Over the last five years, Arlington, Virginia, firefighter Danny Wang has traveled to places such as Medellin, Colombia, and was struck by the way gondolas were incorporated into public transit infrastructure.
Wang has lived in Northern Virginia for over three decades and remembers the vision for the streetcar along Columbia Pike. He often thinks about ways he can improve the community he grew up in. Public transit is an area he reflects on often.
In a 40-page report, titled 鈥淎rlington鈥檚 Langston Boulevard is Due for an Unconventional Public Transit Upgrade,鈥� Wang makes a pitch for an aerial cable car to stretch through several neighborhoods. It鈥檚 an idea, he said, that could be cheaper than alternatives and connect areas with few public transit options with Metro.
ARL Now first reported the details of his proposal.
鈥淚t would be very helpful for people to have other public transit options that bypasses traffic, not just have buses that sit in traffic, that get stuck when there鈥檚 road work or if there鈥檚 an accident,鈥� Wang said.
Wang鈥檚 concept calls for a cable car from Georgetown to the Rosslyn Metro station, and then connected to the East Falls Church Metro up Langston Boulevard, 鈥渁nd just have the two Metros connected through Langston Boulevard,鈥� he said.
Both the Langston Boulevard corridor and Columbia Pike are areas that have many great businesses, Wang said, but 鈥渄on鈥檛 have a great way to get to it, other than cars. You鈥檙e going to have to find parking, you鈥檙e going to have to drive there and potentially stay in traffic.鈥�
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Arlington鈥檚 Department of Environmental Services said the county government hasn鈥檛 studied or proposed an aerial gondola for Langston Boulevard or other commercial corridors.
鈥淲e appreciate the creativity and the enthusiasm of our residents,鈥� the statement said. 鈥淎erial gondolas can be a useful, though very niche, transportation tool typically suited for places with limited surface options or significant geographic barriers like steep hills or valleys.”
The statement went on to say Langston Boulevard and Arlington’s other commercial corridors already have a functioning street network that “cannot be replaced by any off-street transportation mode.”
But gondolas, Wang said, are 鈥済enerally a lot cheaper than the other options that we have here in the DMV.鈥�
The proposal, he said, took about two months to write, and he鈥檇 been thinking about it for two months before that.
鈥淲hat I really want to know is, would people actually ride this?鈥� Wang said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not trying to force this down anybody鈥檚 throat. I just think it鈥檚 a good idea. I鈥檓 passionate about it, but I want to know, would people ride this? What would be their concerns about it?鈥�
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