Cable Cars for Valencia City?

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Cable Cars for Valencia City?  If funded and approved it could be reality in time for the Formula One in August 2010.

The promoter of the project called Oscar Lopez calls his company "Telefèric Valencia"  and recognises that he does not have funding or planning permission at this stage.  Other opinions are that this makes it a cableway of high risk.

Oscar Lopez has already published his idea several times.  He argues that if cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have a cableway, why not Valencia?  He feels that a cableway would be just right for Valencia with the bluest water, the lovely buildings in the city centre and the magnificent  buildings of the City of the Arts and Sciences.  People wonder and respond to him and ask why Valencia needs a cableway when it is level!   His answer is that cableways stopped fulfilling their original functions some time ago and that they are now mainly built as tourist attractions, so visitors can see all the different perspectives of the area.

Lopez recognized that the group of industrialists (whose names he has refused to give), who are behind the initiative, , need the permission of the administrators of the town.  He advises that they already have funding of between 70% and 80% of the total investment required.

In order to cover it, Telefèric Valencia, as the company is called, looks to start up something similar to a collection from the citizens.  The idea being that each citizens wanting to invest would buy small contributions  (shares) of 30, 50 or 100 Euros, in exchange for discounts once the cable cars furrow the sky of the city, or they could see their name enrolled in the wall of one of the stations.

In its extended version, the route would begin at the Valencia Port and would finish at a station in the City Centre.  Lopez maintains that the cable cars could be working by August of 2010, in time for Great Prize of that year's Formula One.  However, he maintains that they will need planning permission soon to accomplish this goal.

The concession would have to be for 50 years. The cableway would use the Turia as it's axis Lopez, delegated advisor for the company, was quick to assure people that the support towers would not interfere in the typical activities of the river and that its landscaping impact would be smaller.  The towers could be covered in  plants and the cableway itself could be run ecologically.

The prices would be relatively economic: the whole route would cost 10 €; the roundtrip, rather less than 20 €; a ticket from the Port to the Museum of Sciences, 7 €. And there would be VIP cabins with a restaurant on board, just in case the Pope returns.  It could even be stopped to allow aerial views of events such as Formula One and the Regattas.

The route would measure rather less 13 kilometers. It would be, states Lopez, the longest in the world. The company calculates that it would carry 600,000 passengers annual.

The plan for the cableway was originally muted in February 2008, and the idea was born before the current crisis exploded. Since then Lopez exclaims that people are only saying bad things about the project.

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