Perpignan: Why not a cable car like in Toulouse, Brest or La Paz?
In the spring of 2022, the Toulouse urban cable car will come into service. In Perpignan, the project advanced in 2016 remains in the pipeline.
In a few weeks, Téléo, the Southern Urban Cable Car, will connect, in 10 minutes, the Toulouse Oncopole to the Paul-Sabatier University via the CHU Rangueil. The project, initiated in 2016, is in its final testing and inspection phase. Toulouse is thus following the movement launched in France by Brest in 2016, but also programmed in Grenoble or on Greater Paris, where a 125 million euro project could link Créteil to Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, along five stations and 17 minutes of travel.
La Paz, Medelin have long adopted the preferred transport of skiers. It is also leveling off in New York. And Perpignan? In 2016, Laurent Gauze, the current president of the CCI, dared the idea of a cable car link between the hospital and Tecnosud, via the city center and the university. It was in full debate on the return of a tram in town. “It costs on average between 40 million and 50 million euros to build one kilometer of metro, between 15 million and 25 million euros for the tram. It only takes 8 million to 15 million euros for the cable car“, then campaigned the president of Perpignan Invest. The cable car became the backbone of urban transport, connected to other transport services.
The project is buried. Not because of the Tramontana, even if beyond 70 to 80 km/h continuously, the use of the cable cars is impossible. Only 11 days would have been concerned in Perpignan and three-cable technologies rather than single-cables to limit this handicap. Laurent Gauze admits it himself, “Today, I do not offer this solution”. Preferring to favor “a solution by rail”.