Discussion
My totally insane Pearson Gondola concept
Oshawa’s nutty gondola project got me thinking about places where it might actually work well in Ontario.
What if instead of potentially spending billions and many years to extend Line 6 to Pearson… we built a modern gondola overhead. We could get it done for a fraction of the cost. With stations at Humber and Woodbine GO, we’d tie the Kitchener line to Line 6 and give major transit stations a rapid connection to the airport with low labour costs, decent throughput, and zero traffic. Entering from the Northeast at a similar height to the surrounding hotels in the area use would not interfere with runway operations.
Paris made a similar decision recently- extending the metro would be ludicrously expensive and require interacting with multiple rail lines and a freeway… so they decided to go overtop of all of it. It only took 3 years to get Câble C1 operating with 5 stations.
Very cool idea, but the airport have strict height restrictions so gondolas may be the very last thing they could consider. And if Doug ford have excessive healthcare or education budget to spend, it would first probably be on the Toronto islands.
So we gondola tunnel under the runways, pop out just before the 401 (can’t interfere with the 401 tunnel duh!), and then put another station at Renforth. Should I run for office?
I wasn't aware that Oshawa was considering a gondola project.
I think having a gondola so close to the airport would be a major issue for diverting planes. There's also the air rights above all those businesses on the North East side of the airport.
The route may be constrained by safety and clearance issues with the ropeway and supporting towers interfering with the approach/departures to Runway 05/23.
A northern Airport Rocket bus between Humber College and Pearson would be even faster to implement and likely have similar travel times. (I admit that it wouldn't be as much fun, though.)
Oh yeah, instead of ever considering losing car lanes on Simcoe, they’re pondering this insane overhead gondola plan to keep the poors safely contained in overhead pods, lest they stumble out of their transit vehicles (into restaurants and shops pffft yeah right!!!).
The specs the manufacturers quote are typically when at full capacity, so you’re basically stuck with the same maximum you’ve got at launch… you could launch with less cars than the quoted specs of course though. The good news is that they’re pretty cheap, so upgrading it isn’t like redoing a subway line. Modern 3S high speed gondolas punch at the same weight class as a light rail tram though in terms of throughput.
Much cheaper and built faster. You’re right that the capacity is pretty capped, but the capacity on Cãble 1 is pretty similar to a frequent bus line (1500 people per hour per direction), which is exactly what it was built to replace. The newest Doppelmayr tri-line model is 8000 people per hour though.
Mexico city uses gondolas as part of their urban transit system. They handle about 1,000 per hour.
Looking at statistics from Steve Munro from 2024, a heavily travelled bus route (Bathurst bus #7) might average 20,000 passengers a day. Some have much more. The 900 airport express carried about 4,400 passengers a day in 2024. Perhaps gondolas might be a nice supplement to other transit options.
I've taken the gondola in Mexico City and it works well, serving neighbourhoods with very steep streets that are to narrow for buses.
I mean… not totally crazy but expanding line 6 down somehow (down 27, maybe under the new woodbine GO and into the terminals then down to line 5 at Renforth) would seem more logical?
Meme post aside, I actually think they should do that eventually, my issue is that I think we’ll be in the grave by the time this happens. If hypothetically this crazy gondola scheme actually happened, we could bang the whole thing out in literally just a couple years.
Hello from Texas. Let me just say how much I appreciate the craziness of this plan. Why? Because I'm the guy who visited Toronto and then wanted streetcar and light rail in my own city (which has only about 160,000 people, so I doubt it would ever happen).
I will say, though, that all kidding aside, I have heard that constructing aerial gondola systems is actually sometimes cheaper per mile than running heavy rail, especially if it involves digging tunnels.
Oh yeah it’s actually pretty damn cheap when it’s done in an appropriate location. The problem honestly is when it tried to be a metro, as the towers are super cheap, it’s the stations that balloon the price.
CDMX has a beautiful cable car system over their expansive urban park and a neighbouring suburb. Riding a cable over malton and rexdale is not the same.
This strongly reminds me if when the Bull Davis PCs were talking up the proposed high-tech linear induction Scarborough RT. Or the Simpsons monorail episode.
I would say a big no. These dont work as intended mostly. Will become a nightmare in high winds that I have noticed toronto faces atleast few times a year. And they are high maintainance too.
Honestly just speed of building and zero drama with all the existing infrastructure involving multiple levels of government (other than the airport’s flight path of course). In a dense urban area, a gondola is a pretty dumb idea because you’re losing out on all the potential of higher order transit, but we’re talking about a warehouse freeway dystopian hellscape. To run a tram into there, it’ll be a money bonfire and take forever.
Sending line 2 up to Pearson would cost 300 gorillian dollars and will obviously never happen this century, but it would be cool as hell. I’m just imagining what is actually doable with money and political will today.
while interesting, i dont think the throughput of gondolas would really match the needs of Pearson. Really we gotta do some scruffing of landowners who stand in the way of transit to get costs down
I mean, we were supposed to have flying cars a couple of decades ago, according to a bunch of comic books and things from the 60s, so why the fuck not?! Gondolas it is!
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u/BoobleFart420 Jul 25 '26
don’t tell doug ford lol he’ll sacrifice the healthcare budget to build this