Letters: Why is it bonkers to plan transport for the future?

Of course the cost is high, but with transport projects, you have to ask, what is the cost of not investing? Transport should not be seen as a stand-alone industry, but as a means of enabling a host of other industries (including tourism) to compete with better-connected European industries. I think we delude ourselves that any transport system covers all its direct and indirect costs.

David Begg is certainly not alone in lobbying for HS2. There are plenty of non-political transport consultants pressing for us to follow the lead of Japan, France, Germany, Spain and China to name some diverse countries that have already built High Speed lines. Are all these countries bonkers, or have they planned ahead?

Yes, we do need more investment in our current roads and railways, and Brian seems not to have noticed that Waverley has already had extra platforms built, and all that remains is an extra platform for the Borders line trains.

So, short of reopening Princes Street Station and losing the West Approach Road, the best option to free up capacity is to borrow an idea from Germany and convert some local trains into tram-type vehicles. And where do they go on entering the city centre? Well, on to the newly built tramway along Princes Street of course!

Arthur Homan-Elsy, committee member, Scottish Association for Public Transport

Repairing roads should be simple

I WRITE regarding Colin Stevenson's "patchwork quilt" letter of July 27.

Look around at our worst road surfaces (we have hundreds to choose from) and you will see that the roads are fine - it's the restorations that are causing 95 per cent of the problem.

I read that we employ a Road Tsar somewhere in the corridors of power, but even without one this will work. All we need is the responsible roads department to start behaving responsibly and do what we pay them to do - inspect repairs.

Rule 1 - When a contractor, or even the council, digs up a road it must be restored properly and re-inspected for durability. Any defects must be repaired (their cost, not ours) over a five-year period.

Rule 2 - There's no need for any more rules.

Norrie Henderson, Meadowhouse Road, Edinburgh

Let's make tracks like Down Under

LAST month in Melbourne, Australia, 1.2km of tram track was completely renewed, from the foundations up, in the space of seven days.

Perhaps TIE would care to justify the inordinate length of time they claim they need to rectify the track problems in Princes Street.

Hugh McAulay, Glasgow

Concerts too close is bad Karma

I WAS at the concert in George Square Gardens, played by the excellent Tommy Smith and his new band, Karma as part of the Jazz and Blues Festival.

Unfortunately the sound from Hypnotic Brass Ensemble in the adjacent Spiegeltent was so loud that it spoiled several of Karma's more lyrical numbers, and made a mockery of them trying to play their music properly. The audience was struggling to separate the different music sources.

Smith twice had difficulty in establishing the tempo for his numbers against 'the opposition', meaning that he had a struggle to start them. It may be that the same was happening for the audience in The Spiegeltent when Karma were in full flight.

It is clear that these two venues are far too close together for the kinds of music being staged in them, something that would have been obvious even at the planning stage for this site.

I am a keen supporter of the Festivals although I will review my support should this dismaying trend of allowing greed to prevail over performance integrity become the norm.

Roddy Glen, Bruntsfield Terrace, Edinburgh