As the state’s carnival/amusement and ski area safety manager, Doman knows a thing or two about ski lifts. And he says that what Ann Arbor needs, instead of a light-rail “connector” through town, is an aerial gondola: small cabins suspended from an overhead cable that will whisk riders high above the congested streets between the U-M’s Central and North Campus.
Tall and weathered–mostly from skiing–the lanky engineer has been promoting his idea to anyone who will listen. Meeting a reporter at Sweetwaters downtown, he comes armed with loose-leaf binders and a flash drive loaded with PowerPoint charts and photos.
The AAATA, the city, the DDA, and the U-M are already at work on their own plan–called the Connector, it even has its own website, aaconnector.com. It envisions a high-capacity “fixed guideway” (light rail or monorail) loop that would run all the way from the industrial park south of I-94 to Domino’s Farms. Doman thinks that’s overkill. “The way I see it,” he says, “the Ann Arbor connector will be so expensive it will fizzle.”
Using the Connector study’s own data, Doman put together a chart that shows that the vast majority of the trips–more than 40,000 a day–would be between Central and North Campus. That’s no surprise to anyone who’s shared Fuller Rd. with the constant stream of U-M buses moving students and faculty between the campuses.
Doman himself used to drive a “blue bus” when he was in grad school. But he says buses and streetcars are too big for most Ann Arbor streets, and building new “guideways” would be prohibitively expensive–the study estimated the cost of building a light rail system would be more than $60 million. He estimates that an aerial gondola system capable of lofting 3,500 people an hour between the campuses would cost about half that much. “You have your choice of cabin to get on,” he says–all handicap accessible, and with onboard Wi-Fi. “It takes you from North Campus to main campus in eight minutes. Quick, no waiting.”
How high up? “Typically forty feet. Out over the Huron River, maybe 100.” Intermediate stops could be set up anywhere there’s room for the cars to descend.
Currently Doman sees it as starting at the C.C. Little building, going next to the Medical School (across from Angelo’s), over Fuller Park and the river to the Bursley-Baits housing area, and ending at Pierpont Commons. “If there is a need,” he says, “it could extend through North Campus to North Campus Research Complex.” The less-traveled extensions north and south could be handled by buses, streetcars, or light rail.
Doman has pitched his idea to everyone from U-M transit czar Eli Cooper to U-M planner Sue Gott. He says everyone tells him, ‘That’s a really good idea. We should look at that further … But it is such a departure from what they’re used to … Transportation planners don’t think of ropeways.” Some also see the hybrid system he’s proposing as a marketing problem, because once the gondolas were built it would be harder to get support and raise funds for the less-used ground system. A single system would be easier to pitch and fund.
Doman says that “everybody’s looking” at using gondolas for mass transit, mentioning Madison, Seattle, and Miami. “These things are just very common everywhere in the world,” he says. “I’m convinced it makes sense. And I’m convinced Ann Arbor makes the most sense” for it–“the Huron River is a problem for anything more conventional. The ropeway just flies over the top.”
