Channel 2 Investigates

Trains, buses ... gondolas? Transit options to improve your commute

By Craig Lucie
By Craig Lucie

PORTLAND, Ore. — Talk about a crazy commute: In some cities, people get to work by using airborne trams or gondolas.

Channel 2's Craig Lucie learned commuters in two U.S. cities already use air trams to get to work, and more city planners are studying it as a mass transit option.

Lucie went to Portland, Oregon, to learn how an air tram helps commuters in that city.

Portland is a city with a myriad of transit options: In a one block area you can see street cars, light rail and so many bicycles that parking lots have valet parking for bikes.

The city still has vehicular traffic, but Portland planners don't encourage it. In fact, the latest bridge built there allows mass transit, pedestrians and cyclists, but cars are banned.

Still, the most unusual piece of the city's transportation puzzle: The Portland Aerial Tram.

"Going to work is like Disneyland every day," Angelica Jackman told Channel 2 Action News.

Many of the airway tram commuters work at hospitals on top of Marquam Hill. They grab the tram from the South Waterfront District and spend four minutes gliding above traffic on the ground as well as a residential neighborhood.

"It's a pretty unique way to get to and from work every day," said Kyle Eveland-Dewan.

The tram is 10 years old now, but in the beginning, building the $57 million system was an uphill climb.

Leah Treat, the director of the Portland Bureau of Transportation, explains why.

"It's not cheap infrastructure to build, so I don't think it's the thing that people lean to immediately,” she said.

These days, people pack the trams, especially during rush hour. And the aerial tram was invaluable last winter when record-breaking snow and ice threatened to freeze traffic.

"Our streetcar had to shut down intermittently. Transit lines weren't working. But throughout the entire winter, the aerial tram never stopped operating," Treat said.

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No surprise, according to Ray Gardner.

"They were originally designed to be ski lifts,” he said.

Gardner works for Doppelmayr, the company that made the aerial tram. Gardner used to live in Metro Atlanta and says when he was stuck in traffic here, he'd imagine what aerial trams could do for commuters.

"Being a ski life guy, I'd look at this and think, 'Well, I could span all this,'" he said.

In Georgia, you’ll only see an aerial tram at a tourist spot like Summit Skyride on Stone Mountain. But worldwide, it is not an unusual mode of transportation. There are hundreds in different countries.

Some American cities are looking at whether aerial trams or gondolas could solve mass transit problems. And a lot of those cities have asked Portland how that city does it.

"We've most recently talked to Washington, D.C.," Portland's director of transportation said.

While some may think this is an odd idea, Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul said thinking outside the box is important.

"We have to think in the third dimension. We've got to go up, somehow," Paul said.

He's floated the idea of a gondola, and he also likes the idea of building a monorail.

But first, he says we need a metro-wide plan that plots out exactly where we want to go before we decide on the best transit technology to get us there.

"It may be a form of gondola. It may be a monorail type. It may be bus, light rail, heavy rail. It may be something that hasn't been invented yet," Paul said.

 

Cox Media Group

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