Sky Blue Line began commercial service on July 14th. Image from Mi Teleferico.
Construction works for the world’s largest urban gondola network in La Paz, Bolivia continues to take place at record speeds. Large celebrations took over its street when the president, Evo Morales, was on hand to inaugurate Mi Teleferico’s 7th urban gondola, the Sky Blue Line (Spanish: Línea Celeste), on July 14th.
The 2.6km Sky Blue Line has been designed with 4-stations which helps connect the City’s south zone (Spanish: zona Sur) to the downtown area (Spanish: centro paceño). Along the route, the cable car travels by a number of obstacles/features including a sports field, a ravine, under three iconic bridges (e.g. Trillizos bridge, América bridge and the Gemelo bridge), an open air theatre and even under the existing White Line gondola.
With a maximum speed of 6m/s, end to end travel times will be just 11.8 minutes while maximum capacities will be 4,000 passengers per hour per direction (pphpd). As a comparison, this is equivalent to more than 70 buses every hour!
You might note that the Sky Blue Line is the first of two urban gondola lines in La Paz to open with higher performance capabilities. It’s maximum speeds and line capacity are 20% and 33% higher than the speeds and capacities seen on the six previous lines. In fact, at 4,000 pphpd, the Sky Blue Line will be the first pure public transit MDG system to be designed with such a large capacity. The vast majority of MDGs built in the past typically peaked at around 3,000 pphpd.
Ultimately, greater performance standards will be useful as the Sky Blue Line is connected to three other urban gondola lines (e.g. White Line, Green Line, and Yellow Line).
Evo Morales (Bolivian president) and Cesar Dockweiler (GM of Mi Teleferico) were amongst the first riders of the Sky Blue Line. Image from Los Tiempos.
Sky Blue Line. Image from Mi Teleférico.
As part of the opening remarks, Morales emphatically called the newest cable car, “a dream of the people of La Paz”. Arguably, this statement isn’t really that far from the truth as the Sky Blue system was built in just 366 days!
The entire Mi Teleferico network as a whole is equally as impressive as it has now logged in more than 135 million passengers since the first gondola line opened in 2014. To put that into perspective, this ridership figure is more than 13 times the entire population of Bolivia!
Master plan for all 11 urban gondola lines. Image from Mi Teleferico.
Shortly after the 7th urban gondola opened, officials announced that the Purple Line (Spanish: Línea Morada) will begin commercial service in the first half of September. Similar to the Sky Blue Line, the Purple Line will also operate with higher system speeds and capacities than that were seen on the previous six lines. Effectively, this means that passengers will be able to travel from 6 de Marzo station to Obelisco station in just 16.8 minutes.
As construction is nearing completion, the system is now undergoing test operations.
Purple Line cabins are still being covered by protective wrapping. Image from Pagina Siete.
It’s a little hard to believe at first, but the entire Mi Teleférico master plan is coming together beautifully. By September, more than 70% of the system will be opened with only three lines left to complete (i.e. Brown Line, Silver Line and Gold Line). Urban gondola followers won’t have to wait long as the whole network should be fully built by 2020!