A gondola-like system is now on the path to arrive at the Irvine Great Park after a city board approved on Tuesday, April 22, looking at a pilot system to move the visitors around.

The Great Park Board — made up of the City Council — voted 5-1 to enter into negotiations with Swyft Cities to build an autonomous elevated cable transit network that resembles gondolas at the park, dubbed the Whoosh system. The vote will let city staff negotiate an agreement with Swyft Cities, which has a license for the system, for a pilot phase.

The vision is for the gondola-like vehicles to move visitors around the Great Park’s attractions instead of driving from point to point in a car.

“What we are experiencing right now is that if attractions are more than a third of a mile spaced out in the current park, people tend to go back to their car and move their car,” Assistant City Manager Sean Crumby said. “What we really want to do is stop that from happening in the future.”

The first two stations would be located at The Canopy retail area and the park’s visitor center. If chosen to be the Great Park’s transportation system after an initial pilot phase, it would expand with several stations throughout the park, totaling about four miles and costing an estimated $40 million.

Crumby said the city has looked at other options, such as trams, people movers and bus circulators. The Whoosh system in early estimates would be cheaper and would be less disruptive to existing infrastructure on the ground if built, according to a city staff report.

The system has not been built anywhere else, but a pilot project of the first one is expected to open in Queenstown, New Zealand, in the coming years.

The proposal before the board asked for approval to negotiate an agreement with Swyft Cities to donate the initial segment for the system with two stations, estimated to be worth $9.4 million. A staff report said the agreement for the donation would be contingent on Irvine selecting the platform as the transit system for the Great Park, which brought concerns from several councilmembers who were speaking as Great Park Board members.

“To me, that doesn’t read like a true donation,” Councilmember Melinda Liu said. “It feels like we are accepting this gift on the condition that we promise to eventually make them the exclusive provider. That just doesn’t sound like a gift to me.”

City Manager Oliver Chi, responding to the board’s concerns about the city’s liability for going through with a pilot phase, said the city still needs to negotiate details in the agreement to protect the city’s interests. The system would need to meet performance standards before the city would ultimately decide to go with the system, Chi said.

Last year, about 6 million people visited the Great Park and once built out, city officials estimate that number will grow to 10 million to 15 million people per year.

“I’ve made no mistake about identifying our chief failure as a master-planned city,” Mayor Larry Agran said, “has been failure to have a transit system.”

Chi emphasized that the system at the park wouldn’t be used elsewhere in the city, where more traditional mass-transit options such as buses make more sense. One station for the Whoosh system, if built out, would be at the Irvine train station just outside the park.

Councilmember James Mai said there are many red flags right now for him, including not being presented with a detailed breakdown of maintenance costs, emergency protocols during natural disasters, and what happens to the system if the city decides against using it after a pilot phase.

Councilmember Kathleen Treseder, the lone vote against the item, said it’s an untested system and the city is getting ahead of itself without looking closely at other options. Treseder said she’s worried about the city being on the hook for the $9.4 million.

Chi said a shuttle system would be a fallback option for transportation around the park if Irvine officials decide against using the Whoosh system.

Later this year, Chi said construction will start on the build-out of the Great Park.

“It will be one of the wonders of the world,” Chi said. “I believe that passionately. I certainly take all the feedback seriously.”