Santo Domingo Cable Car: modernity above the shanties below

Santo Domingo.-As Santo Domingo’s Cable Car gleaming cabins sail just above the sprawling shanties of some of the city’s poorest barrios, their residents at once voiced support and rejection for the system built at a cost of US$42.0 million.

“The cable car is very nice and everything, but our streets are destroyed and the insecurity in Sabana Perdida is terrible,” said Josefina Brito, resident of that barrio, just moments after president Danilo Medina cut the ribbon on the “Teleferico.”

For homemaker Teresa Martínez, “they should’ve fixed our streets first, they are very bad. I’m not criticizing that the work is bad, what I criticize is that priority has been given to that after we have been fighting for centuries to get our streets paved.”

Others raise pickets to demand schools of music and film in that place.

Outlet Listin reports a stark contrast between the cable car and the barrios below.

“From Gualey and Los Tres Brazos, to Lotes y Servicios and Los Cerros de Sabana Perdida, the black cables that sustain the cabins stand out, above the small houses surrounded by plantations, multicolored tin roofs and palm trees that adorn the different marginalized sectors,” the outlet reports.