By Dr. Doma
In a bid to transform Freetown into a more inclusive city, which will be easily accessible and visibly attractive to investors, tourists and residents, Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr had engaged international Consultants, Markus Hagspiel, a ropeway/Cable Car expert, Teferra Sileshi of GFA Heat and members of the American Institute of Architects who were all in Freetown this April 2023 to carefully strategize and plan well as Freetown is about to institute the first Cable car in the west African City.
The Cable Car Project feasibility study was launched back in June 2022 by Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr and will end in March 2024.
It is obvious that the consultants, experts and stakeholders have ensured that every aspect of the project is considered with the utmost care taken to make sure such a development in our city is well implemented and becomes a reality.
In an exclusive interview with Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr she said, the Cable car project is a key component of her vision to transform Freetown as this cable car project is geared towards reducing traffic congestion and air pollution which are serious factors affecting our city in this day and age.
She maintained that modern transport options such as a cable car system will also help generate revenue for the city and a way of improving the daily lives of residents in Freetown.
The Cable Car initiative for Freetown emanated from the C40 cities resolution to eradicate climate change and to reduce carbon emissions. Carbon emissions are generated from the burning of fossils fuel. E.g., The smoke that comes out of exhaust pipes etc.
Conversely, the Cable Cars will be powered by solar energy, an alternative energy form which will support the city’s objective to reduce carbon emissions.
As former Vice Chair of the C40 Innovative cities, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr met with the former mayor of Medellin in November 2019 in Durban, South Africa, which was the first city in the world to initiate the cable car as a form of mass transport in 2014. Later in November 2022, members of the Mayor’s Delivery Unit working on the Cable Car project visited Medellin for a study visit.
Since the 2019 conversation with former Mayor of Medellin, the Freetown Cable Car project has moved from an idea to a firm concept to a pre-feasibility and now leading to a full-feasibility.
Because of her zest to see that Freetown is being transformed she was able to applied for an eight hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) grant to conduct a full-feasibility study for the introduction of the cable car in Freetown with the C40 cities finance facility and GIZ acting as implementing partners and whose mandate is to structure the finances.
According to experts, the cable car is mostly used as a detachable gondola, rarely as an aerial tramway or funicular. The cable car is a ropeway technology to be used for the very first time in Sierra Leone. This technology is gradually increasing in cities around the world and serves as a supplement to conventional means of transportation.
In general, the cable car technology can serve as an inexpensive, quickly realizable and reliable subsystem of local public passenger transport.
It offers a special travel experience in urban areas, as it allows people to glide above the city and also, an extremely robust service-proven experience gained in operations on mountains etc. This is because it is totally independent of existing road and rail infrastructures.
Studies by renowned institutes confirm that cable car technology have an exceptional good Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) compared to conventional means of transportation, with low operating speeds but no waiting times. Urban cable cars operate fully automated, and the maintenance requirements are low. According to experts it can take up to 6,000 people per hour and on a constant speed from point A to Point B.
Speaking to the visiting consultants, they assured Freetonians that, the cable car is a safe mode of transportation and very good solution to the many challenges faced in our city Freetown.
The experts advised to do regular checks either monthly or daily to avoid mechanical breakdown but promised to do a lot of trainings for our locals to ensure the sustainability of this technology.
Many Freetonians were happy for this new means of transport and promised to support Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr to ensure what she has started in Freetown becomes a reality.
5 more years plan to do more developmental strides.
