We are all familiar with the SNP's broken promises by now: no scrapping of Council Tax; no reduction of primary school class sizes; no writing off student debt; no 1000 extra police officers; no protection for A&E units; no grant for first time house buyers etc.
Now we can add to that list a complete reversal of their commitment to invest in public transport provision, particularly in the west of Scotland. Finance Secretary John Swinney's recent decision to axe the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL) is another blow for Scotland's largest city, and yet more evidence of an Edinburgh biase from the Nationalists. After expressing his anger at the decision, the leader of Glasgow City Council Steven Purcell (Lab), was apparently told to "behave like a grown up" by the First Minister. Charming, but perhaps not out of character for Salmond.
The rail link has long been considered a vital compotent of modernising the west of Scotland's ageing transport network and injecting a huge boost to the wider economy. The scheme would have safeguarded thousands of jobs in engineering, planning, construction and environmental monitoring, as well as supporting the city's growing business tourism and conference destination reputation. 95% of users travel to Glasgow airport by road, with the only other option of getting into the city centre an expensive taxi or bus. Numbers through the airport are predicted to double by 2030, and with the Commonwealth Games in 2014, this was the perfect opportunity to at last improve travel choice and provide a modern, efficient and long term solution to infrastructure problems in the west of Scotland.
Laughably, Swinney has attempted to ease concerns by committing to a 'Fastlink' system, which is simply another term for an extra bus lane. It is quite depressing that, despite all the evidence from other European cities, successive administrations still cannot acknowledge the importance of an efficient, integrated transport infrastructure to the economic success of a region. Let's hope that the other main parties pledge their commitment to reinstating GARL and that this wretched party are removed from power at the next opportunity.
7 comments:
Don't forget they tried to stop the Edinburgh trams too, but the rest of parliament out voted them. The whole dismantling of SPT, a body which had achieved a lot against the direction of Westminster transport policy pretty much shows how bad SNP transport policy is.
The SNP will come a cropper when they get round to reading the most recent Climate Change/Carbon Reduction targets, as set by the EU.
Mon ye boy ye. Great to see you get stuck into that filth.
Oh dear, this is obviously a 'knock the SNP' blog. KD Tennent, don't you know that the vast majority of Edinburgers don't want the trams and thousands of us in rural areas have no wish to visit Edinburgh these days. The disruption is too much to make a visit anything near enjoyable.
As for a link from Glasgow to the airport. Isn't the airport being sold off? Terribly place and Edinburgh airport is far superior. I don't hear the Edinburgers shouting for their airport rail link.
One thing which could be done for Glasgow though is a complete upgrade of that awful motorway where it cuts through the city, but the cost would be horrendous. Was it an SNP government who approved of such ridiculous planning? You wish. :)
Subrosa, A rail link from Edinburgh Airport to Waverley would have been a far superior option, and caused much less disruption to traffic and pedestrians, but was discounted on grounds of cost. It's all about speed and efficiency. The train journey would have taken I would guess 7 or 8 minutes. Once complete, the tram journey will take far longer given the number of stops that will be required - perhaps 20 minutes, which is roughly how long the existing bus journey takes. A monumentally poor decision.
As for your comment about Glasgow, the selling off of the airport has got nothing to do with it. Regardless of who owns the airport, it will still require a link to the city centre.
Subrosa - people always complain about disruption during construction, but I bet people in Edinburgh won't complain about the trams once they are running. Its a well known fact that rail based public transport is more effective at producing modal shift than road based public transport. But Hernandez is correct - a Network Rail connection to both of Scotland's main airports is long overdue.
Oh don't you be too sure there won't be any complaints KD Tennent. You've obviously never lived in a city with trams.
I did but of course there weren't the cars and fewer buses around then and trams were the only public transport.
Even then they caused many accidents with their inflexibility. I'm sure you can google the 50s and trams to see what I mean.
The Edinburgh tram line perhaps supports less than 10% of the population and you think people will think it's wonderful? I'm laughing.
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