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New York Plans World's Largest Ferris Wheel
justelite writes "It is an old trend to build "The World's largest..." something. One of the latest somethings is a 630-foot tall Ferris wheel planned for Staten Island. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 'The New York Wheel will be an attraction unlike any other in New York City even unlike any other on the planet.' Designed to carry 1,440 passengers at a time, it's expected to draw 4.5 million people a year to a setting that also would include a 100-shop outlet mall and a 200-room hotel."
This would scare the crap out of me. I can do any ride in an amusement park. Tallest, fastest, upside down... doesn't matter. Put me on a Ferris wheet and I'm grabbing the bar with white knuckles. I think it is the fact that I just have time to look out at the world and wonder about the minimum wage carnie who maintains the machine. That and the person sitting next to me can decide to start rocking the damn thing...
No, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'd rather be on the 70mph dragster than on a small Ferris wheel.
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Doesn't New York have enough there to already draw millions of tourists there each year?
It seems to be a bit over the top to me with everything else New York already has to offer.
I'd almost rather see something like that in another state here in America.
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My first thought on reading that it would hold 1,440 people at once... in New York City... What a tempting target for a terrorist... Yea, I've been brainwashed, I know it...
Will it be painted to look like a target?
It still won't be as big as the original Ferris Wheel which could hold 2,160 people at a time. Also, will a 9-minute ride still be 50 cents?
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Ferris wheels like this don't stop for loading - they just have a mobile loading platform that moves with the wheel. Also remember that it's not 1440 people per car, but only 40 people that need to be loaded at once.
If you ever went to such a wheel (I'm thinking London Eye now) , you'd know that they never really stop rotating so that they can _constantly_ load and unload passengers, one car at a time, each time one of the cars passes near the floor.
Are we really on Slashdot as you seem to have never heard of "pipelining" ????? ^_^
I think most people would measure how "big" it is by height, and yes, the new one will be about 3 times taller.
You're correct that the old one had greater capacity.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I've never seen a mobile loading platform. That sounds like a wonderful idea!
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Who is paying for this?
Who profits?
How many 16 ounce soft drinks will I need to take with me to stay hydrated during the 38 minute ride?
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TFA says the ride takes 38 minutes. If that's just for one rotation, the cars will be moving at less than 1 ft/s; slow enough to load and unload without stopping the wheel.
Come on New York be original build another tower, or build world's largest roller coaster...
No sense copycatting London
Get ready for a full body scan before you are allowed on this thing.
The Ferris Wheel would only be second in popularity to the Line Ride at any of the borough's fine bridges!
How are those 4.5 million people supposed to get to Staten Island? I realize there are three bridges and a ferry, but from what I saw this summer they seem barely adequate for current needs.
Proverbs 21:19
640 feet ought to be enough for anybody.
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"Bread and circuses will also be provided to further help destract from the decline and fall."
The New York Wheel will be an attraction unlike any other in New York City even unlike any other on the planet
I guess that's true if you don't count London or Shanghai as being on this planet...
TFA says the ride takes 38 minutes. If that's just for one rotation, the cars will be moving at less than 1 ft/s; slow enough to load and unload without stopping the wheel.
Yikes that's a long time to not have air conditioning or heating. So it'll have full HVAC, I'm guessing. You can't have a tourist trap in NYC without selling $5 bottled water. Then you wanna take a leak (thats a long time!), so you put in bathrooms. Suddenly I'm thinking the "630 foot high club". In fact why not rent rooms for an integer number of rotations... This might actually be fun.
So I read the wiki and its going to be open from 10am to 10pm which is 12 hours, at 38 minutes/rotation that's a hair short of 19 rotations. At 19 rotations and 36 capsules and each capsule rated at 40 people thats 27360 people per day absolute maximum. Every day operation and by a miracle no maint or inclement weather means 9,986,400 people absolute maximum.
"Bloomber's office said it would expect up to 30,000 riders per day and about 4.5 million passengers per year"
Hmm so about a 50% annual load factor or a 110% daily load factor. Pick one?
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The can have a circus around it and serve bread.
I really don't want tourists on my island.
No worries. We're going to turn you into a prison anyway. :-) We scrapped the whole Manhattan plan.
I counted what, 38 cabins on that rendering... that means that each one will have nearly 40 people in it? That's a freaking subway car!
Bow before me, for I am root.
I'd like to see a Viking ship ride of this size. :)
Okay, since the London Eye is so popular, New York will do it one better?
Original it is not. And I liked the comment that the original, original Ferris Wheel (in Chicago I think that was) was bigger than this.
The Singapore flyer offers a dinner service for two revolutions. Not quite what you have in mind I realise but along the same lines.
Not sure about the daily load factor. I guess they rounded up. I imagine it will be less popular in the winter though. I presume they have quite a good idea about seasonal variations in tourist attractions based on other New York attractions.
It looks like every other word on Slashdot is mixed up except edit fields and the "Slashdot" graphic at the top of the screen. Is it Dyslexia awareness week or something?
What does "little It's-you endian clod insensitive" mean anyways?
Dang, even the message preview is all messed up.
but main street is all cracked and broken.
The problem with making the biggest is that someone just has to make something bigger then your tourist attraction loses its all-important title
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
I used to run a much smaller ferris wheel. We only had 40 cars, 8 people per car. Even so, we had to very carefully balance the weight of people to opposing cars. The entire thing had very limited torque, it only took about 1,000 lbs without an equal weight on the opposite side for us to lose control of the wheel. It would spin on it's own, eventually reaching equilibrium.
To load the whole thing, you had to load 1 set of cars "light" with just a few people, then the opposite side, then one set ahead of that, then one set behind the other set. It actually took a fair amount of training to transition from "20 cars light" to "40 cars heavy." Most of the operators were not skilled enough, and we even lost control of the wheel once when I took a day off. The entire park staff had to turn out and turn the wheel by hand (yes, I'm almost sorry I missed it).
I'm sure such a large wheel will have much more torque, but it will be interesting to see how they load it.
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It says 10am to 10pm in the Spring, Fall, and Winter, and til 2AM 'or even all night' in the summer. It also says 'up to 30000/day'. There is nothing incompatible with '30000 people on a busy day in the summer, average of 12300 per day (which is 4.5 miilion per year) over the course of a year'. Both of those figures fit easily into the numbers provided, and leave plenty of room for maintenance and weather.
I really don't want tourists on my island.
And there's nothing to look at here anyway.
Your tourist website sadly seems to agree with you. It really doesn't look to be a great deal there that would interest me as a tourist. However reading up on it, if I HAD to live in New York City for whatever reason, it seems like a good choice on places to live.
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Given all the issues with the American economy, this is bread and circuses if there was ever one.
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I grew up on Staten Island and still visit there quite frequently. They have enough traffic already.
4.5 million new visitors to a tourist spot on the island would need some significant infrastructure improvements. They have three bridges to NJ and one to Brooklyn, causing bottleneck problems even on the best of days. I can't imagine adding a few million visitors a year expressly for an amusement park.
Though having a second mall on the island may be worth while. Just make it right off one of the highways, this time.
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Oh, yes, Quite absurd. I mean every tourist attraction there is has a single hotel attached to it that can hold more people than the attraction can. For instance, stadiums always have a 30000 room hotel attached to them.
In fact why not rent rooms for an integer number of rotations
Your explicitly stating this implying that you thought some people might otherwise have considered renting them for a NON-integer number of rotations?! :-)
This might actually be fun.
More "interesting" than fun if one had stupidly rented a room for 4 1/2 rotations and they kicked you out of the room when your time was up :-O
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He must have the same advisor Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has.
That guy wanted to use prime waterfront property to build a giant ferris wheel *and* a monorail.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Your explicitly stating this implying that you thought some people might otherwise have considered renting them for a NON-integer number of rotations?! :-)
Can you base jump from only 600 feet or so? I'd be extremely nervous of being tangled in the machinery or blown back into it by a freak wind gust. You know some xtreme lunatic is going to figure out some maintenance door or whatever and smuggle a parachute onboard sooner or later.
Personally I think a really huge wheel with three access points would be the worlds most weirdly cool "skywalk". I don't know if they have skywalks below 45 or so degrees latitude so this might not make much sense. They're kind of like human subways but above ground and more like sidewalks than trains... Or they're like underground steam tunnels between buildings, but without steam and not underground. Anyway, I could see a 1000 foot diameter urban wheel with a skyscraper at 0 degrees and an access port around the 50th floor, another skyscraper at 180 degrees rotation about 1000 feet away also with an access port around floor 50, and the ground / subway station at 270 degrees rotation and zero feet altitude. Even better two counter rotating wheels on the same axle so both skyscrapers are never more than 1/4 turn away from the subway (you know new yorkers, always in a hurry).
This is probably proof that I shouldn't be an architect.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The real wonder of this project is that it's on Staten Island. Let's hope they inaugurate it with a contest: First prize is a free trip to Staten Island! Second prize is TWO free trips! I grew up a few miles from where this ferris wheel would be and let me tell you, no power on Earth will turn it into an attraction. Staten Island is one of the worst places on Earth.
Bad idea. Escape from Staten Island just doesn't have the same ring.
NO ONE is going to willingly go to Staten Island unless you're giving away free money. This has epic fail written all over it. I can only imagine the reason Der Fuhrerberg is for this is because either he or a crony will make bank when it fails.
The Singapore Flyer (540 feet) just has a really long platform. The wheel moves slowly enough (2 rotations per hour) that you can simply step into your capsule. They can slow it down even further for wheelchairs if needed.
http://www.lagoonpark.com/
Not the biggest. I haven't been there for years though. They have real (albeit not very scary) roller coasters.
The wheel will be built by Starneth: a Dutch company from a small village near the German border.
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Yep, the London one moves so slowly that you just walk onto the moving capsule. It's probably moving at a fraction of the speed of an escalator or travelovator