We didn’t forget much about 2017, but we didn’t forget one thing: other people seemed to like gondolas. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti presented the concept of construction on the Hollywood sign. Then, the following year, Warner Bros. said he would also like to build one for the brand. It wasn’t long after Garcetti said, hey, we built one also at Dodger Stadium (where Elon Musk can beat everyone and dig a tunnel).
Well, here we are a few years later with no gondola in sight. But a plan is beginning to come to fruition. The Los Angeles City Department of Parks and Recreation and engineering firm Stantec have revealed possible routes from a gondola to the Hollywood sign, or rather a deck below. As known through Urbanize Los Angeles, an online page for Griffith Park’s air travel review has been updated with the first effects of a feasibility report, adding 4 imaginable alignments that are being examined recently.
If you’ve ever tried to locate a parking spot in Griffith Park for a weekend, or if you’ve been walking among crowds of distressed tourists looking for hollywood sign prospects, you can probably already guess the appeal of those non-motorized, electric and cable-powered aerial cars: they provide a way to potentially reduce vehicle traffic and pedestrian access to the area. Among the plans under consideration, the 4 routes aim to achieve this purpose with stations departing from the Griffith Park Valley side.
You will find a number of similarities between the plans of the air shipping system, as well as some express pros and cons of each. The first 3 routes would be a 12- or thirteen-minute journey that ends on a platform just above the intersection of Deronda Drive, Mulholland Highway and Mt. Lee Drive, where lately you will place a land domain with a transparent view of the signal (and behind a door that closes infrequently and that locals would probably still like to close). Between those routes, the first two also come with an intermediate station in the middle of the park that can accommodate an additional extension of the Griffith Observatory.
Route 1 starts at Travel Town and gives the ground to face, but has limited parking. This can also result in the destruction of the adjacent equestrian circuit at Martinez Arena.
Route 2 begins in the extensive north parking lot of the Los Angeles Zoo, but your trail would require flying over the zoo, as well as installing some towers in the park.
Route 3 jumps to what is necessarily an overflow domain just south of the zoo and eliminates the need for an intermediate station (but also eliminates the possible expansion of the observatory). Like the route at the moment, it poses overflight disruption for the nearby golf course.
This leaves Route Four radically different, which would start from Warner Bros. Studios. and would succeed on another viewing platform just below the panel in just six minutes. But this has a variety of potential drawbacks, adding a reduction in traffic congestion in the park, higher price ticket costs and a visual obstruction of the Hollywood signal from the problems of the South. (The effects also indicate, however, that this is the least studied of the four options).
Now that you know, the city needs to know what it thinks of the plans. You can complete an online survey or attend a virtual open space on September 3 at 6 p.m. Zoom (there is also a shorter data query on August 28 at 12:30 p.m.). After this comment period, the task still has a long way to go: then a final examination will be presented to those responsible for the resolution of the city who will make the call to move forward or not officially with the plans. With this in mind, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that there is still no budget or timetable for the task.