They're red and creamy yellow with an instantly recognizable chubby silhouette. It's hard to imagine Prague without them.

The 40-year-old T3 model trams are so common that most passangers probably don't pause to consider that there is anything unusual about public transportation from the 1960s still dominating the cityscape. But while design buffs marvel at the T3's clean, timeless shape, the elderly and the disabled continue to struggle to get on and off the trams' elevated platforms.

This will change early next year when the new Porsche-designed, Škoda-made model 14 T trams, priced at 56 million Kč ($2.28 million) each, begin to operate on some of Prague's routes. The trams will have a low platform and a driver-operated ramp that will provide easier access.

The first two trams will arrive here in November to undergo a series of test drives, and in 2006 they should begin transporting passangers. By 2007 there should be 20 new 14 T trams operating around the city.

The question remains: Why only now? For years civic groups such as the Prague Organization for Wheelchairers have been lobbying to make the city's transportation system more wheelchair friendly.

The city's admittedly long delays reflect a supply problem, according to Jan Heroudek, chief of the transport department at Prague City Hall. "There simply weren't suitable options out there."

Another factor is the high cost of modern trams, according to Prague Transport Company (DPHMP) spokeswoman Michaela Kuchařová: "In the Czech Republic it's very difficult to find a tram manufacturer that would offer an acceptable price."

Pavel Tarant, manager of transportation projects at the 14 T model manufacturer Škoda Holding, cited preproduction costs as a key question. "In 2004 alone Škoda Holding invested some 400 million Kč into the research and development [of trams]," he said.

With new trams so costly, it will take a while before the old ones are replaced. Kuchařová said 250 more-modern trams should join Prague's fleet between 2009 and 2015. Meanwhile, the old models — which include not just the iconic T3s but also their boxier cousins, the T6A5s, added in the mid-1990s — are being refurbished.

Throughout the past decade the DPHMP has made efforts to modify old trams and make them more easily acessible, but none of the refurbishments worked out. Finally, this September the modified KT8D5 model become the first low-platform tram ever to operate in Prague. The DPHMP has 47 such trams it plans to refurbish. And it's about time, according to Jaroslava Franková of the Prague Organization for Wheelchairers.

In the meantime, some 378 low-platform buses currently run in Prague, offering 275 different connections. But most bus routes don't extensively cover Prague's center. "The key thing now is to make the city center accessible to the handicapped," Franková said. "A few new trams won't suffice. There needs to be a regular schedule of low-platform trams running throughout the city." But Franková added that she appreciates that the magistrate is at least making an effort.

While many Praguers will rejoice that the city's aged tram fleet is being modernized, some worry about the future of the T3 trams. According to Jiří Hulák, director of the department of industrial design at the National Technical Museum, the T3 model is timeless. "Its shape is rounded, and it does reflect design trends of the '60s, but it's a very clean, simple design, which doesn't age," he said.

The 1960s tram design, in fact, is celebrated this month as part of the "Czech 100 Design Icons" exhibition, showing at the Baťa department store on Wenceslas Square until Oct. 21. The new 14 T tram, according to Hulák, doesn't really stand out. "To me it seems kind of trendy," he said. "I don't think it moves tram design forward in any way."

Over at Škoda, of course, they would beg to differ. "The 14 T tram combines well-tested technology with a timeless design," said Tarant. "Prague functions as the business card of the Czech Republic, so it deserves a design of the highest quality," he added. "That's why we approached Porsche Design. We wanted something really exclusive."