[T]he dreamers behind the novel idea are dead serious about building a gondola and are slowly trying to bring it closer to reality, including gathering support from the developers of a high-profile Seaport hotel project that was directly in the path of the proposed route.
Millennium Partners and Cargo Ventures envision a one-mile gondola system running above Summer Street to provide transportation between South Station and 12 acres they plan to develop in the city’s marine industrial park. The cable cars would run anywhere from 30 to 50 feet above ground.
Developers of the 1,054-room Omni hotel to be built across from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center seem more enthusiastic about the idea since Millennium and Cargo Ventures agreed to alter the proposed gondola path slightly. Part of the route would be lowered so the cable cars wouldn’t pass directly in front of guest rooms.
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Meanwhile, the congressman who represents the area, Democratic Representative Stephen Lynch, said he met earlier in February with Mayor Martin J. Walsh and other local elected officials to promote the gondola project.
“The mayor has a solid understanding of the transportation issues,” Lynch said in an e-mail. “This gondola system would carry the equivalent of 40 buses per hour, while reducing vehicular traffic and eliminating carbon emissions. While the route of the gondola may change, I am totally committed to working with Mayor Walsh to move this process forward.”
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The revised route would still be anchored at one end by South Station, with the main trunk running above Summer Street, but ending at the entrance to the marine industrial park instead of within Millennium’s development in the park. Millennium, which has already developed several luxury residential towers in Boston, said it would pay the roughly $100 million construction cost.
The project still faces several hurdles, as neither the City of Boston nor the Massachusetts Port Authority, a major landowner in the neighborhood, have expressed support for it.
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