I saw an interesting idea being proposed in Boston on the boston.com page. They are considering building an overhead gondola "ski style" cable car system that will connect the expanding Sea Port District[South Boston] with Downtown. The traditional transit types do not really like the idea but I think it is innovative and kind of cool besides. What about a gondola cable car east-west line from Downtown or the Lansing Mall out the East Lansing and Okemos. Let's think above the box!
Unfortunately gondolas have limited capacity, poor frequency, limited stops, and high up-front costs. They are best suited for mountains or very steep hills. Grade-level and below grade transit is still much cheaper without all those negatives. I've used the Roosevelt Island tram in New York multiple times, and while being a nice date idea, it fails to connect with the other mass transit systems (no close subway on the Manhattan side and no ticket transfer either ) and thus is more of a nice gimmick for when the F train is having issues.
I've also noticed I can walk about just as fast as the gondolas in Cedar Point.
CATA really should work on connecting the different spokes at the outer edge instead of only relying on the hub-and-spoke model.
I think the case in Boston is that the new growing Seaport area is on a peninsula across the harbor from downtown, with traffic choke points at the bridges. Go over those points without adding more traffic to the street level is the idea. It was just being proposed but the story said that the capacity was around 9 people per car running continuously for 18 hours a day could carry 15,000 riders. I was not thinking it would be fast but it would be easy to use and I am sure a cable car system for an urban area would be built for heavy use and run faster than an amusement park ride. I was just dreaming about a solution that would get people across town other than by car or bus, maybe something in itself [a great view from a cable gondola car ride]would attract people who just want to see it and ride on it. In Racine WI they rebuilt a streetcar line and use refurbished vintage streetcars on that line, so a transit/tourist line is not "that crazy"!
Cost per ride for public transit is almost always at a loss, but the measurement doesn't include economic impact and the reduction of traffic through ride sharing. Most of those press releases are designed to reduce confidence in public transit.
Those are all great news! The Dunckel turn is such a high speed and seemingly dangerous corner. I wouldn't want to bike on the street in that section so a sidewalk there will be a tremendous help for anyone who isn't feeling confident with the traffic there.
Good to hear that the river trail will get the maintenance that is due. It's not enough to expand when we also need to maintain what we already have.
It is really great that they are repaving Walnut and Pine streets. I wish they would just go up and down every street downtown with that milling machine. Capitol Ave is really bad from one end to the other.
This may sound unlikely but I wonder if the city of Lansing could sponsor some sort of raffle to help fund the road work that needs to be done. Maybe they could get GM to donate some vehicles as prizes. When I read that the Mayor was putting $150,000 into the road repair budget and that this is a small amount of the $250 million they would need to keep the road at their current level [poor] I think it's time to start thinking of ways to find that money. It seems like the Feds. and the State is doling out an amount of money that will not be near enough to fix our roads, so we need to do it ourselves. Maybe some sort of contest with prizes could raise money without raising taxes. My other thought is perhaps the city could get businesses and neighborhood associations to sponsor the streets leading to their businesses and neighborhoods, and help pay for repairing and maintenance of those streets.
I feel so pessimistic about this situation with the quality of our roads. The raffle would just be another form of a tax (like the lottery). Sponsored roads just mean that the richer areas of the city have a better quality of life. This is what our taxes are already supposed to be for.
Sorry, I just can't help but continue to point out that this should really be a solved issue. We may need to vacate some roads with population decline, but otherwise with proper leadership in the Capital then we should have been able to keep these roads up to par over the years
I agree with Jared that roads should have never fallen into the disrepair that they're in now, the fact that other states with similar climates can manage to have much better roads makes any excuses by Michigan's leaders hard to swallow. The situation now is bad, it seems likely it will take a long time to bring our roads up to par.
On another note, I'm really glad to see Pine St in particular being repaved, it's in really rough shape south of the Capitol Complex.
Comments
I saw an interesting idea being proposed in Boston on the boston.com page. They are considering building an overhead gondola "ski style" cable car system that will connect the expanding Sea Port District[South Boston] with Downtown. The traditional transit types do not really like the idea but I think it is innovative and kind of cool besides. What about a gondola cable car east-west line from Downtown or the Lansing Mall out the East Lansing and Okemos. Let's think above the box!
Unfortunately gondolas have limited capacity, poor frequency, limited stops, and high up-front costs. They are best suited for mountains or very steep hills. Grade-level and below grade transit is still much cheaper without all those negatives. I've used the Roosevelt Island tram in New York multiple times, and while being a nice date idea, it fails to connect with the other mass transit systems (no close subway on the Manhattan side and no ticket transfer either ) and thus is more of a nice gimmick for when the F train is having issues.
I've also noticed I can walk about just as fast as the gondolas in Cedar Point.
CATA really should work on connecting the different spokes at the outer edge instead of only relying on the hub-and-spoke model.
I think the case in Boston is that the new growing Seaport area is on a peninsula across the harbor from downtown, with traffic choke points at the bridges. Go over those points without adding more traffic to the street level is the idea. It was just being proposed but the story said that the capacity was around 9 people per car running continuously for 18 hours a day could carry 15,000 riders. I was not thinking it would be fast but it would be easy to use and I am sure a cable car system for an urban area would be built for heavy use and run faster than an amusement park ride. I was just dreaming about a solution that would get people across town other than by car or bus, maybe something in itself [a great view from a cable gondola car ride]would attract people who just want to see it and ride on it. In Racine WI they rebuilt a streetcar line and use refurbished vintage streetcars on that line, so a transit/tourist line is not "that crazy"!
CATA average cost per trip (to CATA) $3.49, average fare per trip $0.61: https://www.nationaltransitdatabase.org/michigan/capital-area-transportation-authority/ . (PS - Detroit People Mover is losing $9.89 per trip by that website.)
It is great to see a project actually getting underway.
Those are all great news! The Dunckel turn is such a high speed and seemingly dangerous corner. I wouldn't want to bike on the street in that section so a sidewalk there will be a tremendous help for anyone who isn't feeling confident with the traffic there.
Good to hear that the river trail will get the maintenance that is due. It's not enough to expand when we also need to maintain what we already have.
It is really great that they are repaving Walnut and Pine streets. I wish they would just go up and down every street downtown with that milling machine. Capitol Ave is really bad from one end to the other.
This may sound unlikely but I wonder if the city of Lansing could sponsor some sort of raffle to help fund the road work that needs to be done. Maybe they could get GM to donate some vehicles as prizes. When I read that the Mayor was putting $150,000 into the road repair budget and that this is a small amount of the $250 million they would need to keep the road at their current level [poor] I think it's time to start thinking of ways to find that money. It seems like the Feds. and the State is doling out an amount of money that will not be near enough to fix our roads, so we need to do it ourselves. Maybe some sort of contest with prizes could raise money without raising taxes. My other thought is perhaps the city could get businesses and neighborhood associations to sponsor the streets leading to their businesses and neighborhoods, and help pay for repairing and maintenance of those streets.
I feel so pessimistic about this situation with the quality of our roads. The raffle would just be another form of a tax (like the lottery). Sponsored roads just mean that the richer areas of the city have a better quality of life. This is what our taxes are already supposed to be for.
Sorry, I just can't help but continue to point out that this should really be a solved issue. We may need to vacate some roads with population decline, but otherwise with proper leadership in the Capital then we should have been able to keep these roads up to par over the years
I agree with Jared that roads should have never fallen into the disrepair that they're in now, the fact that other states with similar climates can manage to have much better roads makes any excuses by Michigan's leaders hard to swallow. The situation now is bad, it seems likely it will take a long time to bring our roads up to par.
On another note, I'm really glad to see Pine St in particular being repaved, it's in really rough shape south of the Capitol Complex.