I feel like the large fantasy cities we design in our world building ignore the practical need for transportation to sustain a large city without cars, horses or the equivalent can make do but they can only move about 30 people at once, to move large amounts of people several miles, you need a transportation network. In this post I will explore various ideas to integrate good transit into a magical setting because honestly I just want to do that
First up we have powering a cable car via hydroelectric mills and their dams which have existed for centuries where the wheels pull the cable car up and down a hill or up and down stream of a river instead of being used to make clothes. Basically the Cable is moved by the power of the mill and that pulls the car around the city
Next up we have steam engines, yes they are a real thing but coal and wood exist in magical settings so for longer distance lines they are something to seriously consider. Maybe magic could be used to boil the water instead of coal making the steam white and clean instead of black and dirty.
One Idea I have is basically using subway tunnels but they use like a large insect or something thats walks around the tunnels with traincars on top so basically you step onto the car and hope that you get to your station as the bug scuttles around the tunnels, it's not really an efficient idea but I think it could be charming
Streetcars which are guided by magicians who manipulate the rails to create slight inclines or declines to move the trains and will bend the metal to create connections between rail lines instead of using switches
