February 11, 2004

(Updated) Aerial Tram Faces Design Reductions, Cost Hurdles

Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.

A pair of articles in today's Oregonian provide an update on the progress of the aerial tram project.

First up from the Metro section is a report on the current funding situation for the tram:

Proponents of an aerial tram in Southwest Portland need to find another $13 million soon to make the project fly on its original schedule.

New construction estimates issued Tuesday put the total cost at $28.44 million, including a key elevator at the upper terminal at Oregon Health & Science University.

The revised figures fall below a $30.2 million estimate mentioned in November but remain above the original budget of $15.5 million.

According to the article, the board of the City-created non-profit handling the project approved the new budget estimates, but "also asked an informal finance committee to figure out new revenue sources without asking the city for general fund money, and without reducing city funds designated for transportation maintenance and operation."

The article goes on to explain some of the design changes which kept the estimate from rocketing even higher. Which handily brings us to Randy Gragg's look at the current state of the project's design:

Architects Sarah Graham and Marc Angelil won the competition to design Portland's aerial tram with a concept inspired by ballet. Built out of the thinnest possible wood laminates, the tram's towers would rise, Angelil idealized, like a ballerina "standing on one foot."

Eleven months and many lessons about tram design later, Graham presented her firm's latest scheme -- with the towers built out of steel pipe up to 4 feet in diameter.

We won't go into all the changes here. But we will say that as this project rolls on, the changes boil down to the project becoming less challenging and adventuresome from an architectural design standpoint while at the same time becoming more expensive from the standpoint of ever-changing cost estimates. We suppose that spells excitement for some people -- in the same way we suppose some people might consider a migraine to be an orgasmic delight.

While we said we won't go into the details (they're in the article, after all), we feel self-pressured to include this lovely anecdote:

The bubble-shaped tram car that Graham and Angelil proposed in the competition remains a work in progress. Doppelmayr, the tram system's Austrian manufacturer, keeps showing a box.

"Let's just say, none of us was very happy," Graham said. "We set up a meeting to speak to them in German about why, just to remove any cultural differences."

If one of this project's obstacles indeed is a difficulty in getting architects who speak different languages to agree upon something as basic as the distinctions between a "bubble" and a "box" then I think perhaps critics of this entire endeavor might have good reason to be skeptical.

(Sorry, Rob -- this will have to do until Jack weighs in.)

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