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Tram, bam, no thank you, man – we didn't need pointless project

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Published Date: 26 April 2008
By Joyce McMillan
YESTERDAY morning, another communication from Trams For Edinburgh flipped through the letterbox. Dear Resident or Business Occupier, it said, and then fell to explaining that the company was rescheduling some of the utility diversion work in my area – relaying pipes and power-lines, to make way for the trams – from late April to early June. This, it promises, will create useful "synergies" with other work being carried out at the same time.
Well, it's all one to me, as they say. As someone who doesn't drive a car, and doesn't live on the actual tram route, the disruption affects me less than some. But I find it difficult, all the same, even to look at one of these letters without thinki...



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  • Last Updated: 26 April 2008 12:20 AM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

A Better Way,

Edinburgh 26/04/2008 09:21:25
And who exactly Voted for it to go ahead. YES it was the three Unionist Parties, who overuled the Scottish Government. It was the three Unionist Parties who spent 600 million quid that could have built roads, built new council houses for those that cant find houses to live in. Yes theres so much that 600 million could have done for ALL the Scottish People, but then the Scottish People might have Voted for the SNP instead of New Labour who get votes by keeping certain Scots in poverty.
2

PeterPete,

26/04/2008 10:23:36
More ill-informed nonsense. People still seem to think that "more" and "better" buses are the solution. But it makes no difference how new or "tram style" a bus is, with bus travel times across the city now slower than ever, with services like the number 22 now so crowded and over stretched, the only way to improve things is with trams.

Yes, the South Suburban line would be good, but that will hardly help the extra tens of thousands of people that will be soon be living in the new developments in Granton and Leith - all of whom will be wanting to drive up Leith Walk. If a city decides to increase two of its suburbs to the size of a small town, then it needs to add in the infrastructure to go with it. That much is owed to those whose lives will be blighted by triple percentage figures in extra traffic going past their front doors.

And btw, to the post above, you seem to have forgotten that the SNP fully supported the trams to begin with, and whilst they are currently the government, they are not in majority. The people who voted for it were all the electors who have consistently voted for pro-tram parties.
3

Urban Guerrilla,

Edinburgh 26/04/2008 13:32:15
The trams have achieved the impossible. At last I agree with Joyce McMillan on something.

Congratulations on an excellent article, Joyce.
4

Thomas the Tank,

Edinburgh 26/04/2008 13:38:40
#2- You're following an extremely disingenuous line of argument to claim that those who voted other than for the SNP did so because of their support for the Grand TramCar Line. I certainly don't regard Ms McMillan's piece as 'ill informed nonsense' - it's refreshing to read a journalist who's not prepared to simply regurgitate some PR spin-release from TIE. You also demonstrate total ignorance of Edinburgh's geography and traffic patterns - apart from the fact that the 'Waterfront' is somewhat moribund - why on earth would 'all the thousands' from 'the new developments in Granton and Leith' want to drive up Leith Walk? And despite the recent frantically spun garbage from TIE's 'PR Professionals' (an oxymoron if ever there was one) those of us with a bit of background and insider knowledge are aware there are massive problems looming. Stand by for Willie Gallagher slithering down to Holyrood with a large begging bowl. Hope Swinney sets the dogs on him.
5

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26/04/2008 17:13:54
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6

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26/04/2008 17:15:10
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7

The Ghost of Sir William Arrol,

The Forthy Bridge 26/04/2008 19:44:21
I support trams in principle because wonderful though buses are, they don't go very far without diesel, and diesel supplies are set to decline in the aftermath of peak oil. I suspect fuel prices, in the face of ever increasing global shortfall, will continue to escalate to levels we can currently barely imagine. Trams can run from various sources of electricity generation: hydro, wind, tidal etc. so in theory they can be green and sustainable.

Watching the reintroduction of trams to Edinburgh has been excruciating for me. Talk about making heavy weather and a great expensive muddle of something utterly straightforward.

Most of the bus routes in the city are, after all, based on former tram routes, so the dithering, indecision and the belief that trams are somehow difficult, requiring engineering resources imported from across the world, is hard to credit. I'm sure it took fewer engineers to put a man on the moon, certainly less computing power and fewer accountants!

I agree with the sentiment about the choice of route. It could have been better. There's no doubt that three radial routes would have performed better and served more of the city than a big lumbering loop with the sea on one side. Still, it's a start, and once up and running there will be enormous pressure to build more routes, especially when the aforementioned fuel price rises start to bite. I will support a larger network providing Tie get their project management costs under control.
8

rpb,

26/04/2008 19:48:27
This piece extols the worth of spending the cash on something else, doesn't say what.
The easiest thing in the world is to criticise, the hard part is to come up with an alternative.
If oil really is in decline then alternatives are needed.
Glasgow has had vast sums put into an urban notorway network, for free I might add. A network that is still being extended (better than spending on A96/A9??)
There is also an underground, an excellent suburban train network, and of course buses!
I suspect the rest of Scotland/UK susbsidises all this to the hilt, but there is never a mention of this anywhere.





9

Sarah B,

Edinburgh 27/04/2008 00:08:17
This article sums up pretty much my thoughts on the tram project.

I would have been really interested in Lothian Buses' input at the start of the scheme but they were not asked. I have seen a copy letter from them confirming that they believe that a reworking of the current bus system, given sufficient investment and traffic management measures, could have enabled them to cope with the anticipated increase in population at the Waterfront, without necessarily increases number of buses on Princes Street. They also seemed willing to consider other solutions, such as trolleybuses, although, having not been asked their opinion, they say they have not examined that option in any great depth.

From memory of the background papers, the shift from car to tram at the start of the operations is anticipated to be around 15%, ramping up to 25% after the first (I think) 20 years. This, of course, assumes that the Waterfront/Granton development actually materialises to the extent planned. Arups, who did the Parliamentary peer review of the Tram Bills, raised concern that the dependence on this development was too high and, given the slowdown in sales of flats there, followed by the impact of the credit crunch and the now anticipated rethink of the amount/type of new housing there, it seems Arups may have been right.

Ms McMillan is right: if trams were to be considered at all, they should have addressed existing need (Tram Line 3 would have done that best, in my view), and not the Waterfront, unless the developers there were prepared to foot the bill.
10

gustaffson,

05/05/2008 01:40:58
The whole idea is rediculous back to front. Sped the money putting the train lines back, costing the same however serving double the population. Replace the Initiative in TIE with Image. A pretty picture seems to be the only logic behind the scheme.
11

Alanmar,

West End, Haymarket 10/05/2008 10:21:32
`
Those clueless politicians could learn a lot by going to almost any Polish town (with or without trams), just to see how the BUSES run there... a mass transport system so efficient it puts the UK and even other European bus services to absolute shame. The buses do not have bus stops every 100 metres, the vehicles are Hungarian built, old but comfortable, (oh! and air-conditioned in winter!!) but they GET you there.

Better still go to Curitiba (Brazil), where the entire city is built around the environment. I am told if you lived there for one year, you would NOT want to go anywhere else, least of all Shambles Place. (For more info, Google just "triple-compartment buses")

So much for the endless conceited boasting and "desirable development" claims we stomach here.
`

 

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