alternatehistory.com

From a peak of approximately 300 route miles in the early 1890s, cable car trackage had declined to perhaps one-tenth of that on the eve of the Great War. Cable lines remained only in San Francisco (of course), Seattle, Tacoma, and the soon-to-be-extinct single line remnant of the Kansas City system; Chicago's massive system had been entirely converted to electric traction by 1906. IOTL, the Seattle and Tacoma lines held on until 1940, when they were converted to rubber tire vehicles along with the other rail lines in those cities. Oddly, in both of the Washington cities, cable cars weren't viewed as anything special: just another part of the public transit system, suited uniquely for especially challenging grades.

How does one get cable cars to survive in at least Seattle and possibly Tacoma to the present day? (I wouldn't worry about Kansas City's lone line approximately a century ago since it was already on its way out anyhow.)
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