Ogden city wants Utah Transit Authority to build a gondola to run from the downtown transit hub to Weber State University - once UTA's commuter-rail line reaches the hub in Ogden.

And, as evidence that novel ideas can work, they point to Salt Lake County's success with light rail, which a decade ago had plenty of naysayers.

"This has never been done before: linking commuter rail with a gondola [that has] a university node," says Mayor Matthew Godfrey. "A new technology, something this different that creates a new experience, is going to be used a whole lot more than BRT."

Bus rapid transit, all the rage in public transportation circles, is among the modes of transportation being considered in the Ogden-Weber State Transit Corridor Study now under way at the Wasatch Front Regional Council. Such buses often travel in dedicated street lanes, have priority through intersection signals and use light-rail-like stations set much farther apart than traditional bus stops.

Planners are analyzing how best to meet Ogden's future transit needs as downtown is redeveloped and commuter trains begin carrying an estimated 5,900 passengers to and from downtown each day. UTA expects the trains to begin running between Salt Lake City and Ogden within three years.

Many commuters are expected to come from north Davis County stops along that route, where 36 percent of WSU's students live.

The four transit modes being considered within Ogden City are buses (basic, express or BRT), streetcars, light rail and now, at Ogden's request, the aerial cables that would carry 8- or 12-passenger gondolas.

A gondola system, argues Ogden leaders, would be cheaper and faster to build - it could cost between $20 million and $30 million - and it would provide pollution- and noise-free mass transit. City leaders also are betting it could boost development of the new Ogden downtown mall and the city's troubled economy.

"It will have a very long honeymoon. A lot of people will ride it just to ride it," predicts George Benford, the city's manager for engineering and building services.

A city-commissioned feasibility study says a gondola could be "an icon for the new hospitality that Ogden has to offer," and give the northern Utah city an image as a gateway to summer and winter mountain recreation.

The study, by RG Consultants of Denver, proposed two routes, both starting at the 3-year-old transit hub just north of Union Station, stopping at the planned mixed-use development that will replace the failed Ogden City Mall, and then east on 23rd Street to Harrison Boulevard.

One route would go east to the foothills and turn south along a scenic corridor to WSU; the other would follow Harrison south to WSU. There would be no stops between the mall and WSU - at least in the beginning.

Traditionally, trams or gondolas have been used by ski resorts, amusement parks and as people movers over obstacles such as bridges or waterways. But Telluride, Colo., has successfully operated one as public transit for eight years, and Portland, Ore., is planning a tram to connect a university campus with a retail-housing project.

Aerial transportation has long been part of the local imagination.

For more than five decades, Ogden leaders have dreamed of building a tram or a gondola from the east side of town up Mt. Ogden to the top of Snowbasin Ski Resort.

That dream is not dead.

In fact, Mayor Godfrey is trying to raise money for a feasibility study that the City Council is lukewarm about financing. And a new committee of boosters, led by Godfrey's father-in-law, former state Sen. Ed Allen, recently was organized to promote the Mt. Ogden tram.

Though they eventually could be linked if both were built, a gondola from downtown to WSU is a separate project, insists the city's Benford.

He says UTA and WFRC planners were at first dubious about using a gondola for mass transit.

"When we started this, there were a lot of background snickerings going on. There is a warming-up to it. They are seeing this as a legitimate transit choice."

Indeed, WFRC planner Greg Scott says he keeps in mind that a gondola might be no more "out of the box" than light rail was in the early 1990s.

"It's brand-new. It certainly is not common as a transit technology. But it seems to be gaining in some popularity nationally,"

Among other factors, UTA, the WFRC, Ogden City and WSU will have to weigh whether a gondola that makes no stops between the new mall and WSU will meet residents' needs, he said.

"We want something that fits in with the community well and that will also serve the neighborhoods there," said Scott. A good number of people, living just east of the mall area, do not own cars.

Scott says the feasibility study's projected gondola ridership of about 1.4 million per year - 3,900 a day - is "in the ballpark." At present, nearly 1,500 daily ride UTA buses from downtown to WSU.

Scott expects to have the list of possible transit modes and corridors narrowed in time for a Feb. 17 meeting with "stakeholders" from the Ogden area.

One of those stakeholders is Dan Schroeder, president of the Ogden chapter of the Sierra Club, which long has opposed any tram or gondola up Mt. Ogden.

"I'm trying to keep an open mind," says Schroeder, who nonetheless worries that the downtown-based gondola would be used as an argument to build the Mt. Ogden tram.

He questions whether a gondola is fast enough to serve as mass transit, since it would take anywhere from 14 to 26 minutes - depending on the route - to travel from downtown to WSU. High winds, which are common along Ogden's east bench, occasionally could shut it down.

And Schroeder opposes the gondola route that traverses the east bench, where residents enjoy a network of trails. "That's not mass transit. That's a tourism gimmick."

Roberta Glidden, an Ogden artist who is on the citizen's committee advising UTA about commuter rail, finds the notion of a gondola running down the middle of her street "absurd." She lives on 23rd Street.

"It would be incredibly ugly," she says. "I'm an artist with a good imagination. This is almost going me one better."

Glidden also wonders why Ogden, which is trimming costs by privatizing several city functions, would consider such an expense.

"The real question I have is, how in the world can this city afford anything like this, even if it were a good idea and people were in favor of it."

Godfrey insists Ogden City will not pay for the gondola.

"I don't see us stepping in and building a $20 million link to the university ourselves. That's what UTA does," he says.

But the city does expect to seek federal funding for a gondola as a demonstration project.

For his part, Godfrey says he favors the Harrison Boulevard route over the east bench as a route for the gondola.

"I favor the quicker, cheaper route," says the mayor.

kmoulton@sltrib.com