Edinburgh drivers protest
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EDINBURGH's bus drivers have come out strongly against the building of a £26m Western Relief Road for the city (CM p13). Instead, they say, the regional highways authority should be concentrating on solving the car parking problem.
This reaction was officially decided by their branch of the TGWU, which has sent an official memo to the regional council recording opposition to the road plans. In its submission it says: "The case for building the Western Relief Road would appear to be based on the argument that this is the only solution to traffic flow problems being experienced in other areas.
"As bus drivers, we would argue that the traffic problems in these areas are no worse than in many other areas of the city, and are caused mainly by indiscriminate car parking problems. Solve these and you then solve the traffic flow problems." The drivers say that one of the worst areas for traffic problems at the moment is Lothian Road. For most of the day, traffic queues stretch back from the West End to Earl Grey St, and at certain times it is impossible to exit left from the West Approach Road into Lothian Road.
"If the Western Relief Road is improved, these problems will increase considerably, with the certain large increase of traffic generated as a result. Bus timetables, which are badly affected at the moment due to the situation in Lothian Road and Tollcross, would become more of a lottery, with the result that either buses would not be able to complete their full journeys, or an increase in running times would become inevitable, thus leading to higher costs for the transport dept.
The bus drivers say that expected cost of the road, starting at £26m and probably going much higher than that, leaves them "breathless". "All this money, which will have to be found by the ratepayers and taxpayers, to solve a problem which in our opinion could be solved by other means."
The branch list a number of alternative proposals, saying that greater priority should be given to the speedy completion of the outer city by-pass, which would have a meaningful effect on diverting traffic from the city centre.
They say there should be better and more frequent bus services, with a fare structure which even the most deprived person could view as reasonable.