After ten years of waiting, the removal of the Sljeme cableway near Zagreb should finally begin.
On Friday, Mayor of Zagreb Milan Bandić will mark the official beginning of works on the demolition of old cableway at Sljeme mountain near Zagreb. That will be the first phase of the construction of a new cableway, reports zagreb.info on February 16, 2017.
The investment, which includes the removal of the old cableway and cleaning of corridors for the extended cableway route, is worth about 4.5 million kuna. The completion of this phase of the project is planned for 15 June 2017. The new cableway should be finished by spring next year.
Mayor Bandić will start with the construction during his term in office, but it is possible that the completion of the project will have to wait for a new mayor, given that local election for mayor and city assembly will take place in May this year. In this way, he will force his possible successor to continue with the project. His two main opponents, Anka Mrak-Taritaš and Sandra Švaljek, said that he could have completed the project long time ago if he really wanted to.
The main phase of the project will include the construction of facilities at the lower and upper stations of the cableway route. City authorities are currently unable to predict how much that could cost. The final amount will be known in summer, when a separate competition will be announced for that part of the project.
The original cableway was opened on 27 July 1963. It was in operation until the official closure on 1 July 2007, after a failure of the electric engine. It was estimated that repairs would be unprofitable. The old cableway had 90 four-person cabins and could transport 450 people per hour in one direction. The speed was 3 m/s, and a one-way trip lasted 23 minutes, with the maximum height above ground of 65 metres.
The new cable way is just one element of a much more extensive project for development of the Sljeme mountain.
