The Chicamocha Cable Car. Image via flickr user Squiggle.
Often system length is used as an argument against Urban Gondolas and Cable Cars as a viable form of public transit. And while it’s true that most Cable Car systems are rather modest in length, that doesn’t mean they must be modest in length.
That’s why we once wrote about the Norsjö Aerial Ropeway in Sweden. If you’ll recall, that system was 13.2 kilometers long but was part of a converted mining system from the year 1943. Owing to its mineral extraction origins, the system is incredibly spartan and slow (10 km/hr).
To demonstrate system length we need something a little more – how shall we put it? – current.
Witness, then, the Chicamocha Cable Car near Bucaramanga, Colombia. The system dates from 2009, was built by Poma, uses current MDG technology, has three stations and is a whopping 6.3 kms long – arguably one of the longest systems in the world to use current MDG technology.
Granted the system is in no way, shape, form or description urban (it’s the centrepiece of Colombia’s new Chicamocha National Park), but it’s impressive statistics should demonstrate to anyone asking that current cable technologies can span lengths previously unimagined.
Take a look:
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