Lots of us love trams Peter (it's the Scottish govt that hates them, I recall Stewart Stevenson at a transport conference telling us he's no friend of the trams when transport and climate minister, and Keith Brown telling us he wants a M'way between every Scottish city when in the same post)
But we also like other forms of sustainable travel like bikes and walking. The Roseburn Path is such valuable corridor, it's painful to picture Edinburgh without it, probably the nearest thing Edn has to continental quality infra. We have a lot more roads than bike tracks, and I'd rather we lose
some of the capacity on some of those. Continental countries do trams and bikes really well, it can be done. The folk who hate trams are the ones who cannot bear losing a tiny bit of road capacity to install them. I've been on the fence re Roseburn, but it would sever a fantastic well used route.
Gary, I'm a fan of active travel. I think we ought to have safe cycling routes (it's the only way to get more folk on their bikes) and far better public transport (which must include light rail & trams)/...
I just feel that the current users of the Roseburn Corridor are in danger of sounding a bit like those car users who object if you take a bit of road away/...
It would be tragic if this became an excuse to cancel the new tram route or make it overcomplicated/...
The trams would carry far more people than a bike route. It would also carry a far wider range of people (and, declaring an interest here- one of the things I miss suffering from long COVID is getting on my bike!)
I agree entirely, and always been on the side of turning cycle infra that had a former use as PT back to PT. We had former canal routes in London that are now cycle paths and looked at turning them into tram lines. I want more trams, but I'd rather see the car lobby lose out, before trams or bikes
Why picture Edinburgh without it when you could picture Edinburgh with it, and some trams tootling along beside cyclists and pedestrians? Will it be as nice? No. Will it be fine once we get used to it? Yes. Is there probably quite a lot of arguing between here and there? No doubt.
'I just feel that the current users of the Roseburn Corridor are in danger of sounding a bit like those car users who object if you take a bit of road away/...' Think of it as severing the A9 to put rail services back on a section of it that was former railway...that's the impact this will have
Having at one stage in my life travelled a lot by train between Inverness and Edinburgh, I would have happily dug up the M90 to restore the direct Perth to Forth Bridge railway! 😉
Glad to hear it, so would I.
I also think that doubling an electrifying the Highland Line ought to be a higher priority than dualling the A9 (and I was once an A9 regular, too!)
Me too, and the A96 dualling is as bonkers as the Queensferry Crossing, made nesscesary by political motive and removing v low tolls. The end result being the creation of the most expensive bus lane in the world.
I don't know whether there would be space for a bike path next to the tram on this route. But if there is, that would seem to be the ideal solution
Hasn’t the council’s consultation basically said there will be, with some parts narrow enough they’ll provide on road alternatives as it’ll be cramped? I don’t think there are going to be any cycle-free bits.
The council's consultation appears to be a presentation. Surely there are on street tram alternatives in which road space can be taken, and where lost entirely to drivers they can be permitted to pootle onto back street alternative road routes?