We travel to the edge of Paris to ride a new five-station urban gondola that extends Metro Line 8, showing how aerial transit can beat ground constraints, cut commute times, and invite better station design. Along the way, we talk with David Rambert, Project Manager for Architecture and BIM Manager at Atelier Schall, the agency responsible for the C1 station designs. He gives us more insight about accessibility, costs, and why gondolas fit this corridor.
• reasons a gondola beats a rail extension (in this scenario)
• six-year design–build timeline and lower capital costs
• right-sized capacity around 1,600–2,000 people per hour per direction (pphpd) with strong ridership
• accessibility choices, including level boarding and tactile paths
• station design that blends into the landscape and supports TOD
• travel time cut from 35 to 18 minutes with 30-second headways
• quieter operations and lower operating costs than buses
• global context from Colombia to La Paz and Mexico City
• where gondolas fit between bus and rail in a network
If you want to see more from our interview with David, we posted a longer version of the interview on Patreon, where you can support the show directly. Send us an email if you've got something like this that you want us to go check out in the future.
