Image via Shutterstock

Image via Shutterstock

Metro. Buses. Shared bikes and cars. Streetcars, eventually. Pedicabs. Your feet. It’s an exciting time for mobility—there are more and more ways to get in and around D.C. But for the Georgetown Metropolitan, D.C. should follow the Seattle’s lead and consider something a little more revolutionary—a gondola:

The idea would be to better connect Rosslyn with Georgetown University. Stringing a system between those to points could potentially move a great deal of individuals. Georgetown estimates that its GU-Rosslyn GUTS bus route carries over 700,000 riders a year.

There are two possible technologies for aerial transit: trams and gondolas. The only two aerial transit systems in the U.S. use trams: Roosevelt Island, New York and Portland. These systems have just two large cars that travel back and forth between just two stations. This limits frequency since the cars can’t come any faster than the length of the whole trip.

The second technology is the potentially more interesting one. Gondolas are like what you find at ski mountains. Instead of two large cars, they have many small cars that arrive constantly.

It’s not totally out of the norm for an urban environment; Caracas and Medellin have gondolas, and as The Guardian reported late last year, plenty of other cities have debated them or are installing them.

Obviously, as the Georgetown Metropolitan admits, it’s an ambitious want, especially considering that preservationists who hate the idea of overhead wires for streetcars would object and city planners would likely balk at the price tag. But given that M Street and the Key Bridge are already traffic choke points and a Metro station was never built in Georgetown, it’s an idea that we—by “we” I mean me, a Swiss-born D.C. resident—can get behind.