by Nate Berg, Wired MagazineThe slums of Rio de Janeiro—the infamous favelas—pile onto and up and over the city’s iconic steep hillsides. Simply getting from point A to point B requires a sub-alphabet of zigzaggery up stairs, over switchbacks, and through alleyways that can be just a few feet wide. There’s nowhere for public transit to go. Nowhere, that is, but up.
That’s the direction for the newest transportation system in Rio, slated to open in March: a six-station gondola line running above a collection of favelas known as the Complexo do Alemão. The government says that 152 gondolas will carry 30,000 people a day along a 2.1-mile route over the neighborhood, transforming the hour-and-a-half trudge to a nearby commuter rail station into a 16-minute sky ride.
Spending $74 million for this kind of imagineering may sound a little wacky, but in recent years Medellín and Caracas have also built gondolas for underserved areas. Jorge Mario Jáuregui, the architect behind Rio’s system, says the project has real and symbolic value—”real because the connection has been built, and symbolic because it makes the informal city part of the formal city.” Still, in the favelas—where there’s no running water or sewers and a street battle between police and drug gangs killed dozens last year—perhaps flying cable cars shouldn’t be a top priority.
Then again, sanitation and safety might not be the problems that Rio officials want to solve. With the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics coming to town, making the favelas look like a theme park could convey just the right impression.
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