Not necessarily. Unless I am misunderstanding what specifically is being referred to as a tram. In Portland, Oregon for example, we have small trains that run at street level and share lanes with automobile traffic.
Portland's trams don't move anywhere close to 35mph as the OP mentioned. Portland's trams are quite capacity constrained due to needing to navigate the short blocks and many intersections of downtown Portland. Dedicated travel cooridors where these trams could move at closer to 35mph would allow trips _through_ downtown to become competitive which currently are often not ideal.
