I got some very insightful feedback on my CPT post from Steven Dale, who runs the Gondola Project – the site that was the source of the flurry of conversations about Gondolas that has been echoing through the Houston blogosphere. But more on that in a minute…

Steven also proposed an interesting idea – a conceptual design challenge for readers of neoHOUSTON. He’s running one on his site, and suggested that we hold a “Houston Challenge” here. I’ve decided to take him up on it.

The Challenge

Here’s what I’d like you – the faithful neoHOUSTON readership – to do:

#1 – Send in an idea!

Send me your idea for a Cable-Propelled Transit system in Houston. The only requirement is that you send some kind of visual – it can be a Google Map that you’ve added lines to, it can be scribbles on a napkin that you scan and email, it can be pictures you’ve taken, or a photoshop mashup etc. Whatever you want is fine – just send me something that visually represents your idea.

You can get lots of background information on CPT, along with a bunch of pictures, at http://gondolaproject.com. I highly recommend checking it out.

You can send me your ideas via email (andrew[at]neohouston[dot]com), you can post them as a comment here, you can put it on your own blog and send me a link. However you want to respond to the challenge is up to you.

#2 – Get your friends to send ideas too!

neoHOUSTON gets a fair number of readers, but there are plenty of creative folks out there who would probably have a great idea to add to the conversation who have never even heard of neoHOUSTON. So, if you’ve got friends, email them a link to this page! Tweet it! Put it on facebook! Do whatever you can think of to spread the word so people will send in ideas. We’ll all have more fun if this gets a lot of responses!

The results

I’ll leave the challenge open until the end of next week (April 2). I’ll update this page a couple times as ideas come in, and at the end I’ll post a gallery page that showcases everyone’s ideas. Assuming there are some good ones, I’ll also probably pick an “editor’s choice” and feature it on the front page here.

My Revised Concept

So, back to Steven’s feedback. When Steven looked over my original post on Cable-Propelled Transit he offered the following suggestions:

I think you should consider making your connections between stations straight lines rather than curved alignments (reduces cost), and maybe find a way to reduce the number of stations by one or two. As I’ve said before at www.gondolaproject.com, cable’s in its adolescent phase right now, and incremental advances are the name of the game. Currently, the most number of stations on a cable line is 5. That doesn’t mean more are not possible, it’s just what’s been done so far. Your system has 8. Is 8 too many? I don’t know. But an incremental advance from 5 to 6 or 7 might be an easier sell than 8. At the same time, I’d love to see 8 happen.

With those suggestions in mind, here’s my revised idea for a CPT system in Houston.

This concept goes back to the planned configuration for the Memorial Woods station and NW transit center station, and focuses instead on connecting areas that are just a little out-of-reach from the Uptown Park station. Instead of using one very long line, I’ve got two lines. The Blue Line hits the north side of Uptown Park and continues into Riverway. The Green Line has two stops at office towers in Post Oak Park, and then continues in to Memorial Park, with a drop-off at the west side of Memorial Loop Drive.

The challenges here are that the blue line would go over a couple houses between Uptown Park and Riverway, and the green line would have to be elevated pretty high to avoid excessive clearing of trees in Memorial Park. However, I think the gondola concept actually fits the park pretty well – the Gondolas don’t take away from the experience when you’re at a ski slope, so I think if you did it right it could be a nice addition to Memorial Park without leaving an ugly gash below.

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So – have you got a better idea? Send it in and I’ll put it right here! I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone’s concepts.

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Updated 03-31-2010

We’ve had a couple submissions, all of which have been good so far. I’ll attach email submissions below, be sure to check the comments where there are other submissions as well.

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Memorial City Alignment – Submitted by Danny DiPaolo

Here’s what I’ve got. It pretty much connects a few somewhat-disconnected areas of interest in the Memorial City area which would generally not be considered walkable as-is currently.

Basically, it’d be a four-station/three-segment line:
1. The first endpoint would be at Memorial City Mall / Hermann Hospital at Memorial City
(1b. Maybe actually make this two stations and have one right by the hospital and one right by the mall, though they may be a bit ticked off that they spent all that money on a walkway that crosses over Gessner [still incomplete..])
2. Then it heads about 3/4 of a mile west along the feeder that goes the opposite direction (going from Memorial City Mall to, say, Taste of Texas, is a huge pain in the ass) and comes to rest somewhere amongst the center of all of those restaurants or maybe even all the way to the extended stay hotel there – not sure what would make the most sense there
3. From there, a quick line headed southwest to get folks to the City Centre area (right-of-way might be tough here, honestly), preferably stopping somewhere very close to the movie theater/plaza area where everything is the densest (there’s a fair amount of residential and commercial concentrated right there)
4. And then lastly about a 1/2 mile run down to the rest of the shops in the “old” Town and Country shopping center. I couldn’t come up with an ideal endpoint location here, honestly

So, in my part of town that’s kind of the three social/commercial hubs and getting between them isn’t all that easy (it’s easier starting at #4 going to #1 than vice-versa for sure).

Gondolas in the Parks – Submitted by Martin Von Rosenberg

First, as a general point I would state that I’m still not completely convinced that such a system would work best for Houston. I’m not completely sold on whether the total cost of such a line would be cheaper. I can see that perhaps it might be cheaper to construct such a system because there is less need to acquire right-of-way for such a system (perhaps) but given Houston’s historically cheap property values, I don’t think land acquisition is necessarily the biggest problem here in Houston when devising such a system (I see the main problem as politics here but that is for another post).

Also, I think there would be a lot of objection to such a system running at or near personal residences because of privacy concerns. If you’ve read about the Portland Aerial Tram you will note that even in that very transit friendly city, there was a lot of opposition from people owning property underneath the tram route. Given that people riding such a system have the ability to literally look down (and possibly into) a person’s property, I can see the point of the opponents.

Anyway, that all being said, I do see the novelty of such a system which could supplement other attractions within a city.  That is why my initial proposed line (labeled ver. 1) runs around Herman Park.

The line would have three stops, connecting with the red line at the Herman Park/Rice U stop.  It would proceed around the park with a stop somewhere near the zoo.  It would then continue around the east side of the park (near the golf course) and finally end near the theater and garden center.  I think such a system could be an added attraction to Herman Park and could be integrated with the zoo which would give visitors aerial views of the zoo, Herman Park, downtown and the medical center.  The San Diego Zoo has a similar gondola ride if you have ever visited (which I highly recommend if you have not).

The second proposed line (labeled ver. 2) is much longer and a little more on the “what-if side” meaning it is probably pretty unrealistic.

It is much longer and starts at or near the aquarium downtown.  The line would head west roughly following Memorial with a stop somewhere around Sabine Park.  After that point it would cross the Buffalo Bayou roughly following Allen Parkway with a stop somewhere around the intersection with Montrose.  At this point, the line would cross back over the Buffalo Bayou with a stop somewhere around the intersection with Waugh, preferably on the opposite side of Memorial.  The line would continue along Memorial with a stop somewhere near the intersection with Sheppard.  The line would then cross back over Memorial and run behind the development along the south side of Memorial until finally crossing back over with stops in Memorial Park.

Again, I see the line in Herman Park as the most realistic and likely best fit for the city. Such a line would add another attraction to Herman Park and could supplement the zoo. It would also allow for great views of the skyline and surrounding area without overly intruding on the privacy of single family homeowners (since there aren’t any in Herman Park).

I would appreciate your thoughts and comments.