After the Plano City Council approved the application for a gondola system in their city last week, other cities in North Texas are also expressing interest in the system.
Duncan Webb, chairman of the Regional Transportation Council, said “multiple” North Texas cities have said they are interested, according to WFAA.
Thus far, however, the only city that has publicly gone on record to share its interest has been Plano.
Plano City Council Member Rick Grady said at a city council meeting last week that the gondolas could be a “plausible solution” to traffic congestion in the city, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
“It’s something that they’ve already experienced and we’re not the first out of the chute,” Grady said during the meeting, as reported by WFAA, explaining that the company behind the gondolas, Swyft Cities, had previously already installed two similar prototypes, one in New Zealand and one in California.
“We see ourselves as a district solution; covering…a small to midsize area … three to five miles and solving the transportation within that district,” Jeral Poskey, CEO of Swyft Cities, said to WFAA.
Swyft Cities originally developed the gondola system when members of the team worked for Google, but later ventured out on their own to form an independent company and offer the system as a means of combatting traffic congestion.
“Advanced smart gondola systems provide efficient, comfortable, sustainable mobility for projects ranging from simple to complex. We provide project feasibility, design, and implementation for complete mobility solutions,” its website reads.
“When you have more and more congestion, you’ve got to get people out of their cars and off the streets,” Webb said via WFAA.
The gondolas can hold up to four people and will be waiting for passengers at a bus stop-like platform instead of passengers having to wait for the gondolas.
