SI World 2/2019, Urban
Encarnación & Asunción: Two cable car plans at once in Paraguay
With a cable car, the city administration of Encarnación hopes to speed up the local public transport to the neighbouring Argentinian city of Posadas. As local German-speaking online portal wochenblatt.cc reports, the project is to be implemented with private investors.
Encarnación does already have a local train offering a link between the two cities over the San Roque González de Santa Cruz bridge. However, the city administration is expecting that the urban cable car will bring more growth in tourism and even better local transport.
In spring 2019, Encarnación Mayor Luis Yd presented the project to Paraguay’s deputy minister of transport, Pedro Britos. Britos described the project as an ambitious proposal but conceded that it still required further investigation, in particular with regard to the funding.
“However, I think the request from Yd is absolutely feasible,” he said. “The aim is to attract the interest of a private company or national government, so that Encarnación can be connected by cable car as an alternative mode of transport,” Yd confirmed.
Relief for Asunción
In Asunción, the county’s capital city, work is also in progress on the implementation of cable cars. Representatives of Austrian cable car manufacturer DOPPELMAYR are planning theconstruction of urban cable cars in the region of Acceso Sur and Artigas as well as in the city of San Lorenzo.
The aim of the project is to relieve the traffic in the metropolitan region, particularly as the alternative Metrobus project has initially been declared a failure. Since spring 2019, DOPPELMAYR has therefore been conducting feasibility studies to assess the potential of urban cable cars in Asunción.
A company representative ex-plained that the investment costs for the urban cable cars should be lower than in La Paz (Bolivia), where cable car manufacturer DOPPELMAYR has installed similar transport systems. The topography of Asunción is much easier than that of the Bolivian capital, the company spokesperson added. However, a figure for the project costs is not yet known. ts
