The Colorful Trams of Krakow

Newer, low-emission transit vehicles helped the city get rid of its smoggy reputation

If you asked my son why he wanted to visit Krakow, Poland, during his school’s winter break, he wouldn’t have said it was for the beautiful architecture, the great food, or its long history.

He would have said - wait for it - the trams.

Since we moved to Germany, he’s become something of a streetcar connoisseur. He knows the routes of all of Berlin’s tram lines, those of the other cities in Brandenburg, which other cities in Europe use trams, and how old their fleets are.

And he wanted to see the ones in Krakow.

A city of more than 800,000 residents on the Vistula River in southern Poland, Krakow has an extensive tram network for a city its size, with 22 regular tram lines, two express lines, and three night tram lines.

In the 1990s, faced with increasing transit demand but with limited funds, city leaders abandoned plans to develop an underground metro in favor of expanding its existing tram and bus systems. And, surveys by transportation planners have found that more than 75 percent of t…