>>1409602>>1409625Interurbans still exist in many places around the world. There's two varieties, the ones that work continuously as an urban service just through several towns that have grown together, and those that run as an urban tram at some points, then on private ROW at higher speeds.
Obviously any self-respecting modern streetcar, urban or interurban, will not have street running, but ROW or at least a segregated lane. So the auto traffic argument is bs. The question is between city-type ROW where the streetcar is subordinated to urban traffic rules (as in having to stop at intersections and so on) vs railway rules (absolute priority).
The PE had both of these varieties, lines that got railway-type ROW (most famously the four-track mainline), and lines that were mostly or fully street-running (a more or less notable one could be the Hollywood line, but also many others ofc). Other than the mixed street-running, the PE concept would be 100% viable today. What many euro streetcars did was simply designate the two lanes in the center of the street as tram-only (or tram-bus-only) lanes, and maybe add little platforms at the stations for easier and safer descent. In fact, that's a very standard layout for 1st gen trams in Europe.
So tl;dr yes, interurbans would be perfectly fine, and would work quite well in the low-density cities of burgerland. Local-type service in the downtown (with tram lane), and railway-type ROW to quickly reach suburbs. Pretty much at par with metro speeds, but cheaper to build, and more convenient downtown or downtowns due to more complete coverage
