride at Port Discovery, or the water taxi that flipped? One accident and I bet it'd be shut down. "

"Eight people in a little confined space perched 95 feet above the Harbor, in Baltimore? Will angry middle school students be permitted to ride said gondolas? 95 feet is a long way to fall after being kicked in the face multiple times by six 14 year olds. "

[Snoqualmie guy]

I get the idea you don't like their idea. Maybe they should just make a tram like Portland.

[Lift Dinosaur]

Skier, on Mar 12 2008, 07:25 PM, said:

"Eight people in a little confined space perched 95 feet above the Harbor, in Baltimore? Will angry middle school students be permitted to ride said gondolas? 95 feet is a long way to fall after being kicked in the face multiple times by six 14 year olds. "

Ahh, and we thought we had problems. I guess we just don't understand the problems of the inter-city "being 95 feet above the ground and being kicked in the face multiple times by six 14 year olds."

Bummer-
Dino

This post has been edited by Lift Dinosaur: 12 March 2008 - 06:41 PM

[Peter]

If you read what I posted, those are quotes from the article's comment section, hence the quote marks.

[lastchair_44]

Skier, on Mar 12 2008, 07:25 PM, said:

From the article's comments:

"This idea is definitely "up in the air." This may be a stupid question, but how do we get to the gondolas? Do we use elevators, or what?"

"Wonderful idea -- BUT --- remember the air balloon ride at Port Discovery, or the water taxi that flipped? One accident and I bet it'd be shut down. "
Aren't aerial ropeways the safest form of transportation?
"Eight people in a little confined space perched 95 feet above the Harbor, in Baltimore? Will angry middle school students be permitted to ride said gondolas? 95 feet is a long way to fall after being kicked in the face multiple times by six 14 year olds. "
Sounds kinda scary, but the doors do lock...I wonder if this guy has really been kicked in the face by angry middle school students? Does anyone know how many people they're trying to move per hour??? Maybe a tram would be a better idea...at least the operator could keep an eye on the vicious middle school children.

[aug]

can we sing the Monorail song " what this town needs is a Monorail!!!"

[lastchair_44]

aug, on Mar 13 2008, 05:27 AM, said:

can we sing the Monorail song " what this town needs is a Monorail!!!"

Hasn't Vegas had financial troubles with theirs?

Edit:
Looks like they had a rough start due to mechanical/electrical issues, but they're doing better now.
http://en.wikipedia...._Vegas_Monorail

[skierdude9450]

aug, on Mar 13 2008, 06:27 AM, said:

can we sing the Monorail song " what this town needs is a Monorail!!!"

♫ Monorail... ♫

♫ Monorail... ♫

♫ MONORAIL ♫

Monorail!!



Mono... D'oh!

This post has been edited by skierdude9450: 13 March 2008 - 07:42 PM

[chasl]

Hasn't Vegas had financial troubles with theirs?

Edit:
Looks like they had a rough start due to mechanical/electrical issues, but they're doing better now.


I believe in the Las Vegas area (I am including state line) there are 7 cable drawn or self propelled systems or as many people like to call them monorails.
Only one has had any problems and that one was designed by Bombardier, enough said, Although their planes are pretty good.

I personally believe the Las Vegas monorail will always have trouble financially, for years all of these systems in the Las Vegas area were free to ride. And them this company comes along and wants to charge for riding to “Where” the system really goes nowhere,
unless, you count the convention center.
So what is the purpose? Secondly when I was watching the county board meetings in Las Vegas you could not believe the rider ship numbers they were throwing out, unbelievable. At the time I felt the numbers were high by at least ½. After the first week of running, time showed the rider ship numbers even worse than that. So financial problems were really not a surprise.

This post has been edited by chasl: 13 March 2008 - 10:56 PM

[aug]

skierdude9450, on Mar 13 2008, 07:41 PM, said:

♫ Monorail... ♫

♫ Monorail... ♫

♫ MONORAIL ♫

Monorail!!



Mono... D'oh!

Thanks for the laugh....