00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.
00:04My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our transport correspondent Alistair Dalton.
00:12Alistair, we're going to get to talking about all things transport shortly, but I just want to pull up a copy of the front page of today's Scotsman.
00:19Firstly, a lovely picture of Andy Murray, Sir Andy Murray gracing the front.
00:24He's been announced as a patron of the Dunblane Centre, a charity that was set up in the aftermath of the horrific massacre.
00:34We all know the background to that, but Andy and his family have been involved in operations for the centre since its launch.
00:43And I think he was delighted to be asked to be a patron and the ongoing face of the charity and all the good work it's doing.
00:52We splashed there on two drug room sites that have been proposed in Edinburgh.
00:59We know there's one running in Glasgow and there's an ongoing assessment about how that's going.
01:05But the Cowgate is one of two locations in Edinburgh's old town that have been highlighted as potential sites for Edinburgh to get its own consumption room.
01:13Ongoing debate, obviously, about whether that's the best approach to try and tackle Scotland's drug deaths crisis.
01:23We know one of the worst rates in all of Europe.
01:26And in the wing there, there is a story about trams, Alistair, which we'll get to shortly.
01:30But I wanted to speak to you generally about the tram network in Edinburgh, because there was a consultation launched on Monday.
01:38It's about new tram lines to add to our existing network.
01:43Can you talk us through a bit of the detail of it?
01:47Yes.
01:47So people are being asked to comment on these long-awaited plans for a new tram line from the north of the city to the southeast.
01:54Effectively linking up the city's two main hospitals, Western General in the north and the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary in the southeast.
02:03And the tram line would go through the city centre through Princes Street.
02:07But there's two main things about this.
02:13Firstly, the route.
02:14And secondly, the cost.
02:17We'll deal with the cost first.
02:18It's that estimates are up to almost three billion pounds for some of the options, which is, as an example, more than twice the cost of the Queen's Ferry crossing.
02:30So a very significant undertaking that's ahead.
02:37As far as the route's concerned, it's not going to be easy at several points in the tram line.
02:46And we can look at the one of the most significant points of contention, which is in the north of the city, as to whether to use the what's known as the Roseburn Path, which is actually a former railway line, which was previously earmarked and had approval for the original tram line.
03:04Or to run on the street along Orchard Bray, which is more or less parallel just to the east.
03:11The controversy is that over the decades since the railway line closed along the Roseburn Path, it has become a very popular cycling and walking route.
03:23And there's a big campaign to protect that, even though the council said it would be possible to put a tram line along the path, as well as having space for walkers and cyclists.
03:37Although I think that would be pretty narrow in places because of the bridges along the route.
03:42And Alistair, obviously the map that we've shown there displaying the two different routes and there's different costs attached to both options.
03:50But the big question, the elephant in the room, Alistair, because it was a big elephant for the original tram line being rebuilt, is the cost and who is going to pay for it now.
04:02Already, I won't call it controversy, but there's a line on who may not pay for any tram extension.
04:09Yes, the council, when they launched their consultation this week, say they haven't got to the stage of deciding on funding and a freedom of information request, in fact, by the opponents of the using the Roseburn Path has showed that the Scottish government doesn't appear to be minded to be directly funding the route.
04:36And the scheme is in the Scottish government's transport blueprint, blueprint of key major schemes it wants to build over the next few decades.
04:48The Scottish government has also pointed out that other big schemes are not necessarily directly funded, but by funded through the city deal, city region deals, which is a different framework involves both the Scottish government, UK government and local authorities and others.
05:06So I don't think it's the be all and end all that the Scottish government is suggesting it's not funding.
05:12It doesn't necessarily mean it's it's not going to go ahead.
05:15I think it's gonna be a very long process because of the of the consultation, likely controversy.
05:21And there's some other pinch points.
05:24If the scheme was to go on the road through Orchard Bray, it would mean going over Dean Bridge, very quite narrow, historic bridge in the west end of Edinburgh.
05:34And there's question marks about whether the bridge is actually structurally able to take a tram and whether how how you would deal with all the different traffic competing to use it.
05:44The other thing is that although the Roseburn Path has enlisted this this campaign to protect it, the council is not aware of other campaigns or other opposition in other parts of the route.
05:56But when these things start to happen, a bit like HS2 soon get people who are locally affected up in arms and getting the tram route through the south, through the old town, through over North Bridge and South Bridge, very congested part of the city.
06:14And then South, that that could be problematic, too.
06:19I thought it was interesting from some of the notes from that briefing that took place between senior rep from Transport Scotland, as well as the Edinburgh Council was the reference to the trams not promoting transport from one region to another effectively.
06:37And that being an argument around funding, which gets us to another point, Alice, there's something that the Scottish Government have ploughed.
06:44There's a fair bit of money into that is scrapping peak railfares and we'll just die away from that happening.
06:50Yes. So on Monday, the Scottish Government have said that peak railfares on Scotland will be abolished permanently.
06:58So after a yearlong trial, which was then ended, they've now decided to go ahead with this permanent.
07:06So it's quite a big gamble since the trial did not achieve the results it wanted.
07:11There was a small increase in passengers, but not what they wanted.
07:16So this will make things a lot simpler.
07:19You won't have to worry about what time you're travelling or whether you're being charged more money on some routes.
07:26Peak fares are almost twice the off peak fare.
07:29On the other hand, on some routes, there are no peak fares.
07:32So not everyone's going to benefit from this.
07:35We've yet to see the details of how Scott Rail will do things differently this time in terms of promoting the scheme, but at the same time not leading to overcrowding on some services.
07:49That didn't seem to happen last time round, but if there's a more concerted effort, that could be an issue.
07:55So it's all to play for from Monday.
07:59Alistair, I'm personally a fan of the move, but we'll let our readers make up the mind on whether the dropping of peak rail fares is one that they're keen on.
08:08And it will be interesting to see over the next six to 12 months what the response is from commuters where the numbers, as I'm sure the Scottish government hope, rise again, travelling through some of those peak windows between key locations across the country.
08:23You can read stories on what we've discussed here, particularly a couple around the tram consultation and the Scottish Government of Transport Scotland's position around funding for any tram extensions at scotsman.com.
08:37There is a transport tab in the navigation bar.
08:39You can get all the very latest from Alistair Dalton and his colleagues riding across transport as well.
08:46Please follow us on social media channels and go out and pick up a copy of the Scotsman in print tomorrow.
08:51We'll have the very latest from Nigel Farage, who is up in Scotland, in Edinburgh, speaking today, just 24 hours on from his announcement around how reform would mass deport hundreds of thousands of people from the UK if they won power over the coming years.
09:08You'll get all of that in tomorrow, Scotsman.
09:11Thanks to you, Alistair, and thanks to everyone else for joining us.
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