Commuting in the Clouds

On December 13, Paris, France, unveiled a three-mile cable car route. It’s the first one in the region. It’s also the longest urban cable car route in Europe. Commuters in the suburbs can now float over rush-hour traffic. The system has 105 gondolas, or cars. It’s expected to carry more than 11,000 people a day.

Cable cars are a mode of transportation typically found in mountain areas. But they’re increasingly used in cities. This is partly because they’re cheaper to build than subways. The new route in Paris cost about $160 million. A train route would have cost more than $1 billion. That’s according to Grégoire de Lasteyrie, of the regional council in charge of transportation. “[A subway] could never have been financed,” he told the Agence France-Presse.