June 5 (SeeNews) - The Croatian capital Zagreb hopes to complete a 560 million kuna ($85.1 million/75.5 million euro) cable car project by the middle of 2020, city mayor Milan Bandic has said.
"Construction works started in May this year and we expect to complete them by the middle of next year, no later than June, but we will try to have the cable car ready to celebrate Zagreb city's day [May 31]," Mandic said in a statement following a visit to the construction site earlier this month.
The cable car will connect Zagreb's northern neighbourhood of Dolje with the popular ski area Sljeme on the slopes of the Medvednica hill, some 15 kilometres away Zagreb.
The project has been implemented in four stages, Mandic explained. The first one included the renovation of tram tracks from the Mihaljevac station in downtown Zagreb to Dolje, the second stage was the disassembly of the old cable car and the design of the new route, and in the third stage the necessary equipment was supplied.
The project is now in its final stage, the construction of the new cable car, which take passengers from Zagreb to Sljeme in 16 minutes.
Mandic said the cable car is the biggest investment project in the city in the past 19 years since he became mayor.
The new cable car featuring 84 cabins will help alleviate pressure on the existing surface transport infrastructure and make Sljeme even more attractive to visitors.
(1 euro = 7.41980 kuna)