How Sugar Land Became the Test City for Flying Taxis

There once was a Texas sugar plantation where cane fields stretched as far as the eye could see, and enslaved people—primarily African Americans—toiled away in the heat. In time, the plantation grew into a factory called Imperial Sugar, which grew into a city that was aptly named Sugar Land. Over the next few decades, Sugar Land grew beyond recognition. Master-planned neighborhoods sprouted, and as cars became popular in the 1970s, highways expanded to connect these neighborhoods—and also splinter them. In 1970, just over 3,000 people called Sugar Land home. In 2020, that number had skyrocketed to 110,000.

Sugar Land is located just southwest of Houston; today, it is the sixth-fastest growing city in the U.S., and it is running out of space. With only 4 percent of land left to build on, the city is looking for innovative transportation solutions—and looking up for answers.

Over the past year, Sugar Land has set in motion three big initiatives—one of them is a community microtransit service, the other two involve aerial solutions. Earlier this year, the city partnered with Wisk Aero, a company that has spent the past 14 years developing electric, self-flying taxis, also known as vertical take-off and landing (VTOL).

The pilot would allow residents to hop on an air taxi (from, say, downtown Sugar Land) and fly to a designated vertiport in a fraction of the time it would take them to drive. Mitchell Davies, deputy director of aviation at the Sugar Land Regional Airport, says the airport has identified potential locations for a so-called Vertiport and is working closely with Wisk Aero and the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct an airspace study. The Vertiport should become operational “by the end of the decade or sooner,” he says.

More recently, the cityannounced that it is studying the possibility of bringing an “autonomous elevated cable and rail mobility system” that would glide above its streets. The system, which is operated by a provider of urban mobility systems called Swyft Cities, can best be described as an on-demand gondola—a bit like Uber, except instead of a car, it’s a cabin that slides by to pick you up and drop you off at your desired location, with no stops in between. An engineering schematic study is currently underway to examine the potential for the gondola system, including potential locations. It is expected to be completed later this year.

When Highways Won’t Do

The story of Sugar Land is the story of so many American cities, particularly in regions where the car is still king. Melanie Beaman, transportation and mobility manager at the City of Sugar Land, says that traffic in the region is expected to increase by 40-60 percent by 2025, and if the I-10 debacle in Houstonis any indication, building more lanes won’t free up more space, it will simply attract more cars. “You’ll end up erasing the city with this big, huge mega-freeway,” she says.

To come up with solutions, the city conducted a yearslong study that culminated in a 163-page Mobility Master Plan. After interviewing close to 2,000 residents, they outlined plans to develop a safe streets program, to allocate more room for people to walk and bike, as well accommodate those who use wheelchairs and strollers. They also laid out their goal to position Sugar Land as an innovative mobility leader. “City leadership has told us to be bold in what we do with transportation,” says Beaman. “We’re told to be trailblazers and not be afraid to take risks.”

Sugar Land could be the first American city to implement a Swyft Cities’ Whoosh cabin (though Swyft Cities is also eyeing the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the five cities of Dallas, Plano, Arlington, Frisco, and DeSoto as potential sites).

There are many reasons why they would rather take risks than play it safe. For one thing, funding is hard to come by, and public-private partnerships can bring about much-needed cash. The Federal Transit Administration also offers grants for innovative and green transportation through their “Enhancing Mobility Innovation” program. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program provides grants and loans to state and local governments wanting to reduce air pollution and congestion.

But there’s something else: The standard solutions no longer work. Brendon Wheeler, who is senior transportation planner at a regional planning organization called NCTCOG, says that Dallas-Fort Worth is “so spread out” that there are no geographical constraints to stop the growth. “Traditional transit simply cannot beat or match automobile travel times around the region.”

Are the Skies the Answer?

Swyft Cities was born out of a desire to unify some of Google’s campuses in Silicon Valley with nearby neighborhoods and transit options, but the plan fell through during the pandemic. In 2019, the team spun off into a company, and partnered with a New Zealand -based engineering firm called Whoosh.

Since 2019, the companies have built two prototypes—one in a Google warehouse in Silicon Valley, the other in New Zealand. Whoosh will also soon start building a full-scale network with fully enclosed cabins that can accommodate five passengers in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Unlike a traditional ski lift or gondola system, which uses a continuously moving cable to propel cabins between two stations, a Whoosh cabin uses an electric motor to propel itself along a stationary network of cables and rails. The team says that a Whoosh cabin consumes less than half the energy of an electric vehicle, and less than quarter of a bus, largely because of its small, electric motors and low friction on cables.

The five-seat cabin that would appear in Sugar Land can move at a speed of up to 30 mph, which is faster than buses, cars, and even light rail, though it’s worth noting that Swyft Cities isn’t looking to replace light rail. “Being that last-mile distributor between bus and rail, that’s where we fit in the set of transportation choices that are out there,” says Jeral Poskey, CEO of Swyft Cities.

There are many contenders for where the first gondola system might go in Sugar Land. The city is crisscrossed by two high-speed freeways that are seen as major barriers to anyone walking or bike. “You could build a pedestrian bridge, but it takes up a lot of room, which we don’t have,” says Beaman. Other contenders include the Sugar Land Town Square or the Smart Financial Centre, which often runs big events, as well as the ever-growing University of Houston campus in Sugar Land, which recently acquired a new, 75,000-square-foot building.

Residents are yet to decide where they would most like a Whoosh cabin—or if they want one at all—but for Beaman, one of the biggest benefits is just how flexible the system is. “If a grocery store wants a stop, they can help pay for that stop, but once we get the basic system down, then people can branch off, and we can add stops,” she says. “It’s limitless.”

Whether or not Swyft Cities will fix Sugar Land’s transportation woes remains to be seen, but the city is hopeful that solutions like self-flying taxis and Uber-style gondolas can convince people to leave their cars in the driveway and get to their destination in a more efficient, sustainable way. “The whole reason why you get traffic is everyone is using the same mode [of transportation] at same time, in the same space,” she says. “If you can move just a small percentage of people to other modes, it frees up the traffic flow.”



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