I’ll just repost my comment from the original thread:

Wow I wish Clem Jones hadn’t come along and ruined our tram network. Apparently Brisbane would today have the 3rd largest tram network in the world if we’d kept it going at its peak: no additional new track laid. Instead he ripped it up and we have not one metre left, except when you occasionally see bits of it buried when they do road works…like when they expanded Gympie Rd from 6 to 8 lanes over the last year or so. Sigh.

As for hop-on trams, obviously not very accessible. If they had the ability to stop and put down a ramp for people who need it, it could be manageable, but realistically if we’d kept the track, they’d have needed to lower the floor of the trams and raise up the platforms to make for level (or at least near-level) boarding.