- The Staten Island Economic Development Corporation secures $212,000 to study the feasibility of a gondola connection to Bayonne, New Jersey.
- The Forest Service green lights Alta’s big plans for a new Baldy tram, Flora lift, Wildcat detachable and replacement for Sunnyside.
- The Colony’s master plan now includes two new lifts along Pinecone Ridge at the center of Park City Mountain.
- Copper is selling parts from the Flyer and the Eagle detachables. Must act fast!
- Crested Butte says the three lift Teo 2 expansion, if approved, would likely be built over approximately five years.
- Snow King’s gondola and terrain expansion public process moves along at a glacial pace.
- Mountain Capital Partners, the company behind Arizona Snowbowl, Hesperus Pajarito, Purgatory and Sipapu, will operate Nordic Valley and add it to the Power Pass.
- Doppelmayr breaks ground for its eleventh cable-propelled automated people mover, set to open in 2021.
- Spokane’s paper traces the history of three lifts that have graced Riverfront Park, including a new gondola.
- The Forest Service seeks feedback on Arizona Snowbowl’s chondola proposal.
- An ice storm apparently causes a track rope to jump out of a saddle at Jay Peak, closing the tram and nearby lifts indefinitely.
- As legal wrangling continues, nothing seems out of the ordinary this week at the Hermitage Club except for notices on the clubhouse doors.
Staten Island Gondola
Leitner-Poma Wins Staten Island Gondola Design Competition

New York City’s iconic Roosevelt Island Tramway could soon be joined by a gondola linking Staten Island to Bayonne, New Jersey serving commuters and tourists alike. Staten Island has all the ingredients for a successful urban gondola: a dense (and growing) population, a geographic barrier surmountable by cable, and connections to other transit modes at both ends. This week, the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation (SIEDC) crowned Leitner-Poma of America the winner of a design competition it launched in January to promote a ropeway solution. A jury of engineers, architects and business leaders selected Leitner-Poma’s 10-passenger gondola proposal that would cross the Kill Van Kull tidal strait to New Jersey.

According to the development group’s request for proposals, subway-less Staten Islanders suffer from some of the longest commutes in the country, averaging 90 minutes to Manhattan by ferry. A new rail tunnel under New York Harbor is estimated to cost $400 million per mile and would not be completed for a generation, if ever. Despite mobility challenges, $1 billion of redevelopment is currently underway in this suburban borough. The SIEDC’s competition encompassed 4-6 possible routes, the most ambitious of which would connect Staten Island’s northeast tip with Battery Park in Manhattan over five miles of water.
Leitner-Poma recognized the technical and political challenges of 10,000-foot spans skirting the Statue of Liberty over New York Harbor and instead settled on a shorter connection to New Jersey and its rail network. Other entrants chose routes from Staten Island to Brooklyn, where the East River Skyway is separately proposed to connect to Manhattan.