This past week, President Evo Morales announced the development of another urban cable car on the Mi Teleferico. The Sky Blue Line (Spanish: Linea Celeste) will be the eighth gondola alignment in the city’s phase two plans, which effectively makes it the 11th line of the entire Doppelmayr-built cable car network.
Sky Blue Line (Linea Celeste). Image from Mi Teleferico.
Similar to the Purple Line, the Sky Blue Line will be built with higher specs than the initial the three initial cable lifts. Here are some confirmed stats:
- Length: 2.7km
- Stations: 4
- Speed: 6 m/s
- Capacity: 4,000 pphpd
- Towers: 27
- Cabins: 159
- Travel Time: 11.8 minutes
While ridership numbers were not released, this line is expected to be one of the network’s busiest. And from a preliminary review, this will likely hold true since the Sky Blue system will intersect with two existing lines (Green and Yellow) and one future line (White).
Once built, the existing Libertador (Chuqui Apu) station — already the most travelled terminal with 5.2 million passengers per year — will enable passengers to transfer to three separate lines (Green, Yellow and Sky Blue).
Astute readers may notice that this week’s announcement calls for some modifications to the previously proposed phase 2 plans. In particular, there appears to be the following changes:
- The previous Sky Blue Line is now known as the Golden Line (Spanish: Linea Dorado)
- The new Sky Blue Line becomes a completely new system
- The White Line (Spanish: Linea Blanca) no longer terminates at Libertador station, rather it will connect with the new Sky Blue Line’s San Jorge interchange station.
Libertador (Chuqui Apu) interchange station. Image from Skyscrapercity.
San Jorge interchange station connects riders to the White Line and Sky Blue line. Image from Skyscrapercity.
As part of the news release, the President also confirmed the development of the Silver Line (Spanish: Linea Plateada) and announced the construction of the Park of Cultures and Mother Earth (Spanish: Parque de las Culturas y la Madre Tierra).
In total, these investments are estimated to cost $110 million.