When your town council’s history includes demolishing the only Frank Lloyd Wright building in Western Canada, the rest of the world will forever watch with a jaundiced eye.

Banff, after all, abandoned quaint sensibility two decades ago in order to pack Banff Avenue with as much retail development as the street could handle, a policy putting alpine-village charm second to commercial success and chain stores.

Other civic councils have certainly allowed the same, but this is Banff, where every decision, from pay parking to chopping down old trees to wrecking Wright’s Park Pavilion back in 1939, is subject to criticism from those who visit the bustling tourist town.

In other words, pretty much everybody.

And when this town’s mayor and council gets something wrong, the whole world is unhappy.

That’s why the idea of gondolas is certain to raise a stink like the Sulphur Mountain hot springs on a sweaty July day.

Gondolas will mean serious change to the way tourists get around in Banff, while altering the look of the town forever.

“I’ve already had a bit of pushback on it, and so I just ask people to think about the urban environment, and consider what they want,” said Banff Councillor Stavros Karlos.

“Traffic is one thing, but a pedestrianized urban environment is completely different, and I know when I go to Europe, I enjoy some of the great pedestrian environments over there.”

It’s not that far-fetched a comparison, given 3.3 million visitors a year and an economy driven almost completely by tourism, much like some European destinations.

Banff residents have learned to leave their cars at home, with more than 60% walking or cycling, but right now, tourists have little choice.

Curse recent commercialism if you will (and many have), but Banff is a very successful town, where summer Saturdays can feel like rush-hour in the city — complete with bumper-to-bumper traffic and enough impatient growls to put a grizzly to shame.

This past summer, most days saw the town exceeding its congestion threshold, set at 20,000 vehicles a day, and the frustration often continues even after the slow crawl to your destination is over, due to limited parking.

And so they’re considering gondolas, known as aerial tramways, to those in the municipal planning business.

It’s an idea that’s already been embraced around the world, wherever there are too few streets and too many people for cars and parking to be a feasible option.

Banff certainly qualifies — and this time, it looks like the town is on the right track when it comes to promoting tourism growth with minimum impact.

From Argentina to Spain, Switzerland, and Portland, Oregon, large enclosed cable cars ferry people through the air, allowing for mass transit without the destruction required to build a ground-level rail service.

Banff’s 3.8-km version, if it gets past town council, would feature stations on Banff Avenue and at the Banff Centre at the southeast end of town, with gondolas carrying passengers over the Bow River to the Banff Springs Hotel, and then onwards to a terminal at Sulphur Mountain and the Upper Hot Springs.

So far, the initial plan has been approved by the town finance committee, and if council agrees next month, a $70,000 feasibility study will be ordered, with an answer on Banff’s cable-car future expected in about a year.

At the same time, the study will determine the cost of keeping things car friendly, including a second vehicle bridge over the Bow, a new parkade and a second road up Sulphur.

Karlos says Banff has to do something about the increasing car congestion, and when the price of a gondola is compared to new parkades, bridges and roads, he bets most people will opt for an aerial tramway capable of carrying 1,000 people per hour.

“Traffic has certainly become an issue that we have to grapple with in a town the size of ours, and the infrastructure is only capable of handling so many vehicles,” said Karlos.

“We need to start looking past the idea of moving vehicles, to the idea of moving people.”