Zoo directors all aboard floating train proposal
Toronto Zoo directors are on board with a proposal to magnetically float visitors between animal exhibits.
The board of the city-owned zoo voted unanimously Thursday to signal its willingness to host a magnetic levitation “people mover” system if Edmontonbased Magnovate Technologies can get the proposal off the ground.
Magnovate must now raise $25 million in funding through its own equity plus grants and private investment.
It also needs to secure city and conservation authority approvals and negotiate final terms with zoo staff before an agreement can come back to the board for final approval.
The automated cars would glide, either alone or in clusters, above the track of the defunct monorail that used to take visitors into otherwise inaccessible parts of Canadian Domain and other exhibits.
Magnovate wants to showcase its version of “maglev” technology that uses electromagnets to levitate and propel trains in parts of China and Japan.
The company would pay to build the
five-stop ride and split with the zoo revenue from fees forecast to be $12 to $15 per ride.
After 15 year, s the zoo would get ownership of the ride, with Magnovate on contract to maintain it.
“I think it’s a great idea,” councillor Paul Ainslie, the zoo board chair, told colleagues after Magnovate chief executive Dan Corns answered questions.
Ainslie said the ride itself could become an attraction and boost zoo attendance while promoting environmentally clean technology.
Corns told the board that the zoo ride would be slow-speed but would let the company showcase, for potential buyers and investors, technology that could be used for high-speed trips between cities.
Corns told reporters he expects lining up financing will take at least a year, meaning the earliest the maglev ride could open, if everything goes perfectly, would be around 2022.