Cable Car Changed Lives of Impoverished Venezuelans

The San Agustín – Parque Central line was one of the first cable cars in Caracas, built at time of Hugo Chavez (2010), purely for transportation for the people who live in the barrios.

It serves four stations between hilltop barrios. Before the cable car, people living in these barrios took 3 or 4 buses, taking as many hours, to go down into the city, or walked down—impossible for disabled, elderly, pregnant women—or would simply just not come down at all for extended periods.

Integrated into the metro system, this is an effectively free system of transportation (I went on the metro a number of times and never saw anyone buying tickets, nor ticket vendors).

Paul Dobson (Venezuelanalysis): “For a lot of people it's free; for those who pay, it's a tiny price—much less than a cup of coffee.”