Edinburgh Tram Stalls
That is the headline in Modern Railways this month.
They reckon that there might be enough money left to complete the Edinburgh Tram from Edinburgh Airport to Haymarket, but say some politicians want to kill the whole project off. Wikipedia describes the whole sorry mess.
Apparently, Starbucks or was it Costa, has made a proposal to convert the tram marooned in Princes Street into a coffee shop.
Edinburgh’s Transport Systems
Edinburgh is supposed to be one of the big tourist destinations in the world. So it needs to get its public transport up to the standard visitors expect. The buses are just not up to scratch and late and static trams give the wrong message.
I also read in The Scotsman, that the city doesn’t have a big enough dock for the largest cruise ships to berth, so they are losing out to places like Belfast and Liverpool.
Walking around the city is not difficult, but of course there are few maps. Incidentally, my eyesight isn’t good enough to read a paper map in the rain and I suspect that for many visitors to Edinburgh, clear eye level maps are best.
At least though the taxis are reasonably plentiful and affordable. The drivers also give you chapter, verse and every last word about the trams and the buses. But then taxi drivers are the same the world over!
I didn’t use the local trains, but it would appear that they work well! That is if you can find out which bus you catch to get to the station!
Edinburgh’s Tram To Nowhere
I do not like badly conceived and managed projects, as you’d expect from someone, who designed one of the first modern project mangement systems. I had thought that there was nothing that could match the Cambridge Busway for being badly designed, managed and executed project. But it would appear that the Edinburgh Tram, may come close.
Strangely, the two projects have a lot in common; both will be about 40 kilometres long ,both are running years late and massively over budget. Although the Edinburgh Tram will cost six times more than the Cambridge Busway.
They also get up the public’s nose spectacularly. In the Cambridge case, buses proclaim, “Will I be on the Busway soon?” and in Edinburgh, a static tram is parked to block Princes Street.
The Edinburgh Static Tram
I suppose the static tram does have a point, in that it makes getting a bus in the centre of Edinburgh very difficult, so by the time the tram comes into service in 2014, people will be more likely to use the tram. That could be the only reason, as what idiot would deliberately create a traffic jam with something that doesn’t work. Even those twats with 4x4s and supercars get parking tickets, when they block the roads outside Harrods! Why hasn’t someone stuck a parking ticket on the tram?
To make it worse, I saw this sign too!
Edinburgh Road Sign
So trams can turn right, despite the fact the only one is static!
Hong Kong Trams
Hong Kong trams are unique, being a sort of relic of British Imperial past beloved equally well by tourists, expats and native-born HongKongers. It is nicknamed the Pollution Solution.
The Unusual Nice Tram
Nice trams are unusual in that they have batteries so that in areas like the Place Massena, the overhead wires don’t need to be erected to spoil the scene.
In fact the Nice Trams seem to be very much well-designed from an artistic point of view. It seems that the French have resisted the loud colours they like and have used subtle shades to contrast with the bright Nicoise buildings.
Why Guided Bus?
Go to the Guided Bus page in Wikipedia and there is a list of guided bus systems around the world.
There aren’t many and what you notice is that about half have been discontinued; Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Mannheim for a start. So why were these systems discontinued? You can’t be sure, but some were short distance systems to get round bottlenecks, but probably they just didn’t get the ridership they needed, that justified the system.
So why is the government pushing guided bus?
I don’t know.
If we take the Cambridge system, it is now so over budget and late that no matter what happens, it will not be a financial success. It is a classic project that really has failed because of poor specification and bad project management. I would love to have one of my Artemis mates look at all the details. Big George would have a field day. But then so did Atkins.
Perhaps with hindsight, we should have designed a completely different system.
Cambridge’s biggest transport problem for those like me, who live outside the city is Addenbrooke’s Hospital. I have gone a lot recently and although the multi-story car park usually has spaces, it is expensive. But how else can you provide space for everyone who works there and has to visit?
However, the railway passes to the rear of the hospital on land that will eventually be developed as a large medical campus to compliment one of the best hospitals in the world. So why haven’t they for a start created a proper transport interchange there with a new Addenbrooke’s station and lots of parking for the hospital, park and ride to the city and those that want to catch the train.
Note that, it is virtually impossible for people like me to catch the train to London from Cambridge as car parking is bad in the city. So I usually drive to London. That is bad for all sorts of reasons. Remember too, that with the completion of the Hitchin flyover and other measures capacity on the Cambridge London line will be increased.
I have also been an advocate of another station at Chestert0n Sidings to serve the Science Park and the north of Cambridge. The two stations should probably be linked by a tram, or dare I say it a guided bus, going through the city. The trouble is that fitting it through would be difficult unless it ran with all the other traffic. But it has been done successfully in other cities all over the world. On the other hand if a tram run through the city every five to eight minutes from large car parks how many people would still want to take cars into the city?
But it won’t be done! Certainly not now!
My first London Tram since the 1950s
I can just about remember the original London Trams.
My paternal grandmother used to take me on trips around London in my Cumfifolda push-chair and I have seen pictures of us as the Dome of Discovery and the Skylon at the Festival of Britain site on the South Bank of the Thames in 1951. The only building that remains is the Royal Festival Hall.
I can also remember dark images on a winter’s day from a very low height of a wide street with trams travelling down the centre. I’ve always believed that this was the Holloway Road and as trams on route 35, ran through the Kingsway Tunnel to Archway and Highgate until April 1952. I can remember climbing aboard and travelling. But where I do not know!
Yesterday, I went to see friends in South London on the way to see Ipswich play Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. On way to get across was to take a bus to Wimbledon and then use the London Tramlink to West Croydon.
London Tram at Wimbledon
It was busy and just like any other tram all over Europe. We need more in the UK.
If you ever want to see something like the old London Trams then go to Hong Kong. Long may they survive.
The Anonymous Widower 