Quote:
Originally Posted by ardecila
1. Air space would be taken over, preventing construction of high rises.
>Couldn't you just build the gondolas over existing roads? Besides, these systems would be built in cities with under a million people - which don't really have huge demand for high-rises.
|
I envisioned this type of transporation to be built in a city like Toledo (where I currently live). There is a need for easy, efficient transit, but we don't have the demand or resources to built light rail. Somewhat similarly sized cities also find themselves in the same situation: Louisville, Memphis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Birmingham, etc. I don't see this working in places like New York/Chicago/Atlanta/DC because their downtowns are already so dense that the number of riders would swamp the gondolas/trams. Smaller cities, however, wouldn't have the demand to swamp the system to the point of making it useless.
The argument about preventing the construction of high rises is more pertinent with rail transit because in addition to stations taking up space, the rail itself takes up land. With gondolas/trams the right-of-way over the road would be used which would mean only the stations really use real estate. Of course, high rise building in Toledo isn't exactly going gangbusters now.