Fact-check: City of Vaughan and Canada’s Wonderland not pursuing aerial gondolas at the moment

Social media blogs mistakenly reported aerial gondolas are in the works for Vaughan

Yorkregion.com
June 15, 2023
Brian Capitao

Welcome to the gong-dola show!

While Vaughan has certainly revamped its public transportation offerings these last few years, news of an unexpected mode of transport has been making headlines as of late.

On June 13, some blogs and “news sites” seemed to suggest the City of Vaughan was seriously considering connecting an aerial gondola on Jane Street, linking Canada’s Wonderland to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

However, aerial gondolas are not part of the city’s newly envisioned 2023 Vaughan transportation plan. Rather, as part of the planning process, city staff was tasked with thinking out of the box and aerial gondolas were merely one of the suggested modes of transport.

“Aerial mobility was explored as a new form of transportation, similar to other proposals such as e-scooters and micromobility. However, the aerial mobility concept plans are conceptual only. The city has no plans to implement them,” said a city spokesperson.

The feasibility of connecting to Canada’s Wonderland is also questionable.

“Canada’s Wonderland was not involved in this project. And while we cannot comment on this specific proposal, we do support efforts to improve transit and connectivity around the park and across the City of Vaughan,” said Grace Peacock, director of communications for Canada’s Wonderland.

News of the 2022 white paper “Vaughan Aerial Mobility” put together by the engineering firm SCJ Alliance and prepared for the City of Vaughan was picked up on the UrbanToronto forum, with two engineers discussing the feasibility on Twitter and the forum, below.

Maybe blogs can check their facts before they start reporting on Monorails next.