Proposed System

Some Aerial Advantages

The Lake Tahoe Truckee area needs a modern and convenient public transportation system to supplement the current surface-based systems. The greater Truckee / North Tahoe Area is the economic and social center of the region. Offering adequate and environmentally friendly access to the region’s many recreational, employment, and educational opportunities is key to the long-term health and vitality of the region. The aerial tramway system proposed is one approach to solving the long term transportation needs of locals and visitors in a way that reduces our reliance on automobiles and imported fossil fuel.  The advantages in running the lines above ground are:

• Lower right of way costs (compared to paved roads), 

• Reduced land use footprint and impacts, 

• Less snow removal and maintenance costs, and 

• More point-to-point access in an area that is really a set of towns, ski resorts, and service areas that are in effect the spokes of a wheel.Several communities throughout the world have aerial tramway systems for the point-to-point transportation of residents and tourists. Truckee, however, requires a “hub and spokes” pattern to serve the widespread population centers and recreational areas 

Near and Far Term Benefits

The system envisioned offers several potential advantages:

• • The system would be a world-class transit asset in a world-class resort region. 

  • Local residents and international visitors alike could be assured of easily getting on a gondola to their destination every few minutes, unlike waiting for an infrequent and often late bus.

  • This system or one that delivered the same benefits could be the key to future sustainable growth in our region without having to pave over our paradise.

  • The system will be environmentally sound and not require large land-use, energy, or erosion impacts.

  • It will be cost-feasible to build in terms of right of way costs, construction costs, and operating costs compared to more roads or more exotic and costly systems such as monorails.

  • It will be attractive in terms of price and convenience to draw riders away from their cars. 

  • The system will offer timely service and be and available 18/7.

  • The gondolas would allow for the transportation of visitors, area workers, and their baggage and sports equipment far more readily than using a bus. 

Even if you discount these benefits, the downsides of having no transit system are substantial.

• • Our society is facing need to fundamentally change how we conduct “business as usual” in terms of energy use and environmental sustainability. 

  • There is no one “solution” to our energy and transportation problems. At best, this proposed tram system may be only a 20-35% solution to our transit needs, but even that would represent a significant reduction in oil used, pollution emitted, and lives damaged or lost due to road accidents.

  • We are facing a situation of “death by a 1000 paper cuts” in terms of gas costs, pollution, and global warming. In turn, we need to devise thousands of small-scale solutions that are tailored to address our local needs rather than rely on having massive single source, one-size-fits-all solutions. 

  • One of the only sure things is that we will be judged and held accountable for our actions and yes – even for our in-actions in the face of the need to change. 

How This System “Fits the Bill”

• A convenient, affordable, reliable, and environmentally friendly regional transportation system will be vital to the future of the Tahoe Truckee Region as fossil fuels become more expensive and the need for reducing the area’s carbon output becomes more critical.

• 30% of the fossil fuel burnt for energy in America is used for transportation. Even with the fact that large deposits of hard to access oil have been discovered on American soil, the future of fossil fuel-based personal transportation is likely to be a short ride.

• We should have been focused on national and local solutions decades ago and according to climate scientists, now we face these problems with a new urgency. Increasing vehicle fuel efficiencies does not solve the problem, it only allows us to have more cars and continue our destructive patterns. Spending scarce resources on any further developments and improvements to our existing street and highway systems is, in a sense, spending money we do not have to perpetuate a system that is failing us. 

Some Key Assumptions

The need for and the practicality of this type of Aerial Tram system are based on a set of factors and assumptions. The concept used below uses a series of “wheels” (such as in a combo lock) as a mental exercise to roll through the various factors related to current and future transportation needs, public and private transit systems, and their possible “costs.”

Use any method you prefer to look at these issues, but have in mind what is going to benefit the next few generations. In this example, each “wheel” represents an assumed problem and its solution must line up to unlock the problem (or at least solve a major portion). A bus system, for example, won't fill our long-term transportation needs. Adding buses just relies on the same jammed road systems and ever scarcer petroleum based fossil fuels.

• One “wheel” is the future “retail” cost of fuel (including that portion of the national defense budget related to protecting oil deliveries).

• Another “wheel” is the access to rights of way to build roads – complicated by our terrain which limits practical routes. 

• Another “wheel” is the cost to build and maintain and plow these roads for future population growth. 

• Another “wheel” is the need to provide transportation to our regional visitors, our working poor, and our youth. 

• Another “wheel” is whether or not everyone will be able to afford a new electric or hybrid car and whether there will be power to charge them all at once. 

• Another “wheel” is the need to lower the transportation “carbon footprint”. 

• Finally, the last “wheel” represents the likelihood of developing an entire new, more efficient energy and transportation infrastructure before we run out of affordable oil. 

In our mountainous and snow covered region ground-based transportation has several disadvantages: Practical routes are limited by terrain, funds are limited, animal migration paths are impacted, snow removal is a large cost component, road salting and sanding degrade the environment, a single wreck on icy roads ties up the entire transportation corridor. 

The Requirements Must Drive the Design

When looking at the design and implementation of any system, the first step is to define the actual operating requirements of the system – stripping away any preconceived notions including the design of legacy systems. In this proposal, the requirements are to move people and their packages or gear from a variety of locations to a set of destinations. The movement of people and their things does not in fact require roads and cars.

If the requirement is to lower dependence on foreign oil and to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases, roads and cars are actually precluded from the design because they do not meet these criteria.

Our area with its relatively small year-round population dispersed over a miles-wide region cannot afford traditional urban light rail or other high rider density type systems. The land costs and snow removal and topographic constraints make a rail system impractical (at least in the short term). However, on weekends and holidays our region blooms from tens or thousands to well over 100,000 people – all on the same roads – sometimes impossible to navigate in an emergency. Other considerations include:

• • The proposed tram system features the advantages of being “on-demand” - which is important in our harsh weather environment – making it impractical to expect tourists and workers to wait in the snow for a bus. 

  • The elimination of the need for the majority of snow removal from the system avoids a huge on-going cost. 

  • The low staffing requirements and automated nature of the system make significant reductions in labor costs.

  • The area has a lot of staff trained in operating and maintaining these systems. 

Any practical regional transportation system must meet the following requirements:

• • Accommodate increases in both resident and visitor populations.

  • Provide safe, reliable, and timely access to personal transportation.

  • Help avoid the ever-increasing costs of vehicle ownership (car costs, insurance, and health care from accidents and pollution). 

  • Reduce the need for more road building and maintenance and snow removal.

  • Avoid environmental damage to the region and maintain the Lake Tahoe and Truckee River watershed quality standards.

  • Help forestall the projected rise in cost and lower availability of gasoline.

Most of us have been hearing for almost 3 decades about the advent of “clean fusion,” “the hydrogen economy,” “clean coal,” “safe clean nuclear,” “clean solar,” and other promised replacements for the current fossil fuel-based modes of power generation and transportation. To some extent if we wait for these technologies to mature, it will be too little, too late in terms of the costs and impacts of using present modes.

It is vital to start doing something NOW, using existing, proven technologies that could be retrofitted to use different truly “clean” power sources as they are developed and come on line. This simple mechanical system could use electricity from any source and does not rely on a series of new filling or charging stations to work.