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PARIS - In a bid to cut urban pollution and traffic congestion, the Paris tramway rumbled back into business yesterday as one of the city's biggest and most controversial transport projects in decades.
"We need to respond to pollution with action. It's a necessity of public health and civilisation," said city mayor Bertrand Delanoe.
The green-and-white trams will eventually loop the capital, carrying up to 100,000 passengers a day. For now, the trolleys will glide east to west, replacing an overcrowded bus route.
"Half of the planet's population lives in towns today, so we need to ensure that people's behaviour evolves," said Delanoe, who has made cutting traffic congestion and pushing alternative transport pillars of his five-year tenure as Paris mayor.
The line will eventually be tripled in length in the city's biggest transport scheme since the ring road was built in 1973.
Sixty-three per cent of Parisians approve of the €300 million ($570 million) project, according to a poll in Le Figaro.
It has been dubbed as a waste of money by the city's right-wing opposition, who mostly boycotted the opening ceremony.
Beyond partisan sparring, the tramway underscores a growing French trend to reintroduce a method of transport that is faster than a bus and much cheaper to construct than an underground train line.
Several new tram systems were expanded across France this year and three others run in the Paris suburbs.
At the peak of trams in 1925, there were 2500 on the network. The last line closed in 1937, as buses initially proved more flexible in coping with increasing traffic.
- AFP
