Blogs

Glamour and envy

Submitted by e2toe4
on Mon, 10/07/2013 - 09:30

The recent article in which Edinburgh's trams were painted as 'The Envy of Europe' because of the glamour of the stretch from the Airport to York Place is instructive -- in respect of the bancruptcy of ideas for an administration and 'tramstablishment' increasingly desperate to find any justification for their scheme from a rapidly diminishing range of possibilities.

Leaving aside the headline that asserts the 'envy of Europe' as a present and existing fact, when even the writer, Prof Harvie, only puts it up as a 'potential'; although that may not be any sinister framing of the debate by the

A view on the tram

Submitted by e2toe4
on Tue, 07/30/2013 - 21:43

Sometimes , someone will get right at the heart of the matter, as here in this piece on the Edinburgh Guide website.

This is the sort of analysis,  from council and scottish Government supplied facts, data and statistics that never gets heard in the outpourings from the Council's steam driven PR machine.

The Council desperately want it to be good, and they think/hope/crave it will be seen to be to be good just as soon as the first tram runs.

This essay shows why it can't ever 'come good' , and will never come good, until the senior and excutive figures in the Council stop burying their

It isn't HOW they say what they say that's important... it's WHAT they actually said that matters

Submitted by e2toe4
on Sat, 06/22/2013 - 19:48

It's sometimes worth looking back to see what people said back in the old days,as here in 2003 by a chap called Andrew Burns, confident that Edinburgh wouldn't make the same mistakes as all those  other places had made building a tram --- Or here by a Gordon Mackenzie in 2010 strenuously denying...well, some far fetched story that the tram may not get to Leith...AS IF?!?

Or from whatever faceless officials were behind this report detailing  'operating profit' or 'contribution'  from the Tram, set out in the Council's heavyweight advice to Councillors in August 2011, (*scroll down to paragraph

No problems, no worries, no matter

Submitted by e2toe4
on Wed, 06/05/2013 - 08:38

These sorts of thing (The reported about-turn on the one way Loop(y) plan for public transport around George Street/Princes Street) are what happen when warnings are ignored, and consequently disasters turn into crises and then to catastrophes.

Edinburgh Council  have no good choices left, and the attempt to balance needs and requirements has become impossible, even the people running the Large Hadron Collider don't have big enough brains or super-computers  to yank things back on course when they get to the point they have reached in Edinburgh.

The drop out of that recent top-10 cities list

Vic Emery ex TIE Ltd boss speaks up

Submitted by e2toe4
on Fri, 05/24/2013 - 09:35

The last time I can remember Vic Emery saying anything about the tram was the first time he said anything about the tram.

That was when he was brought in to head up the team making sure all the windows and doors were properly locked when Tie Ltd closed down.

Along with the job of sitting beside City CEO Sue Bruce when they announced their stunning coup in 'rescuing' the tram to an amazed world. 

Vic and Sue forced the contractor consortium into the humiliation of having to give up building a massive chunk of the Leith end of the project---with just a measly £231Million extra, around 40% extra,

Fings ain't what they used to be...

Submitted by e2toe4
on Sat, 04/27/2013 - 12:15

The two basic problems with the tram project are that it isn't over and won't be over the day the first tram runs.

Instead of a 'full stop-turn the page' moment the inaugural run with paying passengers will merely be a comma in the rolling disaster the project has always been -- and will continue to be.

The second basic problem is that  this slow motion omnishambles will continue to unravel around us all, is because nothing has changed in the most important area of the project...the space between the ears of Waverley Court and City Chamber that makes up the collective mindset of the Council.

The real cost of the Edinburgh tram project

Submitted by e2toe4
on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 09:40

 

The real cost of the Edinburgh Tram project will not be reckoned in the cash totals bandied about but the opportunity cost embedded in those totals.

Opportunity cost is the total of everything else that will not be done solely because of the money that has already been spent dping something else.

So in respect of the tram project this current storyin the press is revealing, not really for the headline or the quotes, but for certain facts (also copied below this piece in case the link may break at some point).

Leaving aside the whole of the original £545M budget which was blown on

Pollution a problem,? Try telling that to the Scientific Services depart

Submitted by e2toe4
on Sun, 03/17/2013 - 22:58

Another day and another article prompted by the City of Edinburgh Council, the Council quotes spin around the possibility of Low Emission Zones, not a new idea and not a bad idea...but no excuse us if we don't seem overjoyed to hear it.

For over 4 years a small group of residents have battled to show how the desperate errors built into the tram project actively create pollution from a mass transit system supposedly 'green at the point of delivery'.

Their officials continue to under report the levels of pollution and even so their own latest figures show it 14% up with traffic 5% down.

LEZ's

Compare and contrast..Council spin with council facts

Submitted by e2toe4
on Wed, 03/13/2013 - 21:32

This piece on the welcome page (page since updated) links into some recent articles in the local media provided by the Council's ever obliging PR machine---and contrasts them with facts .. all obtained from the Council's own reports or through freedom of Information requests.

Yet, funnily enough, never---ever--mentioned in any Council Pr releases

 Wonder why that is?

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