The story of the Bourke St cable trams being replaced by buses in 1940 and those buses being replaced by trams in 1955 is well known, but that was the second time that happened.

Queens Bridge links Market St on the north side of the Yarra with City Rd on the south side via Queensbridge Rd.  It was built in 1889 and cable trams were installed on the bridge in 1890 - leading to Port Melbourne and South Melbourne.

In 1937, those two cable tram routes were closed.  The Port Melbourne run was converted to buses and the South Melbourne route was electrified, but re-routed to run over the Spencer St bridge to the city.

City Rd and Queens Bridge became part of the Port Melbourne bus route - and they still are.

Post WW2 it was decided to link the William St electric tramway to South Melbourne, via Flinders Lane, Market St, Queensbridge and Hanna St (now Kingsway).  This was completed in 1946, thus re-instating tramways in Market St and Queensbridge Rd which had formerly had cable trams.

This was probably the last time tramways were paved with wood blocks, and they were still there into the 21st century. See: https://tdu.to/i/1058

There is an interesting article about wood block paving in the current issue of Bellcord - magazine of the Melbourne Tram Museum. See:https://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/downloads/bellcord/bc-054.pdf

Melbourne never lost faith in the superiority of railed transport.

Mal Rowe - attaching a recent pic of this bridge where priority is now given to public transport and bicycles