Trams back in fashion
Green and white trams will soon be ferrying passengers across Paris. The reintroduction of trams is an effort to cut down the city's growing pollution and traffic congestion. Under the initial phase of the US $570 million project, the trams will ply in an eastwest direction, on the left bank of the Seine, replacing an overcrowded bus route. The line will eventually be tripled in length under the city's biggest transport scheme since a ring road was built in 1973. It is expected to carry at least 100,000 passengers a day. The tramway underscores a growing French trend to reintroduce methods of transport that are faster than buses and much cheaper than underground railway lines.