Caracas City slum 28 April 2005 By procsilas, Flickr, Creative Commons

Case

Caracas: Connecting slums to the rest of the city by urban cable car

Caracas, Venezuela, uses cable cars to connect the slums with the rest of the city. This case provides an innovative solution to often poor infrastructure in urban slum. A Think Tank in Caracas proposed this idea, and the municipality is now working on constructing it. Sustainable Cities believe the case provides a good example of the social perspectives of mobility questions.


In Caracas like in many cities around the world, slums are spreading around the formal city. The slums tend to occupy hillsides and are very poorly connected to the rest of the city. Now The Urban Think Tank of Caracas has suggested urban cable cars as a transport solution. The San Augustin Neighbourhood is a hillside community inhabitet by about 40.000 people. It is one of the most highly visible slums in Caracas located near the University City and it is in this area the project will be realised.

Five stations will be built on the 2.1 kilometre route. The route begins and ends close to public transportation links in the formal city and stop at three places along the crest of the hill. One of the stations will include health care, day care, supermarkets, and recreation facilities. The anticipated consequences of introducing cable cars are huge – as it may transform the hillside shanty towns.

Caracas cable cars 6 Apr 2007 By Guillermo Esteves, Flickr, Creative Commons

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Comments

Anonymous

This was first used and developed in Medellin, Colombia

Anonymous

Just for information. That is only another promise never done in Venezuela.

vp

This project has NOT been done in Venezuela at all.

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Making the Change

Key Learning Points

Caracas demonstrates how alternative thinking can offer completely new solutions to “generally accepted solutions” when solving bad infrastructure in slum dwellings 

Caracas also shows that it is possible to connect infrastructure to social and cultural functions

Facts

City Facts

Country: Venezuela
City: Caracas
Area: 1,930 km2 (metropolitan)
Population: 3,196,514 (metropolitan, 2009)
Population density: 1,431.5/km2
GDP per capita (country): USD 13,100 (2009 est.)

Source: Wikipedia, CIA World Factbook

Media

YouTube

Video on Urban Think Tank visiting the building site for the project

Google Map

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Dig this

Blog entry: An American in Copenhagen # 2

Money in a Sustainable Society

Fact/Quote

“The world has to create an urban environment conducive to human happiness, even though the developing world will not catch up with the wealthier nations for the next three to four hundred years.” 
Enrique Peñalosa

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