The Brown Line’s Busch Station is partially hidden behind the red multi-storey building. To its right is the existing Busch Station for the White Line. Image by ecram.
After the cable was installed earlier this year in September, construction works have been progressing steadily for the Brown Line (Spanish: Línea Café) — La Paz’s 9th urban gondola and third final cable car.
Local reports suggest the upcoming rapid transit system will be open for passenger service by January 2019. If all goes according to plan, officials will begin system testing in December and will hopefully receive a safety certification by the end of the month. Unlike the rest of the Mi Teleférico network where each line is connected to at least three stations, the Brown Line marks a slight departure from this design philosophy.
At just 714m in length and two stations, the Brown Line will be shortest ropeway line in La Paz. As a comparison, the Linea Cafe is 80% shorter and has three fewer stations than the network’s longest line (i.e. the Blue Line).
Photo the Brown Line’s Villa San Antonio Station back in August 2018. Image by massaff.
Brown Line. Image from Mi Teleferico.
Despite its relatively short length, the system provides an important transport service to locals travelling to the Miraflores and Villa San Antonio neigbhourhoods located in the east end of the city. Effectively this means that the Brown Line will function as a feeder system to the longer 2.9km White Line since it provide riders with the ability to transfer at Busch station. The Brown Line will be one of the two systems scheduled to open in the new year — the second being the 2.6km Silver Line.
To put it into perspective, after the Brown Line becomes operational, the city’s cable car masterplan (i.e. Metropolitan Integration Network) will be over 80% complete as the La Paz will have built nearly 28km of cable cars spread over 33 stations. By comparison, the world’s second largest network of urban gondolas in Medellin, Colombia is less than half that size with just 12km of ropeways and 16 stations.
Overall, the new system will offer passengers with a speedy 3.8 minute connection and operate with a capacity of 3,000 pphpd (26 cabins). Officials hope that the Brown Line will add to its success as Mi Teleférico’s existing lines now transport more than 250,000 passengers each day! Not too shabby for a system that only first opened in 2014.