Istanbul to build cable car across Bosphorus

ISTANBUL

A project plan to construct a 10-kilometer cable car line connecting Istanbul’s European and Asian sides has been approved by the metropolis’ local government, daily Habertürk has reported.

The construction of the cable car line between Istanbul’s European side neighborhood of Mecidiyeköy and Asian side neighborhood of Çamlıca will start in 2016, as the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) approved the project plan listed in the municipality’s budget statement for 2016.

The planned cable car line is expected to carry 6,000 passengers per hour and ease the burden of day-to-day traffic across the Bosphorus Strait.

The cable car line will be 10 kilometers in length and consist of six stations in Mecidiyeköy, Zincirlikuyu, Altunizade, Büyük Çamlıca, Küçük Çamlıca and Cami. Zincirlikuyu is a neighborhood close to Mecidiyeköy, while Altunizade is an Asian neighborhood in Istanbul.

Each cable car cabin will have a capacity of 32 people and the span from Mecidiyeköy to Çamlıca is expected to take 22 minutes to travel.

The project plan of the Mecidiyeköy-Çamlıca cable car line was announced by Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş in 2013.

The İBB has plans for two other cable car lines for Istanbul’s Asian side aside from the Mecidiyeköy-Çamlıca line within the municipality’s public transit budget of more than 5 billion Turkish liras.