This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

 

By Elissaveta M. Brandon

Back in 2010, a team of Bulgarian architects designed an urban transit concept for bike lanes in the sky. Known as Kolelinia (roughly translated as “bike line”), the proposal envisioned two kinds of wires stretched high above the street: a special cable for bike wheels to latch onto with a safety cable above. The concept was wild—so much so that eventually it was repurposed as an adventure park attraction. Those same architects are now back with another provocative proposal called Halfgrid.  

This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

 
 

This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

[Image: courtesy Half Company]

Like Kolelinia, Halfgrid is an elevated transit system, but instead of having precariously balanced bikes, the architects designed full-size cabins that slide on steel cables. As designed, the cabins can hold up to two people and are controlled by a centralized AI system. In an Uber-meets-urban gondolas kind of scenario, people would use an app to book a cabin, climb in on designated stops, and glide to their destination in style.

[Image: courtesy Half Company]

Skeptics might wave this off as yet another absurd mobility solution, but as a concept, the idea has its merits. For starters, it can help lower car dependency and reduce traffic congestion in cities; it can also be used to transport goods, alleviating last-mile delivery issues and the resulting congestion. Plus, in an era in which we’re burrowing single-lane highways for cars to zip through below ground, is anything ever that absurd anymore?  

Halfgrid was designed by Half Company, a team of architects, designers, and engineers perhaps best known for its unconventional Halfbike, a hybrid between a unicycle and a skateboard. Halfgrid is an intriguing spin on the urban gondolas that such cities as Medellín, Colombia, and Brest, France, have implemented, where a hilly terrain or even an awkwardly angled highway have led urban planners to borrow from alpine architecture to solve non-alpine problems like car dependency and traffic.

 

This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

[Image: courtesy Half Company]

With Halfgrid, the goal is the same: to alleviate car traffic with a transit system that has (almost) all of the convenience and (almost) none of the carbon footprint of a single car ride. Unlike self-driving vehicles, which are currently being tested around streets of Miami, Austin, and Bellevue, Washington, Halfgrid exists in a controlled environment (think no jaywalking pedestrians or reckless drivers burning a red light). And by elevating transit, the system frees up street space, which can be given back to people in the form of parks and public spaces. “Elon Musk tries to dig tunnels under cities, we’re trying to do the opposite,” says Martin Angelov, an architect and the founder of Half Company, “but we try to make it as human-scale as possible.”

Angelov explains that Halfgrid would run on a network of cables that are attached to a minimal supporting structure, punctuated by designated stops, much like those on a trolleybus route. Capsules are suspended from the cables and controlled by tiny autonomous bots, which Angelov likens to “small electric vehicles.” Unlike most gondola systems and other ropeways that move with the cabins, the cables stay still while the capsules travel along them, which allows for simpler hardware and making it easier for cabins to turn a corner, says Angelov.

This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

[Image: courtesy Half Company]

The architects have two main ideas for how cities could use Halfgrid. As public transport, riders could input their destination on an app, let the system calculate the optimal route, and a cabin would pick them up at the nearest stop. As a delivery system, companies like DHL or Amazon could use Halfgrid for last-mile deliveries, replacing fuel-guzzling trucks with whizzing electric capsules that would pick up packages from distribution centers and dole them out to smaller hubs within cities where they could finish their journey on e-bikes. “It’s all about making cities more livable, more human-oriented, because we all know that now, all cities are designed and built around the car,” says Angelov.

 

It’s a futuristic concept with some big questions to answer before it becomes a reality. For instance, what would our cities feel like with cabins zooming above our heads? What happens if the system fails and cabins get stuck in the air? How much infrastructure will be necessary to support the cabins and the space needed to implement stops along the sidewalk? But in terms of manufacturing, Angelov believes the technology is already here. “I think it’s a very realistic thing in terms of hardware,” he says. “The real challenge would be the software and managing system, and the political will of a city to implement it even for testing purposes.”

This wild public transit concept is Uber-meets-urban gondolas

[Image: courtesy Half Company]

Angelov thinks a company campus could be a realistic first candidate for a pilot project. Big concert venues could also benefit, especially in places where the footprint doesn’t allow for large parking lots nearby. The reality is, if the concept ever sees the light of day, it’s most likely because a cash-rich company looking to make an impression would be first to adopt it. Just look at what happened with London’s Emirates cable car, which Emirates sponsored just ahead the 2012 Olympic Games.

If the concept ever makes it to the public realm, the applications could be endless, even if it starts with a micro-neighborhood experiment. And if all else fails? Perhaps Halfgrid could become the next big thing in city tourism. Hop-on, hop-off cabins, anyone?

Fast Company

(9)