Lift Blog

The urban ropeway revolution will continue in Bolivia’s capital city of La Paz, where President Evo Morales announced Friday an 11th gondola line, Linea Celeste (Sky Blue Line) will join the Mi Teleférico gondola network.  La Paz and the neighboring city of El Alto announced the Red, Yellow and Green gondola lines in 2012 and the world’s largest urban gondola system opened throughout 2014.  President Morales unveiled plans for phase two with six more lines in 2015 with another added to the mix last February.  All 11 lines will be 10-passenger monocable detachable gondolas built by Doppelmayr. This latest investment of $110 million comes on top of $234 million for phase one and $450 million for the first six lines of phase two.

The Sky Blue branch will stretch nearly 9,000 linear feet with four stations, 27 towers and 159 CWA 10-passenger cabins. It is expected to be the busiest line in the system, serving the heart of the city and up to 4,000 passengers per hour at six meters per second.  The three existing lines operate at up to 5 m/s.  A trip from end to end on Linea Cileste will take 11.8 minutes.  A line previously dubbed Sky Blue will now be known as the Gold Line.  At the current rate, Mi Teleférico is going to run out of colors soon!

The system will be of stunning scale once completed in 2019:

• 11 lines – Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, White, Orange, Purple, Brown, Gold, Silver and Sky Blue
• 40 stations
• 1,729 cabins
• 89.4 miles of haul rope
• $794.6 million total investment

President Morales also announced Friday the White Line will be shortened to eliminate a connection with the Green and Yellow Lines.  Instead, Sky Blue will meet Red and Yellow at a station that already serves 5.2 million riders annually.  The first stage of the White Line is 65% complete while the five-station Blue Line is 75% finished and will open in March 2017. Orange Line construction is also underway.  The Publicly-owned Mi Teleférico (My Cable Car) will debut a new gondola every six months through at least 2019 and the system could include up to 16 lines by 2030.