I’m suddenly feeling quite pleased with myself, albeit for a fairly random reason. You may remember, a year or two ago, I started talking nonsense about London building new cable cars. I was at least semi-joking, but my reasoning was fairly solid: urban cable-cars would be cheaper and easier to build than brand new tube lines, and probably cause less disruption. Well, it seems I have been vindicated, by Paris no less. According to this video, the Parisians have decided to build a new urban cable car in the south of the city, rather than extending the metro. Their argument goes that it would be cheaper and more efficient than either extending the existing metro line or implementing new bus routes. I think that is a great idea, as gliding over a city is certainly cooler than being driven through it on a crowded bus, or thundering under it on a cacophonous tube train.

Mind you, the cynical teenager voice in the back of my mind is saying that this is just a case of Paris wanting what London has: The cable car in East London glides over the Thames, connecting North Greenwich to The Royal Docks, the O2 Arena to the Excel Centre. Not only is it an efficient way of getting people from one place to the other, it is also a great tourist attraction. The Parisians have clearly looked at it and said “We’ll have some of that!” More to the point, whereas the London cable car crosses the wide Thames River, making the only alternative a bridge or tunnel, the one in Paris won’t cross such an impenetrable geographic feature. The same goes for the cable car in Barcelona, which apparently ferries people up and down quite a steep mountain. In other words, the one in Paris would be pretty much entirely for show, with no physical, practical need for it.

Such cynicism aside though, I still think this is pretty cool, and another reason to go back to the French capital in the not-too-distant future. Who knows, maybe this could be the beginning of such cable cars – even entire networks of them – springing up all over the place. Might they even be the future of urban public transport?