2014: The Start of Operations for an Aerial Cable Car System in Bolivia

May 30, 2014

In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the first part of an aerial cable car transit system serving country’s La Paz- El Alto region officially began operations. This system, known as Mi Teleférico (Spanish for “My Cable Car”), took shape in July 2012. That is when Evo Morales Avma, who was president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019, submitted a proposal to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly (the country’s national legislature) to develop such a means of transit.

In addition, Morales called upon the following public officials in that region to provide active leadership and support on behalf of the construction of Mi Teleférico: César Cocarico, governor of the La Paz Department (one of Bolivia’s nine primary subdivisions); Luis Revilla, mayor of the city of La Paz; and Édgar Patana, mayor of the city of El Alto.  

The inaugural section of Mi Teleférico measured 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) in length and consisted of the system’s Red, Yellow, and Green Lines — the colors of the national flag of Bolivia. At the time, Mi Teleférico was widely regarded as the world’s longest aerial cable car service. This system also has the distinction of being the first urban transit network to use cable cars as its backbone rather than just a supplement to other types of transportation.

In the time since the debut of Mi Teleférico, seven more monocable lines — Blue, Orange, White, Sky Blue, Purple, Brown, and Silver — have been added to this system. Mi Teleférico now covers 19 miles (30.6 kilometers) altogether and encompasses a total of 1,398 cable cars (each able to carry up to 10 people) and 26 stations.

Photo Credit: Marco Ebreo (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

Additional information on Mi Teleférico is available at https://www.lapazlife.com/the-worlds-highest-cable-car-ride/

A video of this aerial cable car system can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0MDQxddXxw