Post by nickchu

109 cabins for Red Line arrives in La Paz. Image from Photobucket and SSC.

As some of our readers may know, the 3 cable car lines currently under construction in La Paz, Bolivia are due to open early next year. Unfortunately, language barriers sometimes makes gathering intel from South America difficult.

Luckily though, we do have a large international audience who are kind enough to forward us information — and thanks to Raphael, we now have some sources that give us an update.

System Map. Screenshot from Ministry Website.

Here’s a refresher of what’s being built at the moment:

1. Red Line (Línea Roja): 2.4km, 3 stations, 10 minutes travel time, capacity of 3000 pphpd
2. Yellow Line (Línea Amarilla): 3.9km, 4 stations, 13.5 minutes travel time, capacity of 3000 pphpd
3. Green Line (Línea Verde): 3.7km , 4 stations, 16.6 minutes travel time, capacity of 3000 pphpd

And undoubtedly for all those who are interested in urban transport, you should probably follow this system.

The reason you may ask?

Well, once it opens, the La Paz teleféricos will most likely become the world’s largest network of urban transit cable cars.

And not only that, at an estimated final cost of USD$234.6 million, this is single-handedly the largest investment that a government has made into urban gondola technology. The combined cable network of 10km is expected to alleviate congestion for the 200,000 people that travel between La Paz and El Alto!

If that’s not impressive enough, this is probably the first instance in man-kind where cable driven systems function as the mass transit backbone of a large city.

And if the La Paz system is successful, the implications of this could be far-reaching. In other words, with La Paz being the first, you know that someone will soon want to be second.

So in the meantime, check out the links below and we’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Technical Information: Click here.

System Map: Click here.

Facebook: Click here.

Twitter: Click here.