GONDOLAS AS TRANSIT OPTIONS
They’re best way to link North Shore, Vancouver, says Richard Littlemore.
North Vancouver District Mayor Darrell Mussatto has started an interesting conversation about improving transportation to the North Shore, suggesting the region should consider running rapid transit through a tunnel under Burrard Inlet. But maybe there’s a better option.
A transit gondola would be a fraction of the cost, easier to build, cheaper to operate and have a lower environmental footprint, forever.
I anticipate that this idea may inspire a certain amount of eye-rolling, but there’s evidence that a gondola could be a practical and affordable option. Let’s consider both obstacles and possibilities.
The first obstacle is distance: the SeaBus (which connects the two most obvious passenger transportation centres in Vancouver and North Vancouver) plies a 3.24-kilometre crossing. The Sun recently quoted University of B.C. engineering professor Erik Eberhardt, estimating that the cost of tunnelling “a few kilometres” under the harbour would be about $1 billion. And that, presumably, is just for the tunnel; never mind the expensive rail links, passenger infrastructure and rolling stock.
But the Peak2Peak gondola at Whistler, which runs 4.4 kilometres with a single span of 3.06 kilometres, cost just $51 million in 2008. It can be done.
What of capacity? The SeaBus daily ridership is around 17,000. Whereas, the $234-million, 11-kilometre Mi Teleferico transit gondola, which opened in 2014 in La Paz, Bolivia, can carry 18,000 passengers an hour.
A better example might be found in the 2011 why-isn’tthat-built-yet business case for an SFU transit gondola, connecting from the Production Way SkyTrain station in Burnaby up to Simon Fraser University and the mountaintop community of UniverCity. In a study conducted for TransLink, the consulting firm CH2M estimated the cost for a 2.7-kilometre “cable-propelled transit system” at $120 million. Cabins carrying 35 passengers each would depart every 34 seconds, covering the distance in seven minutes (less than half what it takes a diesel bus to grind up the mountain). That would deliver 3,341 persons per hour per direction, or 48,600 daily boardings. With such a system, you could park all the SeaBuses and triple service to the North Shore. And no waiting. Ever.
What about height? You can’t have gondola cables hanging in front of cruise ships and (heaven save us) oil freighters. OK, here’s where it gets tricky, and potentially a lot more expensive. On the plus side, the minimum required height would only be 61 metres, which is the clearance under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, a permanent limiting factor for all Burrard Inlet shipping. That doesn’t seem so bad. One of the Peak2Peak towers is 65 metres and Doppelmayr is currently working on a 7.9-kilometre system to Hon Thom Island in Vietnam that has towers as high as 160 metres.
But there’s the wrinkle; gondola cables sag. And the longer the span, the greater the sag. The Peak2Peak, for example, sags 400 metres.
So, now you have to start talking about dropping a very tall tower (or two) into Burrard Inlet, which is technically feasible (the inlet is only 45 metres at the deepest point), but unlikely to win any applause from the shippers, the Harbour Air pilots and the port authoritarians who would prefer to keep those waters clear. Still, everyone involved might ultimately find a couple of stationary obstacles easier to manage than having to navigate around an increasing number of SeaBuses running back and forth every 15 minutes.
The bottom line is that, relative to all the alternatives, gondolas are cheap to build and cheaper to run. Annual budget for the Burnaby Mountain version was estimated at between $3 million and $5 million. Compare that to the 2017 SeaBus budget of $11.6 million. CH2M also found that the all-electric, low-resistance gondola system would reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 7,000 tonnes, give or take.
So, imagine walking through the old train station on Cordova straight onto a gondola and landing, nine minutes later, on the roof of Lonsdale Quay, for a quick elevator ride down to the buses or a reduced climb up to your condo in Lower Lonsdale. Quick, clean, beautiful and reliable in all weather.
CH2M already identified the SFU gondola as a slam dunk. TransLink might hurry that one into service, and add this one to the list.