И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

TEXT 9. CHALLENGE FOR MOTOR CAR
Which transport is the most comfortable and reliable? Some people say it is the automobile. The underground, others object. The researchers in Soviet Georgia are sure it is a suspended cable car. In any case, this transportation is unrivalled in the mountains.

Highly economical (in the mountains one kilometre of a cableway replaces from five to ten kilometres of highway), reliably and simply designed, the cable cars can compete successfully with automobiles, railways and even planes. They do not need bridges and tunnels, they do not pollute the air with exhaust gases and do not shake the air with the sound of a motor. A cargo cableway can be built in a matter of days.

Cable cars are used to haul agricultural products such as grapes, tea, and food from areas with limited access, while fertilizers, building materials and other things are taken there on the way back. Hikers and skiers also like to use overhead cableways.

Since long ago, in the small Georgian town of Chiatura, the cableway has been used as the main transportation facility. The cableways have become as common for those living in this mountainous area as the Metro for the Mus­covites. There is even a station where one can make a transfer—the station Pionerskaya. Brightly painted, beau­tifully designed cars ascend from here in all four directions, suspended from steel cables.