Much has been said in the Croatian media about the ambitious plans for the construction of the Sljeme cable car, which was supposed to replace the old, now defunct, cable car.
The old Sljeme cable car (Sljemenska žičara) operated between 1963 and 2007, when it was permanently closed. And practically since its shut-down, Mayor Bandić has been announcing the construction of the new, improved cable car which would take citizens of Zagreb and the tourists to the top of the Medvednica mountain, located just to the North of Zagreb. Last year the old pillars were removed, and this year the works on the construction of the new cable car have started, although not nearly as fast as it was announced. The price tag for the construction is also reported to be several times larger than in other similar projects, such as Sarajevo cable car, and Croatian media have reported that it’s impossible to find who designed the new path for the cable car, which differs significantly from the old path.
And now Matej Mišić, a representative in the City Council asked how it was possible that the new credit line is needed for this construction. He says that the project is 12 years old and that it’s unbelievable that the funding has yet not been secured, so instead of financing the project from the city budget, a new line of credit needs to be taken to get the money. Mišić wondered what that says about the finances in the city, as he commented Bandić’s statement that ZET (public transport company in Zagreb) will take the loan of 450 million kunas to finish the Sljeme cable car. Mišić added that he doesn’t know of a single cable car anywhere in the world which costs 560 million kunas (80 million euros!), which is what the total costs are presumed to be. The initial costs were supposed to be around 29 million kunas, but four times more has been spent in the first six months of the construction. Mišić points out that with this price-tag Zagreb should be getting a cable car to the top of Medvednica and all the way down on the other side of the mountain, in Bistra.
