DANA POINT FUNICULAR --Fun, fun"i", peculiar? What is this thing that sounds so funny and fun?

Dana Headlands is a large plateau of land perched above the Pacific Ocean approximately 120 feet. Southern Californians' once focused on a dramatic rescue at cliffs nearby at the beaches below Ritz-Carlton Dana Point, when someone fell from the cliff. 120 feet, the equivalent of less than a city block, is far enough down a steep slop to kill you.  So when a new housing tract and new park at this parcel of land recently got approved, the California Coastal Commission was credited with helping negotiate the public access issues of the beach below. How do you build guard gated homes on the cliffs, and still let the public onto the beach? Don't ask the beach residences of Malibu, because they prefer you didn't know. When wealthy moguls are given the chance, they will do all they can to keep the "have nots" out.

The solution at Dana Point may be a simple, yet elegant one, much like the access point at Montage Resort at Laguna Beach.  While some do not think of south Orange County beaches as the most user-friendly, the landforms, mountains behind them, cliffs and coves actually make them the more interesting choice in comparison to the flat sandy "every man's" beaches, Huntington Beach, Sunset Beach and Seal Beach.

What's new is a fun-icular place to go in SoCal. Courtesy of The Headlands Development Public Funicular, an inclined elevator at Strands Beach, California Coastal Commission said that the developer of a residential /commercial project must build a funicular to provide public access from outside of the Headlands gated residential development and directly from the County Park at the end of Dana Strand Road to the beach.
 

Technically more like an inclined elevator, it is driven by a cog rail system with an electric motor on the car itself. No cables are used. The car holds up to eight passengers.  Making it easier for the public and handicapped individuals in particular, to gain access to Strands Beach. Open year-round, it travels slowly at about 2-3 miles per hour. A fee is charged to ride it.

The City of Dana Point has obtained a list of all Crosslift installations and contacted the owners of two U.S. installations, one at Telluride in Colorado (ski resort) and a second public park installation at Chattanooga, Tennessee. These owners are happy with both the operation and safety aspects of their equipment. A member of the City Building Department has also visited one of the Swiss installations. The City met with the State Elevator Safety Principal Engineer, Al Tafazoli, and his Senior Safety Engineer/Inspectors who will be certifying the installation and monitoring operational maintenance periodically (annual permit).

The Crosslift system has all the safety features of a common vertical elevator plus additional safeties for the inclined application such as an emergency phone in the cabin, 3 independent braking systems, mechanical brake attached to the electric motor, overspeed governor to detect an overspeed of the car and stop it with independent braking system which is mounted on the car (just like a vertical elevator). Two independent overspeed detection devices, electrical overspeed set at 110% normal operating speed and mechanical overspeed set at 130% of normal operating speed offer redundancy in the breaking system.

Other safety features include monitored door locks to prevent doors opening during the ride, the low operating speed, a double cog drive with two sprockets side by side, automatic stopping/braking mechanism , sensors in front and the back of the car, and a carrier “locked” within the track rails, which makes it physically impossible for the car to tip over or engage from the track.

Outdoor Engineers, Inc. Oswald Graber installed the Crosslift Inclined Elevator. Most of the components are produced by Inauen-Schaetti AG in Switzerland. Some parts such as track rails and support towers are produced in the US, with the main component a Swiss-built product.

The components company was founded 1961 by Albert Schatti. 1997 Inauen-Schatti AG was formed (previously Math. Streiff AG, since 1957).

Outdoor Systems, Inc., the company responsible for this first ever OC wonder, has built ropeways around internationally, including passenger tramways, ski lifts: fixed grip and high speed chairlifts, gondola ropeways and people mover cable cars. Headlands Reserve LLC proposed video cameras for monitoring passengers.