Take a Cable Car Ride to Jerusalem’s Old City

Jerusalem's Transport Authority is promoting a Cable Car from the "First Station" at German Colony to the Shiloah Gate (Dung Gate) of the Old City.

This Cable Car will be a public transport utility, and cost the same as the bus, or use free transfer via the Rav Card smart card system. The cable car, to run from the city’s First Station complex to the Old City’s Dung Gate — the main entrance to the Western Wall — aims to ease traffic in and around the maze of narrow streets in the ancient part of Jerusalem by whizzing visitors across the 1.4 km route (just under a mile) as the crow flies, in just 3.5 minutes.

Earlier in the year the cabinet approved the first phase of the joint project between the Tourism Ministry and Jerusalem Development Authority. The Tourism Ministry will cover the initial budget of NIS 15 million ($4.2 million) with the total cost of the project estimated at about NIS 200 million ($56 million).

The project, the brainchild of the Jerusalem City Council and its mayor, Nir Barkat, has stoked controversy because the route passes over parts of East Jerusalem.