Skip to content

Letter: Burnaby gondola a project in search of a problem

Editor: Re: TransLink kicking off public engagement on Burnaby gondola , Aug. 31. The SFU gondola: a project in search of a problem. I attended the public open house at SFU in May 2011 on the proposed Burnaby Mountain cable car project.
SFU GONDOLA BROCHURE
The cover of a brochure put together by Simon Fraser University about the gondola project. SCREENSHOT

Editor:

Re: TransLink kicking off public engagement on Burnaby gondola, Aug. 31.
The SFU gondola: a project in search of a problem.

I attended the public open house at SFU in May 2011 on the proposed Burnaby Mountain cable car project. I am puzzled that nine years later, in the middle of a pandemic, so-called public engagement has been initiated.
I encourage people interested in this project to read the feasibility study that is available to download at the TransLink web site. 

Although global warming will send fewer snow storms to Burnaby Mountain, it will also send more and stronger windstorms. A cable car operation may be less reliable than conventional buses, and certainly no less polluting than trolley- or battery-powered buses.
The feasibility study asserts that a cable car will save travel time. But the study fails to consider total door-to-door travel time over the re-routed buses that feed into the cable car operation.
Readers interested in the proposed project should fill out the public engagement questionnaire at the TransLink web site.
Derek Wilson, Port Moody