Theres three stages to the tram scheme. Design, delivery and operation.
The design seems to have been pretty good (considering it was just one line, rather than attempting to build a whole "network") the first line was intended to serve the Airport, the two main out of town shopping centres, the centre of the city, a couple of train stations, the bus station, major employment areas, a Park And Ride site, a sports stadium and the biggest suburb (without getting into arguments about whether Leith is its own place or part of the big city).
For one line, that seems to tick a lot of boxes! Im struggling to think of how they could have designed one simple route thatd have provided more. Any other route would probably involve following bus routes (which slows the tram down, disrupts existing traffic further and begs the question what was the point in building a tram that just follows the existing bus route?).
Delivery? A shambles, obviously. The main problems seem to be that the council tried to do everything at once and tried to cut too many corners. If theyd focussed resources on the western end, they could have had a line from the Airport to Edinburgh Park (connecting the Airport to heavy rail) in operation whilst the section to Haymarket was under construction... then, once Haymarket was operational, the section through Princes Street could be built and so on and so on until the full line to Leith was up and running. Instead, we had many years of diversions and disruption along the whole length of the proposed route rather than focussing resources on individual areas. So, I can see why people are angry with the way the project was run (which caused the Leith section to be put on hold), but that has to be seen separately from the design and the operation of it.
As far as the operational side goes, it seems to be working okay. Its had less of an impact upon bus routes than had previously been suggested, its managing to attract new passengers without just poaching them from bus routes (obviously some tram passengers are upgrading from the bus, but the tram is also attracting people who werent using the bus however good Lothian Buses are). Its certainly doing a lot better in its early days than the Sheffield system was!
Theres a fair bit of bluff and bluster on this thread from people trying to find a reason to complain about the design and operational side but Im not sure what the problem is with those two aspects...
Complaints re the press release? Of course any press release from any organisation is going to focus on the positive its no surprise that TiE are making their figures sound as good as possible thats what any organisation would do. Therell be some churn in the figures, there always is I dont think anyone expected previous PR (in the pre-tram days) to say brutally honest things like numbers only went up because First reduced their competing services or "there was growth last year, but pretty much all from pensioners on free passes" or the rise in flat fare to £1.50 saw a drop in short distance passengers but growth on longer distance journeys hid this or the new passengers generated by the 104/113 to East Lothian masked the reduction in the Muirhouse area passengers. Anyone thinking that a TiE press release should focus on the negatives doesnt understand how PR works...
Theres always been churn on bus routes, services to some places increase whilst others reduce. This generally happens without much wailing (look at the reduction on the Sherrifhall route when the 48/X48 and 86 were withdrawn...), but the moment the peak only X12 was withdrawn, it seems to made some hysterical!
Theres complaints that the tram figures only look good because the opening saw the withdrawal of a bus service (aforementioned peak only X12 to Ingleston Park & Ride), yet there are also complaints on this thread about how few people were using peak time trams out of the city towards Ingleston (so if these trams were only carrying half a dozen people based on anecdotes on this thread then the numbers using the tram werent just because of passengers whod previously have been on the X12).
Worth remembering that the biggest reduction for Ingleston was when the all day 48/X48 (every fifteen minutes direct with peak extras) were replaced by a twenty minute extension of the 12 (via a slower route, serving the Gyle) and peak X12 yet these changes/reductions saw nothing like the same number of complaints!
The tram fare to the Airport is apparently unfair (compared to the tram fare to the stop before, Ingleston), yet nobody was complaining when the bus fare to the Airport (on the fastest service - AirLink) was considerably more than the bus fare to Ingleston (ignoring the circuitous 35 that took twice as long to get to the Airport i.e. not a route for longer distance passengers). Essentially, the moment its an excuse to moan about the tram, it becomes an issue...
And, imagine if the tram were only charging £1.50 to the Airport? Thered be complaints that this was undercutting the long established (but more expensive) Airlink buses and putting the flagship bus service in jeopardy.
Again, theres complaints that the tram doesnt directly duplicate bus routes (i.e. following the AirLink route past the Zoo and stopping at Waverley) but also complaints that it runs in areas that already have bus routes (and therefore duplicates them!)...
...theres complaints that the tram route doesnt just run along main roads (like the A8) and complaints that it causes a hazard for cyclists on the roads that it does run on (as a cyclist in Sheffield, Ive never had an accident due to tram tracks they are an obstacle that you need to be aware of but urban cycling involves lots of obstacles to be aware of).
The tram isnt integrated with heavy rail? Apart from at Haymarket, you mean? And Edinburgh Park? Given that the vast majority of Edinburgh trains (maybe 90%?) serve Haymarket, is this really the end of the world? Are there large numbers of people coming to Waverley on English trains (i.e. the handful that dont serve Haymarket) heading for the Airport? Do many people come from Newcastle to shop at the Gyle? Doubt it...
If I were travelling from most places in Scotland (Dundee/ Falkirk/ Glasgow etc) to the Gyle/ RBS/ Airport (etc) then why would I want to sit on a train all the way past Haymarket to Waverley only to sit on a tram from Waverley to Haymarket anyway? Surely Id just get off at Haymarket (or even Edinburgh Park)! The Waverley stuff feels like a red herring, another grumble for the sake of grumbling.
The Edinburgh situation will stop other cities from building their own schemes? No, I think that the drastic cuts to Local Government budgets (so that our Town Halls wont be able to provide anything other than Social Care even if/when the economy is fully recovered, the days of ambitious Local Government initiatives are in the past).
But, even so, why should the badly managed Edinburgh scheme stop future ones? The badly managed Cambridgeshire Busway hasnt stopped that scheme being a success once it opened, and hasnt stopped Greater Manchester from wanting their own busway.
Theres no end of badly managed railway schemes that are seriously delayed/ significantly over-budget but that doesnt seem to stop the appetite for more (nobody is suggesting that the messed up schemes at Tweedbank or Todmorden will mean no other railway reopenings/ reinstatements happen nobody is treating the over-running engineering works over the recent festive period as reason not to do so again in future years), so I dont buy the its Edinburghs fault that no more tram systems will be built argument.
So, whilst Im not defending the delivery aspect, I think that the complaints about the design and the operation are generally wide of the mark (and often contradictory!). Interesting that nobody has any sensible solutions for alternative tram routes...
