Gondolas Over LA - Are We Ready for Them?

PixabayPhoto byalandsmann

When one hears the word gondola one immediately thinks of Venice Italy and the small boats taxiing tourists around that ancient city.

But for Los Angeles, it speaks to a whole different vehicle. In our case a small cabin/car suspended by cables that transports people from one location to another. Like the base of a mountain up to the top of a ski run. Or for LA, transporting fans from Union Station to Dodger Stadium.

This system has been proposed and is gaining traction to move forward or to be set aside for further study, depending on what source you are talking to.

Dodger Stadium is situated in Elysian Park, nestled atop a hillside looking down over China Town and Downtown LA. Also called Chavez Ravine by some, it was built in 1962 to house the new Los Angeles Dodgers who had emigrated from Ebbets Field in Brooklyn New York a short time before then.

On games days thousands of vehicles make their way up to Dodger Stadium. There are main arteries that direct the traffic to the stadium, but everyone has their favorite or even secret route used to bypass the long lines that turn otherwise quiet neighborhoods into moving parking lots.

The proposed gondola system will be able to transport up to 5000 fans per hour to the stadium. Eliminating by some reports up to 3000 cars that make their way up the hill hours before game time.

Avoiding freeways like the 5, 110, and 10 that get clogged during game days makes a great deal of sense to many but for some, the system will become a blight on neighborhoods leading up to stadium, particularly in the Chinatown area.

The system was initially proposed by Frank McCourt, former owner of the LA Dodgers, and his Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit company. But over the last year, the project has been donated to Climate Resolve, and its subsidiary, Zero Emissions Transit, a Downtown LA-based company with a focus on helping the city reach zero emissions and other climate-related initiatives.

A draft EIR or Environment Impact Report was issued earlier this year and is still in the review stages.

Los Angeles will be hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics and the gondola system will be put to great advantage as one way of transporting people from one venue to another. The system will also provide free transport to ticketed Dodger fans on game days. These are two reasons for the continuing support it's receiving from different quarters throughout the city.

However, the gondola and the system that moves them are not invisible, and therein lies much of the pushback from city residents and officials. The cables and gondolas will run high above city homes and traffic with towers ranging in height from 179 feet at Dodger Stadium to 84 feet at the Broadway Junction station. With the Alameda and Alpine towers coming in at 195 feet.

To give you some perspective, the City Hall building in downtown LA is 453 feet tall.

Final decisions and funding are far from being completed but it does present an interesting challenge for LA officials and residents. For anyone who lives and works in LA, traffic is always on their minds.

And if there’s an idea that might ease the traffic load and reduce the time spent in one's car, then it will find listeners who will support it. Especially the three million fans who make their way to Dodger games every season.

Go to this page for more updates.