La Paz Solved Its Traffic Problem With Cable Cars, and Turned Them Into the Best Way to See the City

Most cities solve a chronic traffic problem with more roads, or a metro line dug beneath them. La Paz, hemmed in by a steep-sided canyon and the high plateau of El Alto above it, could not easily do either, so it built upward instead. Mi Teleférico, the cable car network that now laces across the city, has grown since 2014 into the largest urban aerial cable car system in the world, and along the way it has become something its planners may not have fully anticipated: the single best way for a visitor to actually understand how La Paz is put together.

A city that a map cannot really explain

La Paz is Bolivia's seat of government, sitting at an altitude that makes it one of the highest capitals in the world, spilling down the walls of a canyon carved by the Choqueyapu River. El Alto, the sprawling city on the rim above it, sits several hundred metres higher still, and for decades the only way between the two was a slow, congested road down the canyon wall. A road map of La Paz genuinely does not communicate this vertical relationship; a cable car ride across it does, within minutes.

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Transit infrastructure as viewpoint

What separates Mi Teleférico from a typical sightseeing gondola is that it is genuinely used as daily public transport by residents commuting between El Alto and central La Paz, which means a visitor riding it is moving through the ordinary rhythm of the city rather than a tourist-only detour. The lines are identified by colour, in the manner of a metro map, and a single fare buys a crossing that a road vehicle could take considerably longer to complete in traffic.

Why this matters for how a city gets seen

La Paz's cable car network has become a genuine case study for other high-altitude and canyon-bound cities looking at aerial transit as an alternative to road-building, precisely because it solves a mobility problem and a scenic one with the same piece of infrastructure. For travellers, the practical takeaway is simple: treat a ride on Mi Teleférico as a sightseeing activity in its own right, not just a way of getting from one part of the city to another.

Traveller tips

• Several of Mi Teleférico's lines are worth riding purely for the view, particularly routes connecting central La Paz with the rim above at El Alto.
• La Paz sits at a high altitude; allow time to acclimatise before strenuous activity, and drink water rather than alcohol on the first day or two.
• El Alto's Sunday market, reachable by cable car, is one of the largest open-air markets in South America.
• Evenings can turn cold quickly given the altitude, even when daytime temperatures feel mild.