TIE's trams plans are just unravelling

Published on Tuesday 27 December 2005 12:58

I WAS knee-deep in wrapping paper - and at a very delicate stage of almost finding the elusive edge of the Sellotape - when the phone rang at about 8 o'clock the other night.

As you can probably appreciate, amid all the festive preparations, I wasn't in the best of moods for a cold-caller.

But a very polite chap on the other end of the phone announced that he was conducting some research on behalf of the city council and TIE - that's Transport Initiatives Edinburgh - and so, if it was convenient, would I mind answering a few questions about transport?

I was intrigued to know what this was all about, and so I decided the last-minute present-wrapping could wait. I spent five minutes answering his questions - Do you have a car? No. Do you ever work at home? Yes. Do you have a bus pass? No, etc, etc.

Eventually, he asked if I wanted to know more about the survey, and naturally I asked him why they were conducting the research?

He answered that the council and TIE wanted to see "how needed a tram line would be in Edinburgh" and "what would be the most popular routes".

I almost fell off my chair and squashed a pile of presents.

If this chap was right, then the council and TIE had commissioned some potentially valuable research. It would indeed make sense to ask the people of Edinburgh about their transport habits and how often, if at all, they might use the trams.

But wouldn't it have been just a teeny bit more intelligent to have carried it out BEFORE they went to the considerable trouble of agreeing the routes for two tram lines and then seeking parliamentary assent for them?

Perhaps the council and TIE are back-pedalling behind the scenes, realising that the cost of the two-line tram scheme is fast spiralling out of control and must be scaled back. If so, they might want to know which route could be curtailed or delayed. Or perhaps they are filling in gaps in their knowledge that they should have covered long before now.

Given the council's track record on transport, I'd be more inclined to suspect the latter than the former. But whichever is the case, I am beginning to go off the idea of trams.

I can see the attractions - when I've been in cities like Copenhagen or Melbourne, the trams are a great addition to the public transport network. But these cities have wide boulevards that can easily accommodate two or three lanes of traffic in each direction, plus a generous cycle lane, and not the narrow cobbled streets of Edinburgh's city centre. As this newspaper reported earlier this month, even the MSPs on the Edinburgh Tram (Line Two) Bill Committee, which has supported the scheme, have acknowledged that Queen Street and nearby roads could suffer from increased congestion.

Then of course there is the massive disruption during the construction to be considered, and the cost, which appears to be spiralling out of control.

Trams were never going to be a panacea for the city's transport ills, but I had - perhaps naively - hoped that they would be an attractive addition to our public transport system, that might have encouraged more people to leave their cars at home.

It truly saddens me to say this, but it now seems that the trams are in danger of creating many more problems than they solve.

Does that help with your survey, Councillor Burns?

Bookworms need to come up for air

EVERY kid knows that Harry Potter has magical powers, but now doctors have noted that this transcends fiction.

It seems that JK Rowling's hugely successful books are helping to protect kids from accidents - when the last two were launched, there was a marked dip in hospital attendances for bumps and broken bones, suggesting that children were so engrossed in the book that they weren't playing outside as usual.

This obviously has benefits for child safety - and the authors of the study reported in the British Medical Journal point out that writers could be recruited to help prevent injuries. But books ain't all they're cracked up to be.

As an only child till I was 12, and with a mum who was a tad overprotective, I spent most of my early years with my nose in a book or drawing in my sketchpad.

The result was I knew the alphabet and could write my name before I started school, and began reading Shakespeare at the age of eight (though I doubt I understood much of it!) Sure, I never broke a bone or had anything more serious than a scraped knee, but I also missed out on a lot of fun.

I didn't learn to ride a bike till I was ten or learn to swim until I was 11. I wasn't allowed roller skates in case I had an accident, a pet dog in case it bit me, or even a harmless Spacehopper in case I crashed into something.

Books are fabulous for opening the doors of a child's imagination, but there's no substitute for the great outdoors, even if it does mean the odd bruise or bump.

Sober assessment of hangover cures required

IF there is one thing I have noticed about Christmas Day, it is that you eat so much it's actually quite hard - though not impossible - to get drunk. The real hangover will kick in this weekend when Hogmanay staggers into New Year's Day.

But before you reach for the Resolve, be aware that scientists are now warning not only that drinking to excess can be bad for you, but that there's no evidence that hangover cures work.

They reviewed eight trials which had tested eight different "cures": propranolol (a beta-blocking drug), tropisetron (a drug for nausea and vertigo), tolfenamic acid (a painkiller), fructose or glucose, and the dietary supplements borage, artichoke, prickly pear and a yeast-based preparation. Far be it from me to question their credentials, but I remain unconvinced until they conduct double-blind, randomised controlled trials on the following cures tested by me and my mates: a full fry-up, a large Bloody Mary, a family-sized bag of Hula Hoops, orange flavour Lucozade, a fish supper, a bottle of Red Kola and, of course, copious amounts of Irn Bru.