Bridges and subways now cross the Yangtze River but nothing quite matches the joy and excitement of soaring across the delta on an urban ropeway.
Youtuber Luke Starkenburg takes us on a journey to learn more about the majestic Chongqing Yangtze River Cableway (Chinese: 长江索道) in what is probably one of the best videos on China’s second Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) line.
To this day, the cableway still attracts 2.5 million riders each year!
Big thanks to Timothy J for sharing the video with us.
2 Comments
With many elevation changes, why did the city of Chongqing, China select a monorail system for their public transit system? At one time, the Aerobus aerial tram system supposedly had the inside track in the competition for the completed project. With a large number of passengers, was there a concern that there was a possibility that any gondola system would encounter the problem of a gondola falling from the cable?
It appears that Chongqing’s hilly terrain (with rivers) made heavy rail implementation impossible/expensive. Thus, they chose a monorail technology will strong climbing abilities. In regards to concerns about CPT system implementation, difficult to say if specifically falling cabins would be a concern. However, given that the city once has 2 urban aerial trams (and has since approved plans to rebuild the dismantled system), I’d imagine that this wouldn’t be a top concern.