Portland Aerial Tram

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Portland Aerial Tram with Mt Hood in the background
Portland Aerial Tram Cable Car Stand

The Portland Aerial Tram is a cable car in Portland (Oregon) , USA , which connects the South Waterfront district south of the city center with the Oregon Health and Science University , which occupies a larger university and clinic district on Marquam Hill above the city also expanding in the South Waterfront District .

The Portland Aerial Tram is the second aerial cableway in the USA (after the Roosevelt Island Tramway in New York City ), which, in addition to various funiculars in the United States, is primarily used for local public transport .

It was jointly funded by OHSU, the City of Portland, and property owners from the South Waterfront , and is owned by the city and operated by OHSU. It serves primarily the staff, patients, and visitors to the OHSU and its clinics, but is generally accessible as part of Portland's public transportation system. OHSU employees and students travel for free, other people need a return ticket. The train does not run on public holidays or on winter Sundays.

The Marquam Hill neighborhood was only accessible by a narrow, winding road. After long, detailed discussions about various options, the decision was made in 1999 to use a cable car as the best connection. An international architectural competition ended in 2003 when an architectural office based in Zurich and Los Angeles was commissioned to plan the facility. The actual cable car was planned and built by Doppelmayr and its American subsidiary Doppelmayr CTEC , the cabins were supplied by the Swiss company Gangloff . Under a contract with the OHSU, Doppelmayr is also responsible for operating the cable car.

The cable car opened to the clinic staff and students in December 2006 and to the general public on January 27, 2007. In May 2009 the cable car counted its three millionth passenger.

The Portland Aerial Tram is an aerial tramway with two supporting cables (49 mm) and a revolving traction cable. The horizontal length is 1033 m, the height difference 145 m. While the valley station is a conventional reinforced concrete structure, the mountain station was built as a 60 m high steel structure on the steep slope in front of an existing building and connected to this building by a steel lattice bridge. For optical reasons, the 60 m high cable car pillar was not built as a steel lattice mast, as usual, but as a curved, inclined steel body with a concrete core on piles up to 16 m deep. The suspension ropes are fixed in the valley station where the drives are also located. The tension weights hang in the mountain station. The two cabins each hold 78 people plus the cabin attendant. You can drive at wind speeds of up to 80 km / h.

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Commons : Portland Aerial Tram  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Coordinates: 45 ° 29 ′ 57.3 "  N , 122 ° 40 ′ 16.2"  W.