'Namsan cable car monopoly won't fix itself'

Ministry needs to change just one line in enforcement decree to allow gondola project

'The president declared normalization — yet Seoul may have to extend the monopoly again'

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. [Yonhap]
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon. [Yonhap]

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon warned Tuesday that the Namsan cable car monopoly risks being extended because the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has delayed revising a key enforcement decree.

Oh posted on SNS that a single operator has held an exclusive franchise on the Namsan cable car since 1962 — more than 60 years — with no set operating term and no renewal process. He added that President Lee Jae Myung had publicly criticized the arrangement on multiple occasions, saying the operator had been "swimming with one hand on the ground for 60 years" and questioning "why a specific individual has enjoyed preferential treatment for decades."

Oh said that amending the law alone would not automatically end the monopoly. Under the revised Cable Transportation Act, the cable car operator must apply for re-licensing by Sept. 18, 2027, and Seoul must decide within six months of receiving that application whether to grant re-licensing and for how long. "If there is no alternative to the cable car by then, Seoul will have no choice but to issue another exclusive license," he said.

Oh said the alternative to the monopoly is the Namsan gondola project the city is pursuing, adding that departure-point construction and infrastructure work are largely complete. "All that remains is erecting the towers and stringing the cable," he said.

The problem, he explained, is that the gondola towers stand more than 30 meters tall, while most of Namsan falls under an urban natural park zone where structures exceeding 12 meters are prohibited. Oh said the city had reclassified the tower sites as neighborhood parks to resume construction, but the cable car operator filed a lawsuit that halted the work. The solution, he said, is straightforward: the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport needs to change just one line in the enforcement decree to allow public-interest facilities such as gondolas to exceed the 12-meter limit. "That would let us resume construction immediately, regardless of the lawsuit," he said.

Oh said, however, that the ministry had published a draft of that very amendment last year but had gone more than a year without putting its final stamp on it.

Oh wrote that even if the enforcement decree were revised and construction resumed immediately, the Namsan gondola would not open until the second half of 2029 — meaning the gondola would not yet exist when Seoul must notify the existing operator of its re-licensing decision. "The ministry is blocking the challenger from entering the ring while demanding a title defense," he said, lamenting that "Seoul is now in a position of having to extend the very monopoly the president declared he would normalize."

Oh closed by calling on the ministry to finalize the enforcement decree revision without delay. "I will not give up until the Namsan cable car monopoly is truly resolved and citizens' right to enjoy Namsan is more fully guaranteed," he said.


ikson@heraldcorp.com