Paris T3 opens : After a gap of 70 years trams return to the centre of Paris when Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor, inaugurates a 7.9km line that symbolises his controversial drive to banish cars from the city.

The line, which cost EUR310 million (GBP214 million), runs along the Boulevard des Maréchaux, the inner ring-road of the Left Bank from the Garigliano Bridge to the Porte D’Ivry. It will relieve the overloaded Petite Ceinture bus route and is sxpected to carry some 100 000 people per day carried by a fleet of 21 trams operating a 4 minute service. Construction started in 2003. The track is laid in grass and forms a green ribbon marked out in more than thousand trees with flowers and nine contemporary works of art plus widened pavements and a cyclepath,

Further details of the line, in english as well as french, can be found at www.tramway.paris.fr.

16 December 2006