Transport in Belfast - History

History

See also: Belfast Corporation Tramways and Trolleybuses in Belfast

In the Victorian city of Belfast, transport consisted of horse-drawn carts on cobbled streets. Some of these streets in the Cathedral Quarter are still cobbled. As the city expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, the need grew for public transport to carry workers in and out of the city. The Belfast Street Tramways Company replaced carts with horse-drawn trams and the Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway company ran a steam tramway from the outlying villages of Whitewell and Glengormley into Belfast. Belfast Zoo was created in 1934 from Bellevue Gardens, a playground and pleasure gardens at the end of the Cavehill line. In 1905, the Belfast Corporation took over and electrified the city's tram network. The trams were partially replaced by trolleybuses from 1938, and finally replaced by buses in 1954.

Recent developments have been proposed in the The Belfast Metropolitan Transport Plan (BMTP), launched by the Minister for Regional Development in November 2004. It aimed to set a new direction for transport in the city following decades of under-investment.

Read more about this topic:  Transport In Belfast

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