Edinburgh Conservative Gp OPPOSES their tram extension. WHY NOT OURS?

Edinburgh Conservative Gp OPPOSES their tram extension.  WHY NOT OURS?

 

Thank you for email regarding the Edinburgh Trams.  Myself and the Conservative Group have consistently opposed the completion of the tramline to Newhaven.   Kind regards,  Graham Hutchison  

 

The first section was completed at a cost (as you indicate) of £55.43m/km.  The proposed cost of the extension is £87.01m per km before overruns and before the ‘lessons learned’ enquiry by Lord Hardie has reported.  Cameron Rose  Conservative Councillor,  Southside & Newington ward 4 March 2019

 

Thank you Tim. Noted - the Conservative Group won’t be supporting the extension as we consider it too expensive and not the most pressing transport need in the city at the current  time and that better investment in road space, buses and park and ride would serve more of the population and address the congestion from inward commuting giving more people the opportunity not to drive by providing reliable alternatives. Regards Jo Mowat 4 March 2019

Isn't it funny - every business case is called robust;

‘robust’ justifies every kind of expenditure from spending £1 billion of public money on 14 Kms of tramline to duplicate a bus route in Edinburgh in 2014;

to spending nearly the same but, private money on the M6 Toll for 43 Kms in 2003;

to splashing out £17.6 billion of public money on 117 Kms Crossrail;

to justify spending £44,000/metre to extend your £1 billion tram line to Newhaven to replace buses;

to justify spending £44,000 per metre to convert our ready made, but they forgot the trains and stations, 120 Kms mainline "of national strategic significance" into a piddling little shuttle tram line on two short, middle sections, totalling 6.7 Kms.   

"The latest work to refine the scheme and the efficiencies to be developed within the Midland Metro Alliance give a good level of confidence that the project can be delivered within the current funding envelope” (SELF: of £44,000 per metre, times 11 Kms.  Eleven times the cost per kilometre of the second attempt at returning trains between Wolverhampton and Walsall.  The first attempt was a failure last decade!).  

Every business case comes up with a great Cost Benefit Ratio that compels massive expenditure, eg to dismantle/destroy the tram network and to rebuild it on the road and railway networks a few decades later.  This is called high Value for Money when it is 2.03:1.  In other words, you double your money.  Therefore, whatever you pay up front, you get more than double that back in destroying yet another urban and intercity railway line, in the case of trams taking over the UK's one and only mothballed mainline.

Deborah Cadman, Chief Executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority, replied to my e-mail, in which I gave practical suggestions for reversing the decline in bus use, with this:

"Whilst the bus network is facing certain challenges, including falling patronage and declining speeds, it remains the most popular and important mode of public transport in the region."

Yet, she is spending £1.518 BILLION to 2026 on only 31.7 Kms (£48 m/Km) of trams taking over mainly bus routes but also 6.7 Kms of the half used, 120 Kms Black Country Railway "of national strategic significance" (letter to myself from the DfT and Network Rail, dated 8 March 2018).  These are trams duplicating and even replacing buses and, also preventing forever the return of commuter and regional trains to a half used, nationally important railway.

timweller1@gmail.com 8 March 2019