The Sadness of the "Cloud Car"

 On a recent(ish) trip to London, I undertook to take every form of transit I could while also fulfilling my other duties that had actually brought me to London. That will be the topic of a future post. For now, I want to focus on a form of transportation I had had high hopes for, since I know it has been made very useful in cities like Medellín and Mexico City. That is the many-named London cable car, now officially branded (as of this writing) as the IFS Cloud Cable Car. The basic idea is quite different from the cable cars that ply their trade in San Francisco, though of course there is still a cable involved, as well as something that could generously be called a car. It is a medium-sized box with windows that is moved along a lengthy cable that, in turn, its attached to high pillars that allow the car to be an elevated mode of transit.

Now, the IFS Cloud Cable Car is notoriously not actually a particularly useful piece of transit itself. It doesn't count towards your transit daily cap in London, even though you can at least use the common Oyster card, making it expensive for non-tourist use, especially daily commuting or any similar use; it is only one connection between two points, unlike the larger systems in Latin America; and it doesn't actually articulate with the other transit in the city, not just in terms of fares--though this being London, the distance to other outposts of TfL was measured in meters not kilometers.

But I had high hopes nonetheless because I hoped that at least the experience itself would be good, if its implementation was not. After all, another Thames crossing is a good thing, and one that promises views of the city is as well. But my experience was a disappointment for multiple reasons, some of which are more general than others but none of which are entirely unique to me. So here are my reasons that the Cloud Car is not as good as it could be--and why while I remain excited that Latin America is making this mode of transportation work, I'm not exactly booking tickets to float my way around Medellín yet.

1. Heights. I forgot about heights.

As I have gotten older, I have gotten worse with heights. This is unfortunate, as many exciting and fun things are at height. And I can generally enjoy the tops of volcanoes and overlooks and such things. But the Cloud Car does not let you forget that you are not only at height but precariously perched at that height, and the sensation was rather unpleasant because of that.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Because of how the cable car design shuttles you back and forth, there are always other cable cars for you to look at passing you in the opposite direction. And so even if the cable car you are in is not swaying (which mine was) and even if you don't look down (which would kind of defeat the purpose of the views), you get a constant reminder that you are situated like these people are, and that your gondola is also hanging from that cable in exactly the same way. And that there's a lot of down underneath it.

Yes, this is something many others will not have a problem with, but I am also aware that I am not the only person in the world who dislikes heights, and this is a much more heights-y experience than, say, an elevated rail line which is also above things.

2. Size and speed

The gondola is medium-sized, as I said, but that is misleading. It's small compared to a bus or a train, and very small compared to a modern subway/metro/Tube that has open carriages. This size:

Or, from outside:

It feels more like a Ferris wheel (another contraption I obviously am not a huge fan of, but which doesn't actually transport people from place to place and so does not belong in this blog) than like a transit mode. And while that might be attractive, it also limits throughput of people, even if (thanks to the grade-separation from anyone but a very low-flying aircraft) the cable car can be automated and so can keep running as long as it has power and maintenance. 

It's also not exactly fast: the cars don't really stop, since the cable doesn't really stop, and so they go slowly enough that one can embark and disembark in each station as they move. And therefore they go pretty slowly in midair too, which is suboptimal again for actually moving people along.

3. Exposure to environmental conditions

Now, I am not saying the gondola is open or badly sealed. But I am saying that when you are taking a cable car, your car is subject to wind and rain on the outside, which affects your ride on the inside. This can obviously be a positive: a glorious shiny day would make these view much more impressive and thus the cable car more attractive:

But just to be clear: I took this gondola in mid-July. In London, that's no guarantee of good weather, as you see by the visible raindrops on the window. And that's in July; though I suppose a cold clear winter day might actually also have better views, you need a city with minimal precipitation/fog/smoke/other sky irritants to truly get the best of this form of transportation.

And London ain't it.

I do see the benefits of the system, especially in cities that are very built up and/or difficult to dig through (the pillars, while not small, aren't "dig up the entire street" large), and in places with elevation changes (since they go up and down very easily for obvious reasons). But it's not a great fit in London, and it was in general a worse experience than I had hoped for. I much prefer transit like the Paris tram where I can disagree with the tourist guide reviews that say that it isn't useful; sadly here I must agree with the massed opinions I have seen online and conclude that the Cloud Car is not a good fit for what it is trying to do.

Though I still hold out hope that it would be much better as part of a larger, more intentional system, so maybe someday I'll make it out to the cities that have done a better job with the technology.