Edinburgh Trams - CRAG woefully misguided

The worst aspect of the Tram project only slowly emerging from the smoke and mirrors of the Council PR spin is the fundamental (and critical) flaw whereby pollution and potential health effects were simply totally ignored in the initial planning.

But even speaking in only monetary terms it has been a long standing assertion of one person in the City with experience of large rail infrastructure projects, John Carson, that this project is more than likely going to cost over £1 Billion to deliver as originally envisaged.

Leaving aside the implications of whether the City can, or can't afford this, or can or can't realistically raise the shortfall and then finance it---and even leaving aside the moral aspect of spending all this money to create a potential health problem across half the City---is there any amount of money that CRAG could imagine that would force even them to say it has all gone beyond any sense or reason?

£1.5 Billion? £2 Billion, £3 Billion???

The most apt comment might be that when in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging--- or given the economic unreality embodied by the CRAG way forward perhaps the comment of John Maynard Keynes, who as an economist knew both the value of, and the relative price of money: " When the facts change, I change my mind.... what do you do?"

It's good to see someone sticking up for the trams. With so much focus on tie's interminable wrangles with its contractors I'd almost forgotten exactly why it was we were building the tramline.

I'd vote for initiatives that put more money into rail rather than continuing to expand the road network which will only exacerbate existing road congestion problems. Trouble is, given the way the trams project has been handled, CRAG's manifesto sounds too much like fantasy. It's been pointed out already in this thread, that there is a shortage of both political will and funding.

However, there is a danger with all the anti-tram sentiment that we throw the baby out with the bath water. The fact is, if we want to reduce congestion/pollution in Edinburgh, people need convenient, safe, affordable alternatives to the car and the broad brush initiatives outlined in CRAG's manifesto make a good starting point.

Here's some of the policies CRAG presents in its manifesto

• Safe cycle routes
• Greening of Edinburgh city centre (here CRAG picks up from Jan Gehl's recent recommendations for Princes Street and the City Centre to be much more people friendly by reducing traffic)
• Re-regulation of public transport (so that buses aren't competing for same routes and so there are less buses.)
• Smartcard system that you can use on the all public transport
• Extend Borders Rail to Tweedbank line as far as Melrose
• Re-open Abbeyhill Station so that trains can carry on beyond Waverley to Easter Road, Holyrood area

Here's CRAG's comment about the cost of the tram:

"CRAG is appalled at the negative image that has been created of Scotland and Edinburgh from the politicisation of the tram project. The Scottish Parliament voted through this project and every effort should be taken to see it through to completion, as was the will of Parliament. We also cannot see why any cost-overrun, much of which was unforeseeable by the nature of the project, should be made a political football when road schemes run two or three times over budget with little comment. The M74 Northern Extension in Glasgow is a case in point, being initially approved at £245m. We now know the final cost will be almost £700m."

While no one takes issue with the suggestions for such things as safe cycle routes, public transport smart-cards and a general reduction of traffic, CRAG are simply not giving any thought to the economic realities of the current situation.   How much are we going to spend to complete this project - £1 billion or more?    We simply cannot afford to spend this sort of money when front line services are being cut and taxpayers are under huge pressure as savings are made to meet the national deficit.

The Gehl plan is also a fanciful set of speculative proposals which have simply not been thought out in any detail whatsoever.  To remove all buses from Princes Street and George street is rather like saying that there will be a break in the M8 at Harthill to allow travellers to sit and enjoy the scenery while sitting at tables outside under umbrellas !   Anyone suggesting that would deservedly be laughed out of court.   Princes Street was the main link from west to east and it has almost been broken now, so to remove the buses would be extremely difficult.    Possibly Gehl saw bus turn round points at Haymarket and Picardy Place with everyone then travelling on the tram along Princes Street.- this makes an utter mockery of any convenience factor for the majority of the travelling public.

I think that the main point CRAG are trying to get across is that "not a penny more" doesn't seem to apply to the M74 extension - or for that matter to the new Forth road bridge. There's definitely money around!

Far better, then, to get the most bangs for the public buck by finishing off the tram project than leaving it not even half-finished. If finishing it means an extra £100m or so then that would be better than having to do so in the future (especially when the Waterfront begins to revive) at even greater cost. If folk are really concerned about the public purse in these tough financial times then doing things piecemeal is the one surefire way to make everything more expensive (remember Holyrood!).

In terms of making the city centre more pedestrian-friendly and thus (as proven in numerous cities elsewhere, e.g. Dublin with its trams) more attractive to business and shoppers/visitors, it is important that public transport access be maintained to the city centre. It's a pity that Edinburgh is so dependent on buses, however - rail could play a bigger part within Edinburgh (and the trams could run on the south suburban line, for instance). The Scottish Government is wrong in its insistence that rail investment is only for those travelling into Edinburgh from out of town and not for those many more travelling around within it where percentage journey time reductions by using rail would be the greatest.

Buses will, even then, remain the predominant public transport mode - let's see though if their impact on the public realm in the city centre can be reduced. Maybe one way on Princes Street and the other way on George Street?

The post by 'You know it makes sense' sadly does not recognise two aspects; first the incredible unpopularity now of the whole trams programme with the citizens of Edinburgh and secondly, the political angle where any party now opting to support the trams programme with large amounts of additional funding would lose a huge mass of votes and also credibility with the electorate.

Edinburgh Council and its wholly owned 'arms length' company Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (tie) have handled the whole project so exceptionally badly, that now anyone associated with it is tainted with incompetence and failure.   The Council misled the Scottish Parliament when they said that 'traffic would only be displaced into residential areas temporarily and they hoodwinked many MSPs who did not realise that they were voting for a new set of poles and overhead wires for the trams' power along the length of Princes Street.

We now find that not content with a 'bespoke' contract with the German consortium, which has proved a disaster, they have also ordered wider trams than the standard width, which means they cannot be used elsewhere as they will be too wide to negotiate corners.  And then when the tram is finished with who can it be sold on to ?   No one, as it is the wrong width, so unlike the buses, which have a ready market,  the Edinburgh Tram will simply be scrapped!   What stupidity!

Oh yes, there may be money for projects which give a clear benefit to the wider community but at the moment any benefit from the tram is pretty obscure.  The Council would have saved millions and kept the citizens of Edinburgh 'on side' if it had introduced hybrid trolley buses which picked up power along the road on Princes Street.

Just addressing the points made by edg and others

I am certainly not going to start using  the M74 massive over spend as justification for the tram over spend---or vice versa.

Nor am I going to argue against cycle paths, greening of cities , walking...which I do  a lot and is one reason i moved to edinburgh as it is a good sized city in being big enough to be interesting and yet still , at the centre, largely walkable.

So I don't want to just start picking holes in the bullet point list but it remains the case that there are no things in life that are simply and always unreservedly good--espcially not by dint of their name.

Some key facts that I admit are hard to get across against the general fuzzy warm feelings associated with the concept of a a Tram, which has been artfully used by a fairly heavy duty PR spin campaign are that this particular tram is a disaster because it increases pollution that wouldn't be as high without it.

THAT is some acheivement by Edinburgh un-matched by other cities.

Figures show 139,000 households being exposed to particulate pollution to a greater degree with the tram built than without--these figures are in the Council/tie original feasibility study in 2003.

Recently it has also emerged, after a battle it has to be said, that the Council have been calculating the real level of pollution wrongly leading to large under estimates.

How does a tram create MORE  pollution?   Because in Edinburgh the very largest and main historic streets have been closed off because the tram cannot (as was promised originally) share road space with any other traffic...even the buses will have to be taken from these streets.

But of course they have to go somewhere---and the somewhere they will go, more slowly, more congested, more gridlocked, is going to be down streets that have not been thoroughfares historically and therefore contain many thousands of more homes where people live.

The tram is actually a Light rail rapid transit system --it only stops once on the whole of Princes street and in any other city would have been buried underground... Tyne and Wear did exactly that, burying a very similar type  mass rapid transit Light rail system underground in the City while running it on dedicated rail lines outside (utilising as it happens old suburban rail routes).

The result is that NO  traffic whatsoever needed to be taken from the main A1 or any other cross city routes, no households experienced one extra particle of pulltion, no person could be said to have suffered worse health through this pollution.

Edinburgh produced a dumb plan and has pushed it ahead even as the clear and present dangers of illness caused by traffic created pollution have become clearer and clearer through the decade---- thats why 'pushing on regardless' is not an option.

Bad as the financial disaster has been --- sadly it isn't the worst aspect of the plan, and the sooner the other 275,000 plus people who will experiencing the rise in cars, vans, lorries and buses down streets never before taking this sort of traffic, realise it, the better they'll be able to make their feelings known.

YKIMS has a point. It seems to me that the new government, after the May Election, that abandons the tramline will look as foolish as one that doesnt. It's a 'damned if it does (finish it), damned if it doesnt' scenario.

Unpopular as the trams project might be, the new regime doesnt have the option to cut it off purely on the basis of public opinion. After the wastage of money, the delays, and the huge inconvenience caused by the tramworks, not completing the trams to Leith adds salt into open wounds.

The new regime will not say as much, but I expect it will muster all its political guile, and find the wherewithal to get the tramline completed to St Andrew Square.

I expect any new regime will want to bite the bullet on this soon so that the tram is up and running along Princes Street by the next Scottish Parliamentry Election on 7 May 2015.

Now that the Tram has allowed the removal of general traffic from Princes Street we see another problem - or is it the main problem? Half empty buses traveling through Princes Street in a hub and spoke model of transport in which competing services may get some benefit from leap-frogging each other to get to the next stop first.

At the meeting it was reported that this was the result of the regulatory environment - too much competition - and the preference of bus travelers who like to stay on the same bus from end to end rather than change service mid-way.

Since the Tram has forced people to think about inter-modal exchanges - bus-tram-bus why don't we simply try and use the tracking information we already have on bus movements to build a truly integrated bus system that uses bus-bus transfers to avoid overloading Princes Street and give a better, more efficient and more widely distributed bus service?

It would be ironic indeed if the Tram forces a change in thinking that would have solved this problem with the existing bus service without the need for a light rail system that cannot be easily integrated with other forms of public transport because it is too long and too wide to share road space!

We have a good bus service that can be made far cleaner, much more efficient and service more people at a fraction of the cost of a Tram - what we need is new thinking, not old ideas!

Politicians like to be re-elected, so I completely disagree that a new Scottish Government would simply "find the money from somewhere" .  If they do that will be their death warrant and hand enormous political capital to all the opposition parties.     I would expect the obvious and expedient solution will be for the tram to end at Haymarket until the economic situation improves and then there might be an extension to St Andrew Square and possibly beyond.   At the moment there are so many outstanding factors such as the pollution question which the Council has tried hard to dismiss and disguise, but it will not go away.

The Council are planning - unless they change their plans - to create the most heavily polluted residential streets in Scotland and these will be competing for the accolade of "the most polluted residential areas" in the UK.

d2tod4 - I can't argue with your point about the pollution caused by re-rerouting trams traffic. But if the tram opens along Princes Street, all the more reason to introduce other initiatives to reduce the amount of particulate and pollutant emitting cars, trucks and buses in residential areas of the city. 

Yes, I suppose that is the big question: will the tram network be completed to:

1. Haymarket
2. St Andrew Square
3. Leith
4. or Bust?

(Update) Cast your vote

Re Edg

The point, that given the Tram as a fact, then we must take action to reduce particulate and other pollution is, at least in the Edinburgh Circumstances, an illustration of the 'power' of the idea of a 'Tram'.

The Tram project as created in Edinburgh isn't the solution is the problem--- pressing on regardless (and it will cost far, far more than another £100M to get to Granton---it could cost at least that just to get to St Andrews Square) simply presses on aggravating the problem.

It seems a  given in the modern world that cars are bad and tram, buses, rail, bicycling and walking are all better, but Trams in particular have a very powerful industry lobby behind them and it behoves council's to examine properly all the evidence and make decisons upon that, and not a few woolly fantasies backed by big industry blandishments.

Were a 'pollution solution' committee top sit in 2026 and decide that the cheapest and best way to improve the air quality and by that the quality and length of life in the City, was to rip up the tram lines and restore the roadway to carrying more flexible buses ---powered by Hydrogen,-- and electric and electric hybrid city cars, cycles and pedestrianisation that is properly thought through and not just tacked onto schemes as an afterthought (all far more flexible than any Tram)--- wouldn't we stop for a moment and think that perhaps back in 2011 we should have taken a differnet decision?

This takes me on to the options referendum poll----  The only sensible solution is to stop within the funding  we have now and Stop at Haymarket--- and ensure we are not bust!.

This option involves no roadway emptying as the Tram runs to here on dedicated trackway---as should all light rail rapid transit systems.... Haymarket can then be properly developed as multi modal hiub for Rail, Tram, Bus and indeed car.

This isn't ideal, but at least it is 'starting from where we are.'

The other factor is that 'getting the moeny from somewhere'---a good old political expedient from the sixties onwards, past it's sell by date in September 2008 when Lehman Bros Bank when bust.  That event signalled a sea change and the UK isn't so far away from the place that Portugal, Greece and Ireland find themselves-----  along with soon, possibly Spain and Italy... countries where it's no longer possible to just conjure money out of the air to support ill thought out vanity projects.

I do respect your views, and that they differ from my own, but I do feel the adherence in some parts of the Edinburgh City Council to the 'Tram' ideal is blinding them to the fact that this Tram, in our City at this time is a plan with so many severe flaws that unplatable as it sounds... scrapping it (as Stopping at Haymarket is to a degree) is the best option.

Anything else is just piling on the speed so the Tie-tanic project will hit the iceberg even harder.

@ T2Tod4.

I agree we dont want to throw good money after bad - which is what you are saying would happen if we continue the line beyond Haymarket. I'm sure many residents would breathe a collective sigh of relief if the council bit the bullet and just decided to make Haymarket its first "installment" for the trams.

As Actionman also observed, in his post on the Institute of Directors hustings ( "Edinburgh Trams - Struggling for political support" ), MSP candidates appear to have no appetite for spending more money on the Edinburgh trams project in these fiscally tight times.

But in terms of value of money, and providing gain for all the pain, the Council seems to be pushing ahead on completing to St Andrew Square.

Lots of unknowns though - with ongoing radio silence on how the mediation has gone and few clues as to costs, etc.

Interesting to note that opinions are evenly divided on how much of the tramline will be completed in the poll.