Despite having extremely sad renderings and being derided as a “combination transit-slash-sightseeing ride” that can’t actually get many people anywhere at all promptly, the Dodger Stadium gondola plan proposed by ex-Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt continues to shamble forward. There’s a new environmental impact report, a new public comment period, and a new price tag:
When the project was first announced, total costs were estimated to be $125 million. However, [McCourt’s company] LA ART said those have risen and it is working on a financing plan that will be submitted to Metro in the coming months.
Well, that’s certainly ominous. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies LLC (aka LA ART) had previously said it would pay the entire $125 million cost — this somehow despite rides to games being free with a Dodgers ticket, and nobody really having any reason to take a non-free gondola ride when there isn’t a game on — but if they’re submitting a financing plan to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (aka Metro), one can’t help but worry there will be some kind of public subsidy involved now, especially as McCourt’s initial financing plan was “put in some seed money and hope some other investors will fund the rest for some reason.” (The only news outlet reporting the price hike is the fan blog Dodger Blue, so more details are not at all forthcoming.)
All in all, it still seems unlikely that the Dodger gondola will happen, given the financing unknowns and growing opposition in the Chinatown neighborhood it would pass through. But these things do have a way of taking on a momentum of their own: LA ART said it wants to get the gondola built in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics — despite, as Dodger Blue notes, no Olympic events being planned for Dodger Stadium — and nothing bulldozes opposition and fast-tracks financing plans like “We gotta get this done for the Olympics.”
McCourt’s background is as a real estate developer. He still owns the parking lots. Once he builds the gondola, he’s going to try to turn the asphalt into a new development…. (Personally, I think that’s all better than the status quo!)
The dolphins have a gondola that gets you from the Peking lot to somewhere near the gate.
They tout it as convenient and you get a view of the stadium you wouldn’t otherwise get!
I believe Stephen Ross coughed up the money to build it, but remember he gets back money from the state/county for every event at the stadium.
And he charges $10 per rider (per round trip) for the 20 minute ride each way. Doesn’t take long to recoup that money. And don’t miss that it’s sponsored!
https://am.ticketmaster.com/dolphins/heinekenhighline22
MONORAIL, MONORAIL, MONORAIL!!!
Isn’t that more of a Shelbyville kinda thing?
Never gets old
I suppose they could make it run like a ski lift. A quad moves about 2400 people per hour. Might need two parallel lifts. Of course a ski lift assumes its users are reasonably fit and not averse to falling on their ass.
There’s a movement still happening in DC to build a gondola over the Potomac between Rosslyn and Georgetown.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/08/18/haha-omg-the-georgetown-gondola-could-actually-happen/