31 July 2007

What next?

Two things 'they' never told us when the trams were being given parliamentary backing:

1. From today's Scotsman (here):
TWO of Edinburgh's busiest streets could be closed to cars under plans being considered by city leaders.
As part of the blueprint for the new trams network, it is understood that Shandwick Place would only be open to trams, taxis and buses, while Constitution Street in Leith would be used only by trams.

2. From last Saturday's Scotsman (here):
COUNCIL tax payers could be left to pay for a shortfall in funding for Edinburgh's tram scheme, the city's deputy leader claimed yesterday.
Steve Cardownie predicted a gap in the £45 million pledged by the council because of the lack of business contributions to the project.

Is there anything else we should know? I mean, before we get too deeply into this mess? And don't you think we might have been told before Parliament gave its final approval to the scheme?


Update:

My question is already answered. The Evening News reveals that what's next is that the city streetscapes are to be littered with 32 dirty great, bright red, freestanding ticket machines to dispense tram and bus tickets. As if our main city highways were not already sufficiently cluttered with street furniture.

I am beginning to get hacked off about the trams ...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tried my best to get these messages across to people but it seems that Lab/Lib were more interested in giving the SNP a bloody nose than passing something workable.

Another few issues relating to the trams for you... St Andrew's Square to be a tram turnback with two stops, oh no one stop now as they don`t know how to make it work with 2...Shandwick palce is a fun one too, they're still trying to figure out how that'll work...Leith Walk, remmeber when they extend the pavements a few years back, well guess what they'll be halved in width again to allow for the trams...

The final final final decision isn`t taken until late autumn on the business case - if your not happy it may be worth impressing that on your local councillors.

Anonymous said...

We can all pick flaws in the trams scheme but we need more than the SNP's plans for a few more buses to solve Edinburgh transport problems