I thought I must answer to you.
Yes, it is true that many people don’t use tram, but also many people use it. If you go to Dharmatala / Binay-Badal-Dinesh Bag on any working day, you could see that many passengers are waiting for tram especially returning towards Shialdaha. Haorha Bridge route is also popular, mainly for businessmen & workers of Barhabazar. Side by side trams are very popular especially on one way roads, i.e. College Street, Lenin Sarani etc. Some routes where bus service is inadequate like Elliot Road, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road trams are often highly crowded. Some green routes like Duffrin Road are also popular because of breezy alignment. Hence some routes are closed, and there are many bus routes around the city, tram has lost many passengers, and stolen by bus. Many passengers also switched to metro as an eco-friendly rapid replacement, tram also lost passengers. But still now there are many regular passengers of tramway.
In past many really profitable routes are closed, like Haorha Station, Bentinck Street, Nimtala, High court etc. There were many (fake) causes, like flyover, road-repairing, traffic-jam etc. Former transport minister Mr. Shyamal Chakrabarty almost decided to dismantle the network. During shameless party-lobbying, CTC was neglected through many years especially in early nineties. As I told before, closure of many profitable routes actually gave advantages to bus industries, which were also mainly supported my CITU. I’ll be not wondered if bus industries also gave pressure to halting tram service from BBD Bag to Purabi, due to stealing of bus passengers??!! So this route was really profitable. You probably wrote that because you haven’t commuted through route 14 almost daily like me.
In many cities around the world, like VIENNA, MINSK, BRUSSELS, RIO DE JANEIRO, SOFIA, TORONTO, DALIAN, HONGKONG, PRAGUE, HELSINKI, MARSELLIE, BERLIN, MUNICH, NUREMBERG, BUDAPEST, MILAN, NAPLES, ROME, SAPPORO, TOKYO, MEXICO CITY, AMSTERDAM, ROTTERDAM, OSLO, WARSAW, LISBON, BUCHAREST, CHELYABINSK, KAZAN, KRASNOYARK, MOSCOW, NIZHNI-NOVGOROD, NOVOSIBIRSK, SAINT PETERSBERG, YEKATERINBURG, BARCELONA, STOCKHOLM, DNIPROPETROVSK, KHARKIV, KIEV, PHILADELPHIA, SANFRANSISCO, TASHKENT etc. is running tram continuously over hundred year. All these cities also have metro. Both systems are integrated, and peoples easily switch from one to another. You know that all these cities are much advanced, rich and fast than KOLKATA, but they didn’t closed tram network, or fully replaced by metro.
Some cities like BUENOS AIRES, SHANGHAI, TIANJIN, LYON, PARIS, ATHENS, PYONGYANG, BILBAO, MADRID, VALENCIA, LAUSANNE, ISTANBUL, LONDON etc. once have a good tram network, but they closed foolishly during sixties for thinking that metro will solve all problems, but despite all these cities has a good metro network, they again returned tram after late eighties, and now tram of these cities are acting as a feeder service of metro. You also know that all these cities are also much advanced, rich and fast than KOLKATA, but they have returned tram, despite they have sufficient metro.
Beside those cities, some cities like ALGIERS, BRASILIA, HAMBURG, DELHI, MUMBAI, ALMATY, DUBAI etc. which once closed their network, or earlier only had metro, they are constructing or planning new tramway network. You also know that all these cities are also much advanced, rich and fast than KOLKATA, but they are returning tram, because they are not satisfied with metro.
All these cities are returning and continuing of tram is mainly for a low-cost eco-friendly mass transport. They are making those cities clean, green, smart, and civilized. Metro is much costlier, although I’m not against metro. Kolkata is still poor city comparing with other Indian cities. We can’t create much metro lines like Shanghai very quickly, but we can only do that step by step. It will be a time & cost consuming matter, till then we can easily improve our 125+ years tram network, by simply following the transport plan of those cities I wrote above.
Narrow roads are ideal for tram, cycle & walker. We should stop in-fact running buses on these roads, and must increase high headway of tram service. Here are some photos of narrow street serving by tram in Rio de Janeiro & Istanbul.
We must reduce number of buses & private cars to control the pollution. Articulated bus is another automobile which will create more pollution, like BRT. Using of CNG is also much costly, because it could come here only by laying a very long pipeline from Asansol. CNG will be suitable for Asansol, but not for Kolkata, because of high cost.
If we really solve our transport problem, we should need more central city serving metro routes, rather than serving outside areas.
I’LL BE PROUD IF YOU CALL ME BABA TRAMDEV.