Metrolink has been "a roaring success", Mr Pat Karney, a Dublin-born member of the city council, says of Manchester's light rail transit system.
Indeed, it is already being extended, with a new line under construction and plans for at least three more.
"We would have trams running all over the place if we had the money," Mr Karney says. The Lord Mayor, Mr Gordon Conquest, agrees.
"Metrolink has been a far bigger success than anyone imagined and it's taken at least a million car journeys off the roads."
He has no doubt that "tramways are the way to go - they're the future". He also believes, like everyone else, that the pain involved in building it on the streets was worth it.
"All we're waiting for to build the planned extensions is the money," he says.
The next phase will extend Metrolink 7 km west to Eccles, via Salford Quays, where there has been a lot of office development. Later, new lines will take it to Rochdale, Manchester Airport, Didsbury and the 2002 Commonwealth Games site.
Completed in 1992, the first phase linked Bury with Altricham, mainly using old railway lines but also running on-street in the city centre between Victoria and Piccadilly, the surviving mainline stations. (The former central station is now G-Mex, Manchester's trade centre.)
"We can prove that people are leaving their cars at home," Mr Karney insists.
"What's more, the disruption during the construction phase wasn't as horrendous as we thought.
"People knew what they were getting and went along with it because it would help sell the city."
According to Mr Howard Bernstein, director of the city centre task force, the disruption was handled well.
"Inevitably, there were people who were worried, but we got our public information right and met them street-by-street to tell them what was going to happen."
Mr Bernstein recalls setting up public information cabins in the city centre before the work had even started.
"The overwhelming majority felt it was going to bring more business into the city centre, so they were prepared to put up with a bit of pain for 12 months," he says.
He admits, having been crucially involved in Metrolink's planning, that the authorities once toyed with an underground solution.
"But on grounds of cost-effectiveness and functionality, we concluded that on-street systems were best and it's been a remarkable success."
Mr Bernstein believes the London Underground is "one of the most appalling pieces of infrastructure anywhere and there's no amount of money that could be spent on it to eliminate its disadvantages".
An on-street system, on the other hand, gives the city a "European feel".
Because of the Thatcherite philosophy of making public transport "pay", the Metrolink contract had to be awarded to a private sector consortium on a "design, build, operate and maintain" basis, known in the business as "D-BOM". It was won by Mowlem-GEC-AMEC.
"We are evaluating our next foray into the market with an eye on what's going to be in the forthcoming White Paper on transport policy, which is bound to put the emphasis on public transport," Mr Bernstein says.
"What we've got to do is come up with creative solutions."
He believes the city's public transport system must be made sufficiently attractive to persuade commuters to leave their cars at home, while ensuring continued access to shoppers using cars.
The plan to extend Metrolink "will happen over five to 10 years", he says.
Mr Martin Garrett, general manager of Altram, which recently won the contract to extend, and run, the system, maintains it could become a "terrific network" serving many parts of Greater Manchester and its population of 2.5 million.
The 7 km line to Eccles, under construction, will cost £150 million, with the public authorities contributing £90 million and Altram raising the rest.
This includes the acquisition of a further six tram sets to carry an estimated additional six million passengers a year.
Another line is planned to serve a huge out-of-town shopping centre due to open in Dumplington, seven miles from Manchester, but it will only happen if the developers make a big contribution.
There may also be a spur to the £127 million Lowry Arts Centre, in Salford.
Metrolink already carries 15 million passengers a year - double the number who used the commuter railway lines serving Bury and Altrincham.
Because of "network effects", the more lines that are added to the system, the more passenger numbers will rise, too.
"The first phase has been phenomenally successful," Mr Garrett says.
"Metrolink has proved very popular with people. And as the first new light rail system in Britain, it's become an icon for the city, shown right after the Town Hall and G-Mex on the BBC regional news."
But the system does have drawbacks. High-floored trams were chosen to avoid lowering old railway platforms, but this meant building ugly platforms, 3 ft high, in the streets.
Also, the wires are supported on thick poles rather than strung from buildings.
But Mr Karney believes the deregulation of public transport in the Thatcher era has had a much more damaging effect on Manchester.
"We have 71 bus companies. Any Tom, Dick, Harry or Mary can put broken-down, decrepit. polluting buses on the streets," he said.
"It's an absolute disgrace. There's no bus transport at night, which hits the night-time economy in many ways.
"Hopefully that will change with John Prescott's White Paper and the proposal that Manchester should be developed as a model for integrated public transport."