Lift Blog

Commuters in a Mexico City suburb will take their first flights on a two-stage, $26 million gondola system called Mexicable in a few short weeks on Monday, October 3rd.  State of Mexico Governor Eruvio Ávila announced the city of Ecatepec will join the growing list of cities in the Americas building ropeways over congested neighborhoods.  The Governor’s Facebook Live test run video has been watched more than 461,000 times. Mexico joins Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela that operate (or will soon open) gondolas for urban commuters.

In Ecatepec, two loops will combine to serve seven stations and up to 3,000 passengers per hour in each direction.  The State of Mexico and its private operators Grupo IUSA and ALFA Group awarded Leitner Ropeways a contract to build the two gondolas in January 2014 and construction began later that year.  The lifts were largely completed in 2015 but station build-out and testing took longer than expected and the opening comes a few months late.

The new lifts will transit three miles over 32 towers in 17 minutes, replacing a bus line that takes 45 minutes.  185 10-passenger Sigma Diamond cabins painted in Mexico’s national colors will move up to 26,000 commuters each weekday.  Line speed is 5 m/s and the span of service will be 17 hours per day.  A ticket will cost eight pesos (43 cents) and the line will complement the Mexibus line 4, a 20-mile Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line currently under construction.

The Mexicable public-private partnership will reduce CO₂ emissions by an estimated 17,000 tons annually and remove 800 vehicles from choked roadways.  Two stations will house daycare centers for children of working parents.  The project also includes more than 70 murals and sculptures by artists in the stations and along the line.  The gondola system and urban art project, translated as “The Street is Yours,” aim to reduce crime and improve the lives of more than 300,000 residents of this traditionally crime-ridden region that Pope Frances visited in February.  The State of Mexico where Ecatepec lies unfortunately has the nation’s highest rates of homicide, theft and sexual assault.

A second Mexicable line is planned to connect Valle Dorado and the Cuatro Caminos metro station northwest of Mexico City.