Edinburgh Tram Completion of route

[Chester™]

 

 

22 minutes ago, H2 said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-42793044

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-27159614

https://www.scotsman.com/news/edinburgh-trams-timeline-of-twists-and-turns-1-2229133

 

 

Nothing in any of those links about needing the Green vote. There is, however, this:

 

' The entire project was going to be scrapped by the SNP when the Nationalists formed their first minority government at Holyrood in 2007, only for the decision to be overturned by the will of the other parties in the Scottish Parliament.'

 

Even if the Greens had abstained on the Tram vote, the SNP would still have been defeated.

 

It can certainly be argued, that the passing of legislation in the 07-11 Parliament was because of the tacit approval of the Tories, rather than the 2 votes that the Greens would have given (indeed, there is a decent amount of academic literature about this and re-emergence of the term 'Tartan Tories', for the SNP). Indeed, the Greens have held relatively little influence until the current parliament, where they absolutely hold the balance of the power to give the SNP the majority that they need.

[Howdy Doody Jambo]

Does anybody know how the proposed route to Newhaven is being financed? 

Will it mean Edinburgh community charge going up to fund it? 

The estimated cost of the project is never the final balance,, why is the difference  so extreme? 

[DETTY29]

For completion of route but against a vote because the public would vote against it.

 

 

 

[JamboX2]

On 3/8/2018 at 23:27, FWJ said:

Yup.  The implementation was very poor and hopefully the enquiry into what went wrong will answer a lot of that.  My thinking is there was a lot of “politics” and petty point-scoring going on.  The government wanted to cancel it but as they were in a minority they lost the vote.

The tram was never meant to be the ‘fast’ way to get to the airport. It was (and is) to link the fastest growing parts of the city (Edinburgh Park and the Waterfront) to the airport and the city centre.  The ‘fast’ way to the airport was to be a railway scheme called EARL - the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link.  This would have taken all the lines to the north and west through the airport before heading into Haymarket / Waverley meaning a direct service to Glasgow / Stirling / Perth / Fife / Dundee & Aberdeen.  This was voted out.

 

I think up to 2007 both projects (plus GARL) in Glasgow where a part of the large scale - non-road based - infrastructure developments planned by the then Lab-Lib Coalition.

 

Effectively a new mass transit system in Edinburgh allowing reallocation of bus resource and the gradual diminution of Aberdeen and Prestwick to hubs at Glasgow and Edinburgh via direct airlink train services. To be complemented by congestion zones to help fund new rolling stock for LRT and the Trams and GARL and increased bus provision in Glasgow (Edinburgh voters rejected this).

 

The SNP minority administration opposed all the projects on various grounds. The parliament voted to bring in the trams in a trade off against EARL.

 

Arguably all 4 projects alongside Borders Rail, the Alloa line and the M74 completion should've gone ahead. Lomg term it's greener and reduces congestion on the roads by a reduction in car traffic.

 

As it stands the Trams need to be completed and expanded upon. To npt do so makes it a airport bus on rails. At least to Leith you will connect the densest populated area of Edinburgh with least car ownership to the centre and on to the west end and the business park at the gyle.

[Mikey1874]

If you go to Glasgow for example trains (backed by the subway) go everywhere. 

 

Trams are a less disruptive way to do similar. Can help give another major boost to Leith in this line. We are also growing significantly in terms of population and pressures that brings. 

 

Of course its expensive and messes with businesses. Businesses will be badly hit and some will go under. But these major developments do that. 

 

Overall its worth it.