Build Cable 1 Cable Car System, Paris Disburses IDR 2 Trillion

JAKARTA - Paris is already home to some of the world's most popular attractions, and the French capital may be getting its first urban cable car.

Proposed plans for a new 4.5-kilometre cable car line linking various suburbs in the southeast to the Paris Metro are underway, with construction expected to begin this year.

Scheduled to open in 2025, the project dubbed 'Cable 1' will travel from the Paris suburb of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges to Pointe du Lac station in Creteil, in the le-de-France region in just 17 minutes, less than half travel time will take the bus.

Renders for the cable car line, led by architectural studio Atelier Schall, have just been released, providing a closer look at the highly anticipated project, which recently completed a pre-construction feasibility study.

Estimated to cost 132 million euros or around Rp2,095,856,209,920, Cable 1 is expected to serve around 11,000 people per day, with the distance between trains only about 30 seconds during peak hours. Each train is estimated to be able to accommodate up to 10 passengers.

While French cities such as Brest and Grenoble already have a similar cable car system, Cable 1 will be a first for Paris if approved. However, several other proposed aerial tram lines are currently under various stages of development.

First proposed in 2008, Cable 1 was deemed necessary because the hilly terrain of Creteil, which also has high-speed rail and highways, makes alternative above-ground travel systems less practical.

To build the system, 33 white pylons, designed to "blend harmoniously" into the landscape, will be installed along the outskirts of the city.

"Public transport in Ile-de-France, the Ile-de-France region and the Department of Val-de-Marne decided in 2016 to add a new innovative tool to the public transport solution that offers residents of le-de-France in their network, transport links the region's first urban cable car," said Laurent Probst, general director of IDF Mobilites, as quoted by CNN March 20.

"The big proposal of the group led by France's Doppelmayr will allow, in just four years, more than 11,000 people per day to save a lot of time, a lot of comfort and maybe, to dream a little in the mountains," he explained.

Cable 1 cable cars are planned to serve five stops in total, Temps Durables and Emile Combes in Limeil-Brévannes, Emile Zola in Valenton and Bois Matar in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, with ends at Pointe du Lac in Créteil, just off the trail metro 8.

Each station will only be one floor high, to ensure the system is '100 percent accessible' for passengers.

It is known, Paris is not the only city in Europe that introduces a cable car system. Last year, Amsterdam gave the green light for a 1.5-kilometer cable car that will cross the IJ River, connecting Amsterdam-West and Amsterdam-Noord when it will be operational in 2025.

Meanwhile in London, the cable car being built across the Thames has struggled to attract regular passengers since it opened in 2012, and has only managed to avoid draining the city's transport finances, due to a lucrative sponsorship deal coming to an end.