Liberec will split the contract for the cable car, looking for a designer and builder separately

Liberec - Liberec will seek a separate designer and a separate company for the construction of the cable car to Ještěd. Originally, the city hall wanted to award this contract to one company through the design and build method, but is concerned that it would lose control over the project and the costs. CTK was informed about this by the city's mayor Jaroslav Zámečník (Mayors for the Liberec Region).

"Due to the high financial demands, we have started to abandon this path and will begin to prepare the cable car in the traditional way that the city knows how to do," said the mayor.

According to him, this practically means that by this summer, they would like to prepare a competition for selecting a designer. "Who will prepare classic project documentation for us with a so-called bill of quantities, meaning with a budget, for about 12 months, I presume. And based on that, we as a city will compete for the construction contractor. This is probably a better solution for the city at this moment, more tested, and we will have the whole project more in our hands than if we entrusted it to some external company," Zámečník stated.

From preliminary market consultations, he noted that an external firm to conduct the competition through design and build for the city would need to be paid between 25 and 45 million crowns. Moreover, the mayor fears the price that would arise from such a competition. "We do not have the certainty that the tender process through design and build would not generate a price that would leave us horrified and surprised, with no way back. This way, when we prepare the project documentation with a budget, we will know in advance what price we are dealing with before the competition, and we can have it checked several times to see if there are any mistakes or manipulations. So we chose this as a safer route for the city," the mayor added. According to an economic analysis commissioned by the city last year, building the cable car to Ještěd will cost between 360 and 440 million crowns.

The aerial cable car to Ještěd, with over ninety years of history, has been out of service since a tragic accident in October 2021, when one of the two cabins fell after the pulling cable broke, resulting in the death of a conductor. At that time, the cable car belonged to Czech Railways, which decided not to operate it further and sold it to Liberec for 38.6 million crowns. The city's leadership decided not to restore the original cable car. Instead, they will build a new one with a different system and an extended route to the final tram station in Horní Hanychov. Instead of the shuttle operation of two smaller cabins, each carrying up to 35 passengers, a single large-capacity cabin for 100 people suspended on two cables, known as a tram, will operate.