IT wasn't because Strasbourg was "tram-crazy" that it acquired the most modern light rail system in Europe. Ten years ago the authorities asked themselves: "What sort of city do we want?" and then set about achieving a civilised solution that included trams.
In 1989, 240,000 cars a day were driving into the historic city centre. Place KIeber, its main square, was clogged by 50,000 cars a day and carbon monoxide pollution in the area, at 56 milligrams per cubic metre, breached WHO limits.
Now it is no longer possible for motorists to drive through the centre; they can only enter it via a series of "loops", which take them in and out again. And Place Kleber has become a pedestrian piazza in a traffic-free area extending over much of the centre.
With a population of 430,000 (some 60,000 more than Grenoble), Strasbourg is a much more compact city than Dublin. Part of the reason it works is that the motorway by-pass - which is not a full ring road - is just 2.5 kilometres from the centre.
However, contrary to claims made by critics of the Luas project for Dublin, Strasbourg does not have wide boulevards to accommodate its trams. In the city centre the trams run on streets no wider than Dawson Street and narrower than Westmoreland Street.
In 1989, 73 per cent of all trips in thee city were by car, 14 per cent by bicycle and 11 per cent by public transport. But since the traffic system was rearranged, the tramline introduced and bus routes reorganised to feed into it, public transport's share has increased to 35 per cent.
The 10-kilometre tramline, which runs north-south through the city, is now carrying an average of 63,000 passengers a day - 6 per cent above the forecast - with trams running every four minutes during peak periods. This frequency also means there is no "capacity problem".
The line opened in November 1994 and for the first two days everyone could use it free of charge. Since then, the sale of interchangeable season tickets for all modes of public transport has gone up by 50 per cent, while the number of cars entering the city has fallen by 17 per cent.
It would be difficult for anyone to resist the delight of travelling on Strasbourg's trams. The first in the world with an entirely low-floored layout, they are easily accessible, seeming almost to hug the city's streets, while their big picture windows make them totally transparent.
Built by ABB in York, 21 more of these Eurotrams have been ordered and the city's transport company, CUS, is planning to build a new east-west line as well as extensions to the existing line, of which 1.2 kilometres runs underground, the most expensive section to construct.
The introduction of trams to Strasbourg was used as a lever to gain major environmental improvements for the city, such as transforming Place Kleber into an attractive pedestrian precinct and re-paving in stone such key shopping streets as the Rue des Francs Bourgeois.
Everything about the system is well designed, including the stylish automatic ticket machines, the platforms (not much higher than footpaths) and such emblematic structures as the circular steel canopy over the main "station" at the Place de l'Homme de Fer.
The trams are virtually noiseless because their track beds are so well "cushioned" and, contrary to what many might think, their overhead wires - suspended from buildings in the city centre - are hardly noticeable. More than 1,000 trees were also planted as part of the plan.
There was a problem in getting people to understand what it would all look like. The CUS brought disabled people to Grenoble to see what Strasbourg had in mind, and got through to the public by building a large-scale model of the Eurotram.
Such was the opposition from the business community that, unlike in Grenoble, the Strasbourg authorities decided not to hold a referendum in case this would unite everyone who was against the light rail plan. But not a single shopkeeper had to close during the construction period.
Forty retailers had appealed to the courts but lost every case. But the CUS did set up a compensation committee, as a goodwill gesture, to deal with genuine cases of loss of trade. An information bus also travelled around town.
Cars were not entirely forgotten. An underground car park with 500 places was installed under Place Kleber, with another 3,000 short-term spaces on the perimeter of the city centre and two "spark-and-ride" sites at either end of the tramline.
