Longest European urban cable-car line opens near Paris
People living south of Paris can now commute to the city using what operators bill as Europe’s newest and longest urban cable car, running 4.5 kilometres from the suburbs to France’s capital.
The new line has five stations and will connect an estimated 20,000 residents and workers in several communities to the Paris metro network, according to Île de France Mobilités, the route’s operator.
Each day, around 11,000 passengers are expected to use the cable car’s 10-seat cabins to travel into town.
The journey from the start to the end station in Paris takes around 18 minutes. According to the operator, the bus takes 40 minutes to complete the journey.
Toulouse in southern France has a 3-kilometre-long cable car, while locals and visitors at the port of Barcelona and in London glide over the city on lines stretching 1.3 kilometres and 1 kilometre.
Some cable cars in the mountains of Europe are similar in length to the new service near Paris. In other parts of the world, there are much longer urban cable cars, for example in Bolivia’s La Paz and in Medellín in Colombia.
The new €138 million ($162 million) Paris project was initiated because the area is criss-crossed by freight and express train lines and the existing transport routes are heavily congested.
