Tunnel under the runway

Are we biting off more than we can chew? The Herald offers an informative analysis of the financial and technical difficulties associated with the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link. I only have space to post the intro to the article:

"SOME are already calling it Scotland's big dig. Early next year, if everything goes according to plan, a team of tunnellers will start boring into the soft but bouldery ground under Edinburgh Airport. Their challenge – the biggest civil engineers in Scotland have faced in decades – is to carve out a railway deep under several key roads, two rivers and one of Britain's busiest and most important runways.
Their aim is to create a whole new rail interchange for Scotland – a central hub for the entire network on the main Edinburgh to Glasgow line – and a new station that will link the capital's airport to 62 stations across the country, cementing its future as the nation's international gateway.
The whole job, grandly titled the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (Earl), will cost Scotland's taxpayers more than any other infrastructure project proposed since devolution. More, indeed, than the Parliament itself. The company promoting the project, a City of Edinburgh Council spin-off called Tie, has "robustly assessed" the cost at £609.9m. The Scottish Executive puts the figure somewhere between £550m and £650m. Independent experts are more sceptical..."

but those interested should read the whole thing. If BAA and Network Rail are less than wholly convinced by the proposed solutions to the problems - as suggested in the article - then a white elephant may be hovering inelegantly nearby. Nor is the newly established Transport Scotland agency sticking its head above the parapet. The whole project appears to be driven by Edinburgh Council and its agency TIE, neither of which has distinguished itself in promoting previous transport initiatives.

The five man Holyrood Committee considering the draft legislation for EARL has already expressed reservations with two of the five refusing to support it. But should not Tavish Scott (who?), our transport minister, be addressing the issues raised in the article? The Executive is going to have to cough up the cash, after all. But Ministers seem content to let the draft bill meander on its way through the parliamentary processes.