Flying over traffic jams in Mexico City

Mexico City’s millions of residents have to get from home to work and other places, and that can be really complicated and congested, with so many people and so many vehicles involved. Thus, traffic in Mexico City is an enormous challenge.

The TomTom traffic index rates Mexico City as the worst in the world, after Istanbul, Turkey.  

So how does TomTom rate cities on their traffic? The rating is based on how much extra time is required when there is congestion. 

 

In Mexico City, a trip is 55% longer if the streets aren’t clear. In Paris, France it would be 35%, and in New York City it would be 31%.

Coasting above Mexico City’s infernal congestion is normally a prerogative of the well-heeled, who take helicopters or pay to use the upper deck of two-tier highways to avoid the chaos below.

In October, however, thousands of residents of this ragged industrial suburb began getting to work or school in brightly colored pods that glide along the city’s first commuter cable-car route.

The Mexicable, a seven-stop line that runs just over three miles through a furrow of poor hillside neighborhoods, is part of a growing constellation of cable cars around Latin America that links marginalized communities to their cities’ metropolitan hearts.

In Ecatepec, the largest and most dangerous municipality in the 21 million-strong expanse of greater Mexico City, the Mexicable has brought new visitors, shorter commutes, a burst of street art and a new sense of inclusion in city life, residents said.