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European cities revive tram networks to cut transport emissions

https://www.politico.eu/article/euro...ort-emissions/

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- Many EU countries are making decarbonized urban transport a central pillar of their pandemic recovery fund spending plans, now being sent for approval to the European Commission. — “We’re reinforcing a system that was created over 150 years ago to service residents scattered throughout our seven hills, and which now has the added value of being a decarbonized transit option for our city,” said Lisbon Mobility Alderman Miguel Gaspar. — Many European cities built elaborate tram systems during the first half of the last century, but most of those networks in Western Europe were later scrapped thanks to pro-car policies. “Lisbon only bucked that trend thanks to its unique geography,” said Gaspar. “There were attempts to replace the trams with buses, but these were unable to go up our city’s steep hills or make their way around our narrow streets.” Although the tram system survived, Gaspar said it was ill-funded and that some lines were shut in the 1980s and '90s.

- As in Lisbon, Berlin is revamping its tram network. While carriages still circulate on pre-war rails that were maintained in the Soviet-dominated eastern half of the city, there's a push to restore lines in the west that were phased out by car-friendly municipal governments between 1954 and 1967. The German capital's Transport Senator Regine Günther, a Green, calls projects to expand eastern tramlines into the old West Berlin neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukölln announced in April an “unprecedented tram offensive" to boost clean mobility. Trams make up a big chunk of the city's €28 billion plan to boost public transport with an extra 70 kilometers of track planned in the coming 15 years. Günther says trams offer a good way to close gaps in the city transport network, as they are cheaper to build than subways. "Trams will become an increasingly important part of the mobility transition in Berlin," she said. — Berlin's case offers a microcosm of the fate of trams across Europe. While cities in former Soviet satellite countries maintained extensive tram networks, think Budapest, Prague and Warsaw many in the capitalist half of Europe uprooted entire networks in favor of extra road space.

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