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Transform Scotland wants to put trams on to the north Edinburgh cycle paths, says the Scotsman:
Fifty years after rail track fell silent, trams offer new lease of life
I was on these paths last weekend. They're lovely but already crowded - it was really quite awkward to have to weave back and forth between and around all the dog walkers. I wouldn't like to meet a tram there too, for all I want a city tram network. And I certainly wouldn't want my wheels to meet a tram line.
There are times when people wanting to promote 'sustainable' transport should accept that things like the NEPN now have a better use - for 'active travel'.
Not like there is spare cash around...
MUCH better would be to increase pressure for the South Sub (existing) rail line to reopen to passengers.
Would have been nice if it could have had working stations when the Borders Line is reopened.
"it was really quite awkward to have to weave back and forth between and around all the dog walkers"
I think something needs to be done about dogs on shared use paths - people don't walk their dogs down the middle of roads. I'd like to see them banned altogether, but at the very least they should have to be kept on a short, fixed lead!
"There are times when people wanting to promote 'sustainable' transport should accept that things like the NEPN now have a better use - for 'active travel'. "
Yes, the type of person who rates those paths as "under-used" either does not live here, or if they do does not actually do "sustainable transport" at all..
MUCH better would be to increase pressure for the South Sub (existing) rail line to reopen to passengers.
Re-opening the South Sub is in the Green party manifesto for the local elections. I don't think any party is talking about taking the trams down 'Line 1b' anymore. Only the Lib Dems mention extending the trams, and they talk about taking it to Little France, once its reached Leith via Leith Walk...
Can't remember where I read this but apparently the way to guarantee plenty of passengers for a new tram route is to run it between major railway stations and hospitals, and preferably also universities. If the Little France route ever gets built it at least should be a financial success - Waverley at one end, major hospital at the other, and large university campuses on/near the route too. It should have been line 1.
Surely the key advantage trams have over trains is that you can run them on the roads - rather than have to build expensive grade segregated infrastructure like the Edinburgh trams plan.
What this does do is help to show how utterly devolved from the reality of how people get around cities Transport Scotland really are.
However, this being Edinburgh, we don't want to use the existing bit of railway we have that doesn't have stations and then we want to build a new bit of railway that we don't really need, just because there's a non-road corridor where it might go.
The loss of the NEPN would be such a massive loss to the city, you can guarantee that any replacement/alternative provision would be far less satisfactory and would probably be built (I say built, signed/painted is probably more like the truth) long after they had closed the existing route to walkers and cyclists.
What this does do is help to show how utterly devolved from the reality of how people get around cities Transport Scotland really are.
It sure does. It is just all so wrong. You encourage people out of their cars by taking space away from peds and cyclists do you?
The NEPN could do with being widened a bit - to allow a proper separate cycling and walking route. As cc has already mentioned, it can be very overcrowded, there are loose dogs running everywhere in a way they wouldn't on the road (as ExcitableBoy points out)and no-one is going to get out of their car to wobble very slowly round large number of dogs and pedestrians.
We all know that the route would just be cut off to everybody for years and the resulting mixed use path would be something akin to the towpath.
No
Trams
Here
Today was the first time in years that I've cycled into town via the Roseburn Path.
Cyclists are dominating this path and going far too fast for shared use conditions.
You can't have your cake and eat it.
Get on the road !
AS a south-Edinburgh resident I am going to be a complete NIMBY and say I don't want a tram line from Waverley to NRIE, the proposed route was going to run through a green belt area and/or local parks, great. Lothian buses have cut the number of buses going out to Little France,I suspect because they do not make a profit, so why would a tram be any different? This was after the RIE was moved out here, and in fact one bus route running from SE - SW was obviously so unprofitable that initially it changed from a 10 - 15 minute service to half hourly, and is now shared between LB and First. Another bus route which went out to Fort Kinnaird no longer runs at all. When the Border line is reopened whole sections of the SEPN are going to be lost, so lets not contemplate losing all cycle ways out this way...
They're low hanging fruit because they are already rail beds - no worries about what's underneath the track, for instance. Obviously it makes more sense to put the trams on road and take them to the Western General etc., but that would be expensive and unpopular with almost everyone.
I can't see how we'll avoid losing the North Edinburgh paths but will be one of the ones fighting it.
Surely the real opportunity is the the South Sub. Not only are there railway lines already in place, but Newtwork Rail plan to electrify the line soon. All we need are the stations to be refurbished, and passenger services eg. divert trains from North Berwick service via South Sub? Or from Borders line when it opens? Or even tram/train link line somewhere around Slateford...
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