By Tim Lambert
On 18 March 1662 the first buses ran in Paris (they were drawn by horses).
On 4 July 1829, the first horse-drawn London buses ran. On 25 September 1897, Bradford became the first city in Britain to have motor buses. On 23 April 1898, the first motorised double-decker London bus made its maiden journey.
On 23 March 1861, the first horse-drawn trams began running in London (trams were later converted to electricity). In the 1860s and 1870s, horse-drawn trams began running in many towns. The world’s first electric tram began operating in Berlin in 1881. In the 1900s, trams in most cities were converted to electricity. However, in most towns trams were phased out in the 1930s.
In Britain, the first woman tram driver was Beatrice Page. She started driving a tram in Weston Super Mare in 1914. (There was a shortage of male tram drivers because so many men were away fighting in the First World War).
Meanwhile, in the USA, in 1832 the first horse-drawn streetcars ran in New York. The first elevated railway in New York began carrying passengers in 1868. In San Francisco, the first cable car service began in Clay Street in 1873.
On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white man. She was arrested and fined, but afterwards, there was a successful boycott of the bus company. But Parks was not the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. On 2 March 1955, Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat for a white woman. On 13 November 1956, the US Supreme Court declared that segregation on buses in Alabama was unconstitutional.
In 1974, Jill Viner became the first woman licensed to drive a London Transport bus. (They had female bus conductors before then, but not drivers).
In the 1990s, many cities in Britain reintroduced trams or light railways.
