Red Flags Fly Over Swyft Cities Gondola Proposal for Great Park

  • April 21, 2025, 5:41 pm America/Los_Angeles

On Tuesday, April 22, 2025’s Great Park Board agenda, staff will request approval for a proposal that would accept an infrastructure “donation” from Swyft Cities—an early-stage startup with no operational systems, minimal staffing (around 10 employees according to their LinkedIn), and no public funding history—to serve as the exclusive proprietary transit provider for the Great Park. Significant questions have been raised by residents and activists alike.

Strings Attached, Accountability Absent

While presented as a gift, the funding comes with major strings attached: the money is only available if the City commits to using Swyft Cities’ proprietary transit technology. If the City later chooses to abandon Swyft due to system failures or select an alternative transit mode, it may be required to repay the donation. This arrangement effectively locks Irvine into a long-term relationship with an unproven vendor, based on vendor-supplied projections and marketing claims that have not been independently verified.

The City’s staff report omits key analyses such as comparative cost analysis with conventional transit options or a thorough evaluation of long-term financial and operational risks. Moving forward under these conditions could commit the City to an experimental, proprietary system with no clear exit strategy or competitive alternatives, posing substantial fiscal and infrastructure risks for Irvine taxpayers and Great Park residents.

Unverified Claims and Misleading Comparisons

The City’s staff report presents Swyft Cities’ gondola-style pod system as a superior alternative to conventional transit modes like buses and light rail. However, these claims rely entirely on unverified data provided by the vendor, with no independent analysis or real-world examples to support them.

One particularly questionable assertion is that Swyft’s system could move more passengers per hour than a high-capacity bus corridor does in an entire day—a claim that strains credulity. For context, Los Angeles’s Vermont corridor alone serves over 20,000 daily bus riders. A single Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor can carry more than 10,000 passengers per hour per direction, while Light Rail Transit (LRT) systems can handle up to 20,000–25,000 passengers per hour per direction. These are scalable, proven transit solutions operating across the country and internationally. By comparison, Swyft Cities has yet to launch a single functioning system anywhere in the world.

The City has provided no detailed breakdown of how future operating costs will be covered once the initial funding is exhausted. If Irvine proceeds, it may find itself responsible for rising maintenance, operational, and upgrade costs, without competitive alternatives or leverage to renegotiate. This poses long-term risks for taxpayers, especially in the event of technological failure or obsolescence.

Despite having no operational track record, Swyft Cities is being positioned as the exclusive transit provider for the Great Park. The company has no public funding history, lists a small team, and licenses its core technology from another firm—raising serious concerns about vendor stability and long-term technical support.

The absence of a viable fallback plan leaves Irvine vulnerable to vendor lock-in and stranded infrastructure if the system underperforms or the company fails. The only other pilot of this technology, in New Zealand, remains in early planning stages with no operational data.

Beyond the financial and performance uncertainties, the proposal leaves serious life and safety questions unanswered. For instance, the system’s weather resilience remains unclear—what are its operational limitations in high winds, extreme heat, or rain? Similarly, the emergency response protocols are not addressed; is there a power backup in the event of an outage, and how would evacuation work during a system failure? Additionally, has the evacuation procedure been reviewed by the Orange County Fire Authority? 

Another key concern is seismic safety—what is the system’s earthquake resistance, and has it been designed to meet California seismic standards? Furthermore, it is essential to know if the proposal has undergone proper regulatory review; has California’s Department of Industrial Relations or Amusement Ride and Tramway (ART)/CalOSHA approved the concept? Is that the agency that will review this project?

Finally, an independent third-party safety audit is a standard practice in the amusement ride industry, but no such auditor has been identified for this project. 

These are questions that need answers before moving forward with this donation.

The proposal echoes past failures of proprietary transit systems—often dubbed “gadgetbahns”—that initially promised innovation but ultimately became costly burdens and often not much more efficient at moving people. The Las Colinas APT in Texas and the Las Vegas Loop, for example, faced mounting maintenance issues, vendor departures, and scalability failures. The lesson is clear: infrastructure that depends on a single startup, untested technology, and closed standards often leaves cities with stranded assets and no exit plan.

In light of these concerns, the Swyft Cities proposal presents significant financial, operational, and safety risks that warrant far greater scrutiny before any commitments are made. Accepting a proprietary system from an unproven startup—without independent verification, regulatory review, or a clear backup plan—would tie Irvine’s future transit to a vendor with no demonstrated track record. The Great Park represents a major opportunity to build a world-class, resilient transit system. Ensuring that this opportunity is not compromised requires a transparent, data-driven evaluation process that includes public input, third-party assessments, and serious consideration of proven alternatives. Until these steps are taken, moving forward with Swyft Cities would be premature and potentially irresponsible.