Fresh roads mayhem looms as tram work reaches Haymarket

Published on Wednesday 11 June 2008 10:28

COMMUTERS were today warned of a fresh round of tram line disruption as the roadworks move to one of the city's busiest junctions.

The Evening News understands that work to divert utilities at Haymarket will get under way next month and will continue until early 2009, without stoppages for the Festival in August.

Haymarket and West Maitland Street are among the last roads on the airport to Newhaven route to have utilities moved and the work is expected to involve a series of diversions for buses and cars.

Full details of the diversions are still to be released by tram firm TIE, but they are expected to be fairly complex given the number of major roads which feed into the Haymarket junction.

However, the traffic situation will be eased by the fact that Shandwick Place is expected to be reopened to traffic by the middle of next month.

Tram chiefs are planning to close Princes Street to all traffic for up to seven months from January next year as well.

Driving groups today warned that continuing work through the Festival period will put extra strain on the city's congested roads.

Bruce Young, Lothian and Borders co-ordinator of the Association of British Drivers, said: "This Haymarket section will be nowhere near as clear cut as Shandwick Place, it is a very heavily-used junction.

"This is probably the biggest opportunity they will have to get things wrong I fear, and I am appalled they will be working through the Festival when the city really does struggle to cope with the extra traffic."

The first major traffic diversions for the tram scheme were put in place in March, when Shandwick Place was closed for utility diversions. These works were expected to cause chaos but have passed off relatively smoothly.

Work on Princes Street to divert utilities will get under way in January, with buses, bikes and taxis diverted on to George Street for the duration of the scheme.

Charles Dundas, Liberal Democrat city centre councillor, said: "I think most people will agree that the diversions around Shandwick Place have caused a lot less disruption than we anticipated.

"On the basis of this and the work that has been done at the bottom of Lothian Road, then I think we can be cautiously optimistic that it will run as smoothly as these things can."

The entire trams roadworks programme will take more than three years and involves digging up the streets twice – first to move utility pipes, then to install the lines, stops and overhead wires.

A TIE spokesman refused to comment on the forthcoming Haymarket work ahead of the firm's official "traffic management" announcement.

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