Teleférico do Complexo do Alemao

21
Jan

2011

New Images of Rio’s Teleferico do Alemao

Rio's Teleferico do Alemao urban gondola transit line. Image by flickr user Carlos Trindade Conceiçao.

Flickr isn’t immediate. After something new is built in the world, it takes a good few months to a year for the flickr community to build up a sizeable collection of images of whatever that new construction may be.

Takes even longer for a good body of Creative Commons images to build up.

Nevertheless, with the recent inauguration of Rio’s Complexo do Alemao urban gondola transit line, images are beginning to trickle in. We’ve therefore assembled some the best of them and created a flickr gallery for you.

Check it out here.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

22
Dec

2010

The Problem With Metrocables

Getting people to experience systems like the Medellin Metrocable will be one of the cable industry's big challenges in the coming years. Image by gab.

There’s no nice way to say this, but here goes:

Had the Metrocables of Medellin and Venezuela been built in a place like Denver, Copenhagen or Zurich, this conversation about cable transit would be entirely different than it is now. Cities would be building these things faster than the industry could keep up.

We wouldn’t even need this site, to be completely honest.

One of the first things a planner, policy-maker or politician has to do before implementing any radical new idea is to witness it first hand. Similarly, a journalist needs to experience something up close to effectively comment upon it.

That first-person encounter with a new idea, technology or innovation can change people’s perception in an instant. When one sees, feels, touches and experiences something up-close and in-person, it is in that moment when a person’s mind can be changed.

In other words, for the right people to get cable transit they need to experience cable transit.

But that’s very, very difficult with world affairs such as they are:

  • Given the constant strain between the Venezuelan and United States governments, no American politician (or American-friendly politician) is going to be caught dead traveling to Caracas to explore a transit system with an explicit socialist bent to it. Better luck getting them to visit Cuba.
  • Algeria only recently emerged from a decade civil war that claimed tens of thousands of lives. Parts of the country are still ‘no-go’ zones. It’s also predominantly Muslim. That presents a problem in a post-9/11 world.
  • Colombia has relapsed into violence and the U.S. State Department has issued an updated travel warning saying that violent crime is up in some major Colombian cities, including Medellín.
  • Favelas targeted for Metrocables in Rio have erupted in violence, delaying openings. Even when the World Cup and Olympics finally arrive in Rio, how many upper-middle-class sports tourists will trek off-the-beaten path into the favelas just to witness a gondola?

Do any of these places look like desired destinations for city councillors, policy wonks, or transit administrators? Probably not.

Trouble is, these are the only four places where urban gondolas have truly been integrated into the local transit network. These are the four places that any planner or politician interested in cable needs to see.

But most likely they won’t. This is one of the biggest challenges the cable industry faces right now.

Yes, the industry has demonstrated that they deserve to be part of the public transit family, but they’ve not been able to leverage that demonstration on a global stage which primarily takes the form of American and Western European cities and media.

How the industry navigates this current challenge will likely determine cable transit’s future for a very long time to come.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

13
Dec

2010

Rio’s Teleférico do Complexo do Alemao – Update

Children play in a pool at the house of an absent alleged drug trafficker at the Complexo do Alemão slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Nov. 28, 2010. Image by AP photographer, Andre Penner, via the Boston Globe.

Back in October, I brought notice to Rio’s Complexo do Alemao Teleférico. In that post I stated that based upon available information, the system was to be operational by the end of this year.

Unfortunately in late November, Rio and the Complexo do Alemao favela were witness to a nasty battle between insurgent drug cartels and Brazilian security forces, resulting in the loss of dozens of lives. (Note: Some of the images in the provided link may be disturbing to some individuals.)

For obvious reasons, work on the Teleférico was suspended.

Since then, Brazilian security forces claim to have driven the drug cartels out of the favela and, in symbolic display of victory, “raised the flags of Brazil and Rio de Janeiro state over an unfinished cable-car station to show that they had taken control of the Complexo do Alemao.

Meanwhile, according to The Guardian UK, “some urban planners wonder if installing cable-car networks is an effective use of public money or merely an attractive proposition for contractors.”

While I have no doubt that this system is an attractive proposition for contractors, I’d point out that any infrastructure project is an attractive proposition for contractors. That does not, however, invalidate the potential value of a given project.

Work has resumed on the Teleférico and it is now scheduled to open in February.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.

13
Oct

2010

Rio to Open Urban Gondola System This Year – The Complexo do Alemao Teleférico

An under-construction corner station of the Teleférico do Complexo do Alemao in Rio de Janeiro. Image via Intelog.

With virtually no attention from the English-speaking world, Rio de Janeiro is about to become the third major city in South America to open a Cable Propelled Transit system.

Located in the Complexo do Alemao group of favelas in northern Rio de Janeiro, the system appears to have been spurred by social mandates similar to those that launched the Medellin Metrocable and Caracas Metrocable. That Rio is the host of the upcoming summer Olympics and Brazil the host of the upcoming World Cup, this system is certain to get more attention and notice in the near future.

Built by the Leitner-Poma group, the system has some impressive stats:

  • 3.4 km long
  • Two terminals and 4 intermediary stations – a total of six stations, the highest yet for an Urban Gondola system.
  • Three (possibly four) turns/corners
  • Line capacity of 3,000 persons per hour per direction (pphpd)

Route of the Teleferico do Complexo do Alemao. Image via Piniweb.

Apparently the system is already in the testing stages and is set to be operational by the end of this year.

A recent Google search for this system returns absolutely no information in English, though the number of articles and references in Portuguese is enormous. If any readers of The Gondola Project speak Portuguese, please post any relevant links or information in the comments section (Google’s translation service is useful, but native speakers would be far more useful).

As more information and details come up, we’ll be sure to make them available.



Want more? Purchase Cable Car Confidential: The Essential Guide to Cable Cars, Urban Gondolas & Cable Propelled Transit and start learning about the world's fastest growing transportation technologies.