Leveraging What Memphis Has in a Radical Way

Memphis has a few things that may not seem interconnected. 1) Trees- People don't think about this much except when a storm hits and the power goes out, but Memphis has an amazing urban forest. Have you ever been in a 5th or 6th floor of a building inside the 240 loop? It is a sea of green you overlook and you would hardly know you are in Memphis. 2) Shitty Public Transportation- Man does MATA suck. Seriously, everybody knows this. Who knows when a bus will get to a stop, where the bus line goes, and how long it will take to get somewhere. Plus the city is so spread out fuel cost for the buses is expensive relative to the number of passengers on the buses. 3) Parks and Empty Land- We have a lot of parks. So many the city can only mow them once every 32 days and they are all over the place. We also got a lot of empty land, vacant lots, flood plains, big utility easements, etc. What if we could ties those things together to let people enjoy the forest, improve public transportation, and really draw people back inside the 240 loop, plus be unique in the United States? That would be pretty cool and require some radical thinking, but is immensely doable. The idea is an aerial tram system. They have them in New York City, Portland, Oregon, Caracas, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Medellin, Colombia. All these cities have metrocable lines to varying scales. They cross large bodies of water like in NYC or hilly/mountainous urban areas. All of these cities' metrocable lines are hugely successful and cost a fraction of rail line/subway, and are greener/energy efficient, faster than bus lines. The cost and speed to build a aerial tram system would be lower and faster than in those other cities. A system could be built that links city parks or other vacant parcels. Towers/elevators would not be needed to be built because there is enough space to for the trams to touch down, on/off load people, then take off again. Trams can vary in size ranging from a few to 200 passengers.

The map above has a few possible routes. The pink line loops around the core of the city along the parkways. It is 12 miles long. Other lines would connect to this loop. The orange line goes across North Memphis to Douglass (about 4.5 miles) and could continue all the way to JFK park (7.5 miles). The blue line follows the Greenline all the way out to Shelby Farms (7 miles). The green line goes from Lichterman to Audubon Park, to U of M, to the Fairgrounds (7 miles). Using simple, efficient, proven technology, the city could build a public transportation network that would wisk citizens and tourists through the largest urban forest in America. It would also draw people back to the core of the Memphis and make many parks the hubs of their neighborhoods.