$1:
Anyone who's spent years fighting big city gridlock has probably fantasized, at some point, about a viable alternative to ground traffic.
And while engineers have yet to come up with a Jetsons-style air car that can soar through the sky unfettered by gravity, a small pocket of Canadian cities are considering gondola transit — a network of cable cars that could transport commuters across town with an aerial view of the growing vehicle buildup below.
As the Toronto Star reports, a number of international cities have already adopted the gondola system, also known as cable-propelled transit (CPT), which can move up to 6,000 passengers per hour through a channel of motorless, engineless cars in the sky.
The cars are attached by grips, supported from above by a steel cable, and propelled by an off-board engine.
For environmentalists, the paper says the system's use of electricity rather than diesel fuel also provides a cleaner ride.
The technology has proved particularly attractive to places with mountainous terrain: Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil have already incorporated a form of CPT to favourable results.
Similar projects are currently underway in London, Algeria, and Germany.
In Canada, Vancouver, Calgary, and Laval, Que. have expressed interest in learning more about the airborne transit alternative.
"It's not out of the blue. A number of jurisdictions around the world have started using this as a public transit mode," University of Toronto transportation engineer Amer Shalaby told the Star, adding that at its rush hour peak Toronto's busy Queen streetcar line carries only 1,800 passengers, while neighbourhood bus routes peak at 300.
Vancouver will release a business case this month for a CPT system that would run up Burnaby Mountain to Simon Fraser University and a residential complex close by.
TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie said treacherous weather conditions during the winter months made for a strong argument.
"Because it's on top of a mountain, it gets snow before ground level. Right now we serve the university with very large articulated buses that have to go up and down that hill. There are 10 to 15 days a year they can't make it to campus because road conditions are so poor," he said.
Hardie also pointed out the success of the Peak 2 Peak gondola in Whistler, a system that uses new three-rope technology to make its cars faster and more stable against wind resistance.
In Laval, the city has issued a request for studies examining the benefits of cable car that would link their Metro with a shopping and entertainment complex.
Calgary briefly considered a gondola to connect its C-train to hospitals and the university, but the city decided to focus instead on expanding its light rail and ground transportation.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybre ... 37216.htmlI don't know about in cities with extreme temperatures in winter (Edmonton and Calgary), but it sounds like it might work in other cities - what do you think?
CKA Uber 
CKA Elite 
![[B-o]](./images/smilies/drinkup.gif "Drink up")
