It was described by one bruised official as “hell on wheels” but finally, a decade later than planned, Edinburgh’s tram line has been finished.
From midday on Wednesday, the full 18.5km (11.5 mile) line will be fully opened, taking passengers from the old port of Newhaven, through Leith and central Edinburgh and on to its international airport.
It became one of the UK’s most divisive urban transport projects and will eventually cost the city more than £1bn in construction costs and loan interest – the equivalent to nearly £100m a mile. It was originally priced at £545m.
It has been beset by multiple delays, legal battles, conflicts between its contractors and the council, the defeat of the ruling Liberal Democrat-led administration which ushered the scheme in, and in 2011 a decision to finish the line in two sections.
In November 2010, three years after work began, its outgoing director, David Mackay, described the worst section of the project – digging up the city’s main shopping street, Princes Street – as “hell on wheels”. That phrase became shorthand for the entire crisis.
For the last nine years, those controversies have been investigated by one of the UK’s longest-running public inquiries. Its final report, produced at a cost of £13m, is imminent.
As a result, the long-awaited opening of the final 4.6km long section – nine years after the first section from the airport to the city centre was opened – is barely being celebrated.
There were no pipe bands, bunting or party balloons as councillors and senior officials gathered at the top of Leith Walk on Tuesday to usher the waiting media onto a tram for their inaugural trip down the new line.
Cllr Scott Arthur, the Labour administration’s transport convenor, said construction of the line had caused significant disruption to residents and businesses in Leith. “So it’s not too much of a celebration to be honest, because we’re mindful of that history,” he said.
Arthur said the council was delighted that this final section of the track had been delivered on time and within its £207m budget.
That was underlined by Harald Tobermann, a spokesperson for five community councils covering the neighbourhoods served by the newly-completed line.
He said finishing the extension on time and in budget was a “significant achievement.” Yet that was “mixed with relief that this marks the end of more than 12 years of nearly continuous major construction works, disrupting life for residents and businesses in our area,” he said.
The council is now optimistic the Scottish government will support proposals to resurrect a plan for a second tram line, running southwards from Granton on the Firth of Forth to Dalkeith in Midlothian, Arthur said.
There are also discussions, supported by Network Rail, about using southern Edinburgh’s lightly-used suburban rail line for passenger services.
“I think this shows the people in Edinburgh and also in the Scottish government, who we’re hoping will fund these future lines, that we can deliver these schemes,” Arthur said. “We think we’ve learned the lessons from that first project, and we’ve shown we have because we’ve delivered this on time and on budget.”
