Edinburgh Trams

Day by day, the incredible disruption of the City becomes more intolerable; shopkeepers are watching with dismay as their takings fall and the travelling public is bemused by the enormous disruption that this hugely overpriced and wasteful project is causing. If we were going to get a huge improvement in the quality of our transport services then it might be worthwhile, but it is impossible to see how this outrageous project will do anything except make the City even more congested and impossible for the flow of traffic. It seems as though we have not seen half the disruption yet with the impending closure of Princes Street turning George Street into a kind of urban motorway for six months. I would forcast a huge drop in retail income for the City centre and a major drop in tourist revenue.

Princes Street and George Street have becoming highly attractive for tourists with the street tables outside restaurants and bars giving the City an almost continental feel on sunny days. But who will want to sit out beside a mass of solid nose-to-tail smelly traffic? Added to which we will be turning Princes Street into a form of extension to Waverley Station with lumbering trams taking up over a third of the street and the remaining space being filled by nose to tail lines of busses! Is this the vision for a World Heritage Site? I think not.