Gondolas For the People

Aug 2, 2011 at 14:58

Automobiles and bicycles share an oddly dependent, deeply ironic relationship. Unless you live at the edge of a trail system, or anywhere near a bike park, it's fairly difficult to not drive before you ride. There's a boon in trailer hitch racks and truck pads for a reason. Shuttling, of course, is the most overt offender. But it doesn't end there. Problem is, riding bikes in 2011 is just way too fun to let a conscience get in the way.


The truth of the matter though, is that bikes and cars really shouldn't go together. Kind of like ice cream and obesity, or abusive parents and prodigal kids. One element is astoundingly good, the other terrifically bad. Put the two together and you’re not making any real progress. And yet, when you look closely at the sport of mountain biking, even the whole of cycling for that matter (in the developed world anyway), it's almost impossible to ride a bike without a car. Which, when you break it down a little further, is akin to saving and sorting all of your recycling before burning it all in the fireplace. Which is what probably already happens, but that's another story.


Think about it. We're riding bicycles! That's right, the bicycle, a 18th Century solution to a 21st Century problem. It is a most marvelous invention – circles turning circles, propelled by another bit of design genius, the human engine. Consider this: when a human being gets on a bike we become the most efficient animal on the planet. That is to say the energy required to move us, say five kilometres (approximately the calories in one apple) is the least amount required by any animal to move that same distance. If that weren’t a sweet bean enough for you, when a human gets on a bike, the bicycle itself becomes the most efficient machine on the planet. That is to say, the energy required to move the same distance is the least required by any mechanical invention on earth.


So here we are, as modern world cyclists, driving to ride. Exempt are the growing legions of bike commuters who transport everything from kids to building supplies by bike. And it's not just shuttling, although that seems to be the most extreme offense. Dedicated cyclists still load their 22-pound cross-country steeds and drive an hour out of town to hammer trail. Even road bikers mount their über efficient carbon fibre asphalt missiles onto the car and drive on a road to another network of road to, you guessed it, ride road.

But it's more an infrastructure thing more than a personal choice. We built this world around the car, not the bike. Of the millions of commuter trips made every year in the United States, less than one percent are made by bicycle. No, the bike, for all intents and purposes, is just for fun.


Which is great. To bike defines fun. The most fun. Just really sucks that it comes with a fossil fuel prerequisite. But couldn't that be changed?

Enter the gondola. Whizzing along on low emission electricity, load em up 4, 8, 10, 20 at a time and go crazy. Visit a country like Switzerland, where gondolas dart up every second valley and for the recreational rider the car becomes a non issue. Back in North America, sure, there's the odd gondola, but it's more of a resort experience that's hard to get to and hard to stay at without significant cash or local residency. That being said, for anyone who's ever spent any time at a bike park, you know they're the business.


Gondolas for the People, people. And if you think it's a pipe dream anywhere outside of Europe, think again. Portland has a beauty of gondola that travels 500 vertical feet from downtown to a hill top university. Four bucks a ride, free to students. Maybe not a huge trail network, but it's a start. Sounds like it ran over budget and pissed some locals off, but forget about that. If we could only dream for a second….

Consider the money communities spend on infrastructure, stuff like hockey rinks, soccer fields, aquatic centers. Facilities for fun, funded by public monies. Designed and built for the people, they're made affordable, solely purposed for the good of society. Subsidized? Damn straight. They're not positioned to be marketable experiences or tourist attractions designed to make profit--although those monies would most assuredly help. Just a simple, cheap as you can make it, pay for itself one day lift -- a tramway to good times. Get us off the car so we can focus our trail building attentions and infrastructure around one sustainable network, both the up and the down. Imagine texting your buddy on a Tuesday afternoon, "See you at the gondola in 20." It'd be the best.


I guess the sad part is, could it ever happen? Could towns like Nelson, British Columbia, Fruita, Colorado, Moab, Utah, San Fransisco, California, or Bellingham, Washington ever have community run, super high-efficient, self-loading gondolas, trams, chairlifts, or monorails that were recreationally oriented? Hop in from the city center and get whisked away to the heart of a wicked trail system. Runners, hikers, jump on board. Old people and little tykes too. Get a season's pass for $100 bucks. Users help build the trails (or do what Switzerland does, get people with small misdemeanors to do the work as part of their community service).


It’s all there. Take a fraction out of military spending by most countries and we’d have gondolas by the hundreds. The bicycle is a fairly harsh draw out of the environment. It takes factories, plastics, metals and boatloads of energy just to make one. But its potential to make good on that ecological investment is much greater than the cost. We all know this. All that goodness seems somewhat lessened, however, when we're constantly forced to toss the sucker into the car every time we want to go for a ride.

Time for some solutions.