A breathtaking plunge in an elevator down the side of a canyon has opened, drastically increasing capacity and making what was once a six-hour round trip even shorter. It's now down to around 30 minutes.
We don't really need to do a whole lot of background on Chinese infrastructure here – over the past year I've discovered the country's engineering inventiveness when it comes to making it up and down mountains.
China still holds the Guinness World Record for tallest outdoor elevator, the famous Bailong ride that travels 326 m (1,070 ft) up and down a cliff face in around a minute and a half.
It's almost enough to wonder why this smaller one is even worth covering. But sometimes the tallest building or longest bridge may make a good headline but reporting on them doesn't really explain how such structures change lives. (We know you love the tall skyscrapers, though, but so far research has yet to show they're more than urban symbols or something for US rock-climber Alex Honnold to scale without ropes, as he did in January in Taipei.)
Now, in a remote Chinese village, a 288-m (945-ft) cliff elevator has opened up alongside one built in 2022 in order for kids to get to school. Before these cliff rides, children had to do their best mountain goat impersonations and walk up and down precarious cliffside trails in this Yunnan province canyon.
The new "Fuyao Ladder” elevator, which sits alongside the 2022 268-m (879-ft) “Qingyun Ladder”, has further changed the lives of the kids who live in the remote Nizhuhe Village at the bottom of the canyon. For generations, children have had to literally climb a mountain roughly every 10 days – for three hours – to get to and from boarding school.
The village itself sits at an elevation of around 1,100 m (3,610 ft) – but Guanzhai Primary School is on the top of the mountain at about 1,650 m (5,413 ft).
But while this new elevator has drastically cut travel time down for the kids, reportedly aged six to 15, there are some mountains that even Chinese ingenuity may need time to conquer fully (I personally expect less infrastructure and more innovative vertical flight moves from the likes of Guangzhou trailblazers EHang).
"The second 'sky school bus' is 20 meters [66 ft] higher than the first, featuring a fully transparent 360° glass curtain wall for outdoor sightseeing, and operates at a speed of 5 meters [16 ft] per second," according to local news outlet Yunnan Net. "The combined capacity of the two elevators reaches 1,200 people per hour, increasing the scenic area's daily visitor capacity from 4,000 to 15,000 people, effectively solving the problems of visitor congestion and inconvenience caused by the saturation of the first elevator."
So, essentially, kids start their week traveling a short distance on a shuttle bus, which takes them to the base of the elevator. The new structure forms part of what is being called the "aerial school bus" (or 空中校车), getting students to a platform near the top of the mountain in just minutes. They still have to then take an aerial cable car – a trip of around five minutes – to get to school, but the new elevator has dramatically increased access up and down the mountain.
And, importantly, everyone can get to school on time without having to climb a cliff face before 9 am. Oh, and it's worth noting that that was built to make it easier for a handful of students to access their education – which may be the most impressive aspect of this cliff-conquering work.
Source: Yunnan Net
