Trams in Edinburgh will make a “significant” contribution to cutting the Scottish capital’s carbon footprint, a conference has been told.
City of Edinburgh Council chief executive Sue Bruce said although the scheme had been controversial, it would make the city greener by reducing car use and convincing more people to use public transport.
Speaking at a Holyrood conference on how climate change targets for 2020 are being delivered, she gave a defence of the achievements the tram scheme has the potential to achieve.
Princes Street is set to open to buses and taxis on Saturday 30 June and trams should be in operation by summer 2014.
York Place is due to close for more than a year, to allow the laying of tram tracks, but Princes Street will be open west of Waverley Bridge, along with The Mound.
Bruce said progress was being made and told delegates: “If you happen to be back in Edinburgh this time in summer 2014, you should be able to ride on a tram as a revenue paying member of the public.
“The tram which has brought about much controversy in Edinburgh is going to contribute quite substantially to the city’s ability to reduce its carbon footprint and make a sea change in people’s attitude to car travel.
“The original business case for the tram anticipated a 20 per cent modal shift, particularly from private car drivers to public transport including the tram. Which will be powered by electricity and will be clean, green and silent.”
“The motivation for that from the City of Edinburgh Council is manyfold: to reduce congestion; to be a more environmentally sensitive city; and to encourage mass transit in the city.”
During her speech to the conference she said progress was being made across all 32 councils to cutting carbon emissions by 2020.
She said that under the UK Government’s Green Deal, members of the Scottish Cities Alliance – which includes all of the country’s seven cities – were considering a bid that would see “retrofitting” programmes in as many as ,000 council and socially-rented homes, making them more energy efficient.
She said this would help reduce their carbon footprint, but would also ease costs for the 35 per cent of population currently living in fuel poverty – bringing “real human benefits, where people can be helped to live more comfortable lives.” The Scottish Government has set targets to cut emissions by 42 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.
Other speakers at the conference, held at Edinburgh’s Our Dynamic Earth, included Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson and co-chair of the Energy Advisory Group Jim McDonald.
Neil Evans
Neil is Holyrood's Environment Correspondent, joining in 2012 after working for newspapers in Corby, Portsmouth and Aberdeen. He was born in Reading but has lived in Scotland since 2007. His first attempt at "being green" was coming up with the idea of an edible crisp packet while at primary school. It didn't catch...
This is an interesting set of statements from Ms Bruce and they may have been quoted out of context, however the assumptions underlying each are different. The 'original business case' also assumed a much more extensive network and population growth in areas served by the Tram – however it also showed that over 60% of all Edinburgh's residents would suffer worse noise and air pollution as a direct result of traffic being displaced from the route of the Tram – traffic that was predicted to rise faster than any 'modal shift'! Whilst Edinburgh's CO2 emissions will improve by using electricity rather than diesel buses – that electricity comes from Scotland's biggest CO2 emitter in Fife! By scoping statements carefully and drawing on different epochs of tram business cases it is possible to present this in a positive light, but the analysis that is in the public domain is simply that this scheme means that more people living in Edinburgh will be exposed to more air pollution for longer periods, with direct health implications. The public do not have access to all the facts, so if that analysis is now wrong and a Tram line that displaces more vehicles than it carries passengers is 'Green' and good for the health of Edinburgh's citizens, please could we see the evidence?
On a project 'whole life' basis, I doubt if all of the addtional carbon emitted because of the many diversions and construction-deconstruction-reconstruction work will be balanced by the trams for a very long time.
There is no way that Ms Bruce, as Chief Executive of Edinburgh City Council, can claim that more people will use the tram once it is built. The Business Case has been utterly destroyed and is now seen by everyone as a total sham – something which is being frequently adjusted in a desperate attempt to justify an incompetently managed and failed project. The city is being lunbered with a useless project which will leave the citizens with massive ongoing debt for some thirty years and a killer legacy of hugely increased pollution which will shorten the lives of a large number of our most vulnerable and able bodied residents. Ms Bruce should be apologising and not trying to claim credit for an unmitigated disaster of a project.
Ms Bruce, as Chief Executive of the City of Edinburgh, is desperately trying to justify the trams project and uses a hoplessly discredited and unjustified "business case" which the Council have "adjusted" several times, trying to cope with an economic situation which destroyed any credibility that the very shaky original case ever had. Shamefully Council officials have misled and deceived the citizens of Edinburgh constantly over this project. We are now in a position where Council Tax payers will be saddled with paying some £15 million a year for thirty years for the incompetence of the Council and the officers involved. Even worse the residents will have to suffer hugely increased pollution which will cause the deaths of the most vulnerable due to the tram diversions which the officials have deviously planned to be enforced. These people should be sacked for their incompetence and for the damage they have caused in the city.