The network was intended to play an integral part in redevelopment of the whole city, which also included ridding large parts of the central area of most road vehicles, creating pedestrian-only zones,
buildings renovation and landscaping. Contrary to opposition in some quarters claiming that banning the private car would damage retail business, shops and leisure facilities in the central area experienced resurgence, circumstances that have helped ease the adoption of new tramways in many other cities.
The introduction of low-floor cars also has set the standard for new light rail vehicles, with modern streetcars or trams, with few exceptions, are designed to be low-floor. Not only low-floor LRV’s speed up dwell times (as originally planned), they have proven to be a great boon for the mobility impaired, providing accessible public transit, on the street, ready to use, with out fear of large metro stations with crowded elevators that may or may not be in service. It was the low-floor tram that forced bus makers to provide low-floor buses to complement trams and to compete against streetcars.
