The Belleville funicular tramway () was a cable car which from 1891 to 1924 connected the Place de la République in Paris to the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville, on a hill in the Belleville quarter. It has since been demolished. It was a hybrid of a tramway and a funicular, similar to the famous San Francisco cable car system (started 1873), it was replaced in 1935 by Paris Métro Line 11, running on the same route. History In the late 1880s, the need to serve the busy quarter of Belleville led to consideration of setting up a cable car line, uniquely able to manage the hill's inclination. But unlike San Francisco and other American cities where this new system was operating, which had wide roads on grid plans, the width of the Paris roads required a single track railway with plenty of passing loops along its rather meandering route. In 1886, one Mr. Fournier submitted a request for a concession. After much deliberation by the Ville de Paris, the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry of the Interior and the Corps of Bridges and Roads, and the virulent protests of the , who saw it breaking their monopoly, the line was given its ("Public Utility Declaration") by a decree of 24 January 1889 under the jurisdiction of a under the control of the Conseil général of the Seine Department. A contract was signed on 7 August 1890 between the Department and Fournier, which provided for the construction of a line by the Ville de Paris and its operation by Fournier, who passed it over to the . The funicular tramway became operational on 25 August 1891. The line started at the Place de la Republique, going up the Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple and the Rue de Belleville to its terminus in front of the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Belleville. Its total length was or of single track with a crossings over the Canal Saint-Martin and four others at the crossroads of the Avenue Parmentier, of the Boulevard de Belleville, of the Rue Julien-Lacroix and of the Rue des Pyrénées. Its gradient was fairly steep, starting with a shallow slope but climbing the hill with gradients of at least 3.4% (1:30) but as high as 7% (1:14), with several tight curves. The line quickly became popular: in 1895, it transported million passengers. The line quickly reached capacity, and because it was impossible to