• Long evoked, a cable car linking Vitrolles station to Marseille-Marignane airport will see the light of day.

  • The elected officials of the community voted unanimously on Thursday for a first tranche of investment in the amount of 3 million euros to launch the project.

"2023, transport, we believe in it", could have launched Martine Vassal, the president of the metropolitan council, in this first meeting of the year.

With a transport budget that has tripled and increased to the tune of 300 million euros, the Aix-Marseille metropolis is launching the construction of a cable car between Vitrolles station and Marseille-Marignane airport for good.

The elected officials of the community voted unanimously on Thursday for a first tranche of investment amounting to 3 million euros.

One more project, but not anecdotal for all that, in the face of the highly anticipated North-South tramway in Marseille.

However, this cable car idea has long looked like a sea serpent. First mentioned in 2016 for a Vieux-Port - Bonne-Mère link by the former Marseille municipality, to which Martine Vassal belonged, before be buried, this project returned in 2019 through the metropolitan window (chaired by Martine Vassal) for a service to the airport.

An expert firm was then commissioned and concluded that it was feasible.

The total cost of the operation would be 30 million euros.

Go higher

In detail, this cable car, one kilometer long, would link Vitrolles station (41 meters above sea level) to Marseille-Marignane airport (sea level) in six minutes, spanning the A7.

A stop is planned for the site of Airbus-Helicopter, the first private employer in the department, with just over 8,000 employees to which are added nearly 10,000 employees of its myriad of subcontractors.



The debate around this sea serpent, which will therefore have to surface by 2025 – it was hoped for a time for the 2024 Olympics –, was an opportunity to see an older one emerge that we have been hearing for almost half a century in the west of Marseille.

The famous maritime tunnel of Rove, which connected the harbor north of Marseille to the pond of Berre, collapsed since 1963 that the adviser Christian Amiraty would like to see reopened to make pass a train there going from La Joliette to the station of Vitrolles.

Because it's one thing to create a Vitrolles/airport cable car, you still have to get to Vitrolles.

As it stands, the timing of trains from Saint-Charles station to Vitrolles is not up to standard.

Currently, most public transport journeys from Marseille to its airport (and vice versa) are by bus, leaving every 20 minutes for an approximately equivalent journey time.

In its study, the metropolis is targeting 3,600 daily users of this cable car.

Economy

Montpellier airport wants to attract the 1.6 million Hérault residents who take off from Marseille, Toulouse or Barcelona

Marseilles

Marseille: A shuttle to the airport now every ten minutes (instead of 15 previously)

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