The plans were presented Thursday at a press event. There are positive signals from politics.

The valley station should be on the Wolfgangsee-Bundesstraße on the renovated site of a former gas station, says Christoph Bamberger from Salzburg, spokesman for the group of investors: “We have been working on the project for a year and a half. We plan and talk to the authorities. We assume that the approval process could definitely be completed in 24 months.”

Investor group optimistic

The cost of the project is estimated at 20 million euros. These would be taken over entirely by the group of investors, says Bamberger. A cable car with 800 to 1,600 trips per day is planned. People are to be transported in eight-person gondolas. A height difference of just over 600 meters is overcome.

A middle station is planned for the Gaisberg circular hiking trail, the mountain station is to be built in the form of an underground cavern with access and exit on the Koppler municipal area. The Gaisberg and its summit are only partially within the Salzburg city limits. There, the plateau is largely designated as grassland.

Who is behind this?

Behind the project idea is “GUG drei GmbH”, a network of companies from Salzburg and Upper Austria, which is currently revitalizing the listed Gut Guggenthal in the municipality of Koppl (Flachgau) not far from the planned valley station. “Preparatory work for the project has been going on for about a year and a half,” said the group’s spokesman, lawyer Christoph Bamberger, at a press conference on Thursday. Coordination talks are currently taking place with authorities and nature conservation, in the area of ​​the planned mountain station preliminary talks with the state environmental ombudsman and authorities are still pending.

State, city and community politics

The city and state of Salzburg and the municipality of Koppl (Flachgau) are behind the project, but are not co-financing the construction. It is also unclear how much the ascent and descent will cost one day. The project operators emphasized today that owners of a climate ticket or an annual ticket from the Salzburger Verkehrsverbund will be able to travel to the Gaisberg without additional costs.

The Gaisberg, which is accessible by road, is a popular excursion destination, but is subject to heavy traffic, especially when the weather is nice. Wildly parked cars and a congested bus bend at the summit are often the result. The city of Salzburg has only reacted in recent years and is currently shortening the bus frequency on a nice weekend. A blocking of the summit for motorists was mostly implemented only half-heartedly. With the new cable car, individual traffic will hear about the past via the Zistelalm at around 1,000 meters above sea level.

Cog railway ran until 1928

From 1887 to 1928, a cog railway ran from Parsch station to the Gaisberg. Since then, there have been plans for a cable car again and again. Most recently, in 2012, a concrete project failed because of the city’s resistance. The mayor at the time, Heinz Schaden, did not see the summit plateau as suitable for mass tourism. The infrastructure for a large number of visitors was missing, he argued at the time. The current project operators, on the other hand, see the cable car as an instrument for guiding visitors.