An expanded city tram system needs government funding - Robert Drysdale
In the long and depressing history of Edinburgh's failure to invest in high-quality public transport we are now facing the prospect of yet another failure, and one which will simply result in even more traffic congestion in our city.
Last year Edinburgh was ranked only second behind London in a survey by TomTom of cities with the slowest traffic speeds, because of widespread congestion, which also badly affects our bus services.
The Liberal Democrat Councillor Kevin Lang is calling for plans to extend the city's tram line to be scrapped because there is no definite source of funding.
Yet it was Edinburgh's former Lib Dem council leader Jenny Dawe and her fellow LD councillors who presided over the utter failure to deliver the original tram project, sitting back and failing to take control of the council’s inept project managers Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE).
That resulted in a gross overspend on the scheme and the curtailing of the planned 19-mile network down to just eight miles, costing double the original budget.
Had it not been for the Lib Dems' failure to properly supervise and control the project, we would have had both tram lines - the airport route and the North Edinburgh loop - built and running by 2012.
The North Edinburgh loop line - Tram Line One - had been approved by the Scottish Parliament in 2006 and would have included trams running on the former railway route through Craigleith, providing excellent fast links between the districts of north Edinburgh, the airport and the city centre.
The current 'Roseburn Path' furore would not be happening, because by 2012 we would have had a parallel tram line and walkway / cycleway along that route, as per the approved scheme.
It was only the removal of the Lib Dems from power, the appointment of Sue Bruce as the council’s Chief Executive, and Labour's Lesley Hinds taking over as the new convenor of the Transport Committee, which eventually led to the rescue of the section of the tram line from the city centre to the airport.
The current high passenger usage of the tram line, extended to Newhaven in 2023, is a clear demonstration of the attractiveness of the tram as a mode of transport, and its potential to pull people out of their cars, particularly if it runs on fast traffic-free routes.
Without further extensions of the tram line to serve other parts of the city, cars will continue to rule the streets and bus journeys will become slower than ever.
As for the 'no funding' argument, all the major investments in urban public transport systems across the UK over the past five decades have relied on central government funding. The Scottish Government needs to step up and accept that keeping the country's capital city moving will require funding from the national budget. There is no other option to rescue Edinburgh from permanent chronic congestion, which will adversely affect the economy of Scotland as a whole.