The Transformation of Medellin, Columbia

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Interesting video on the BBC website: Remarkable renewal brings visitors to Medellin

Colombia celebrates its 200th anniversary of independence from Spanish rule this year - and its reputation as a travel destination is undergoing a remarkable change.

Medellin, Colombia's second largest city and the scene of the world's most notorious drug-fuelled cartel war, is in the process of a dramatic transformation.

There have been significant investments in public spaces and cultural amenities (libraries, museums,etc.), as well as such things as a gondola lift integrated into the transit system (part of the city is on steep terrain, so this makes sense).

UPDATE (after a little more Google searching): UrbanToronto has already discussed Gondolas as urban transit, with pictures of some of Medellin's installations.

There is also an entire web site tracking the phenomenon, mentioned in the urbantoronto article, The Gondola Project, in blog format. A recent entry shows how the idea is spreading in S. America:

Last month CUP conducted a study of all planned, conceived or under-construction cable systems in South America.

Our findings shocked even us: Almost 5 dozen systems are in the works on that continent and that number doesn’t even include Brazil (because of the Portuguese language issues – as in, we don’t speak Portuguese), the largest country and economy in South America.

The idea has spread at a remarkable rate, starting with one very humble system in Medellin, Colombia, which opened only half a decade ago.

Once this crosses the divide into the English-speaking world, all bets are off.

Maybe Toronto and the TTC could be a little less hide-bound in their transit ideas and seriously consider neighbourhood gondolas to feed higher capacity transit links, i.e. subways. Instead of streetcars sharing the street with automobiles, put transit above the street: make TransitCity into GondolaCity!