Cities, SI-Urban
Mexico: Cable car plans for the coming years
Latin America and the Caribbean have learned to innovate in public transport after the sustained growth of their cities.
In recent decades, megacities have emerged that have struggled with traffic congestion and environmental pollution, a product of the predominance of the car-centric model that privileged individual motor transport, giving exorbitant profits to transnational automotive companies.
Status quo
After the Colombian city of Medellín inaugurated the first urban cable car line for public transport in 2004, several works have followed in other Latin American cities, reaching 36 cable car lines today.
The installed system already has more than 150 million users, 145 stations and more than 135 kilometres built.
At the end of September of this year, former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, president-elect and former head of government of Mexico City, inaugurated the new urban cable car line in Bosques de Chapultepec, although with community and tourist purposes, it will connect localities with high population density and close to the Historic Center of the City.
Sergio Astorga
PhD candidate, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City
Sergio Astorga is a research professor in the field of international relations and political science. He is a candidate for the PhD in Social Sciences, specialising in Economics and Innovation Management at the Metropolitan Autonomous University – Xochimilco, Mexico City. In his doctoral thesis, he analysed the relationship between state capacity and innovation in public transport using the example of cable cars in Mexico City. He has been a guest lecturer at universities in Latin America, Spain and South Africa, where he has focussed on sustainability studies and socio-technical transitions
The plans
Mexico is set to continue promoting the use of cable cars for public transport. Clara Brugada, the new mayor of Mexico City has already announced that she will build 5 new cable car lines connecting key points where currently transport users spend more than 4 hours a day getting to their destinations.
Also, in the State of Mexico, the state neighboring the city that gave rise to the first cable car line in 2016, a new line has already been announced in the municipality of Naucalpan de Juárez; and 3 new lines are still pending according to the initial plan.
Other states also welcome the arrival of cable cars, especially in those localities where topographic conditions make it difficult to build another mode of transport.
Facts & Figures
Latin American urban ropeways and main characteristics.
Will Bolivia be surpassed?
The six-year term could surpass the number of existing lines in La Paz, Bolivia, the metropolitan area with the largest number of cable car lines in the world, which has changed the dynamics and life in the city, connecting territories that lived isolated by the prevailing geographical conditions.
The arrival of an environmentalist woman to the Mexican presidency, who has been an active leader in the implementation of urban cable cars in the Mexican metropolis, will surely promote their arrival and use in other destinations in the national territory.
The maintenance and safety conditions that require state financing and subsidized fares merit an inter-party consensus in the long term for the benefit of users and the community in general.