Glasgow's Subway is to share £9million in emergency funding with Edinburgh Trams after its operators warned the future of the service was in doubt due to Covid passenger losses.
The Scottish Government said financial support will be in place from July to the end of September for services run by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) and Edinburgh Trams.
The government said the funding announcement follows detailed discussions with SPT and Edinburgh Trams regarding available resources due to the "unprecedented" impact that Covid-19 has had on travel demand.
READ MORE: Subway warns of significant service cuts without Government aid
SPT warned that it was facing a deficit of between £12.5 and £20m because most of its revenue comes from the Subway network and said it could be faced with making cuts to services including bus routes.
Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and said: “The Glasgow Subway and Edinburgh Trams provide key connections within our two biggest cities and as we emerge through the stages of lockdown demand for public transport will continue to rise.
"The services provide essential capacity and link with bus, rail and park and ride facilities.
“Over the next three months we will provide up to £9 million of financial support to operators to enable services to continue.
READ MORE: Air pollution warning if passengers are not encouraged to get back on trains and buses
"Any restrictions on these services could have placed unsustainable demands on other modes, especially bus and so this funding will assist capacity across all public transport.
“Going forward the subway and tram will help our wider society and economy recover as we emerge through the next phases of easing lockdown.
“We will continue to monitor the demand, capacity and costs of support across all transport modes over the coming months.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel