Airport Rail Scheme Will Knock Out Tram Line- and Steal Resources From Better Congestion-busting Alternatives
Mon., November 08, 2004. 00:00.
Green MSPs today called on the Executive to abandon plans to fund a rail link to Edinburgh airport and to spend the budgeted £500 million pounds on schemes that would genuinely tackle congestion to the West of Edinburgh. A consultation on the rail link will be launched later today by Transport Minister Nicol Stephen.
The call comes in the light of findings by consultants Arup put to parliamentary committees looking at the funding for Edinburgh's tram lines. Arup shows a funding shortfall, and that the business case for tram line 2 will rely partly on airport passengers. The proposed rail link will connect the airport to Waverley and Haymarket - directly competing with the proposed tram line 2.
Mark Ballard, Green MSP for the Lothians, said: 'It is plainly ridiculous that the Scottish Executive should be funding two separate links to the airport which will be in direct competition with each other. The railway line will do little to tackle congestion in the area and will bring little benefit to the people of Edinburgh. The Executive should choose the cheaper alternative which is to build a railway station on the existing line to Fife which runs alongside the airport boundary, and fully fund tram line 2, which will connect Waverley, Haymarket and Edinburgh Park stations, as well as other parts of the city, to the airport.'
The proposed rail link involves relocating the Edinburgh-Fife and the Edinburgh-Glasgow lines through a tunnel under the airport. This will make journey times between Edinburgh and Glasgow even longer than they are now. The current 50 minute journey is already longer than it was in the 1960s.
Whilst the Executive has committed £500 million to this project, Edinburgh's tram lines 1 and 2 remain only part funded. The proposed tram line 3 has no funding in place at all and will rely on revenue from Edinburgh City Council's proposed congestion charging scheme. Trips to the airport are predicted to account for half of all passengers using tram line 2, so the Executive is effectively undermining the very basis for its investment in Edinburgh's tram system by simultaneously building the rail link.
Chris Ballance MSP, Green Speaker on Transport, added: 'Scotland's rail network is in desperate need of major investment, and this rail link diverts money from urgent improvements needed elsewhere, such as the re-opening of Edinburgh's south suburban rail line to passenger traffic, further electrification of the network and funding for a proposed new railway line to the Borders. If the Scottish Executive is truly committed to improving our railways, it will spend the money elsewhere. If it really wants to tackle congestion to the west of Edinburgh, it will drop this scheme and fully fund Edinburgh's trams. There has been no call for the airport scheme from the rail industry, and it appears that Ministers are not thinking strategically.'
The proposal to develop an airport rail link was made in the Partnership Agreement following the last Holyrood elections in 2003 by the Executive, and they are funding Transport Initiatives Edinburgh to take forward the scheme.
ENDS
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