Trouble has been brewing around Edinburgh’s next tramline since the route, connecting the city from rapidly developing Granton in the north to the Bioquarter in the south, was announced.
But this time it’s not (as yet) about businesses affected or the fear of another “hell on wheels” as the first tram build was dubbed – it regards the course the preferred plan takes along a green corridor and cycling route, the Roseburn Path. This is a story of nature and human health versus tram.
On a balmy May morning, I reached the Roseburn Path by bike, coming onto the leafy corridor of this former railway track from the south after a cycle through the city, via Haymarket, to “check the trams” and their new “tap on, tap off” system.
Cycling through this sun-shot emerald glade, I thought of the words of Euan Baxter, founder of Save Roseburn Path, who has described the cycle network in North Edinburgh as a tree, in which the Roseburn Path is the trunk, branching out to numerous other routes, across the city, including to my home in Leith.
This is a path that, according to data from Sustrans, is said to have around half a million users in a year and is home, say Save Roseburn Path, to 3,500 trees. On a Strava heat map of the cycle paths it is a warm red, showing the intensity of its use.
2km of the Roseburn Path is part of the preferred route for phase 1b of the Edinburgh tram system, a line proposed in 2006, as part of a loop, joining Newhaven through Granton and Haymarket.
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The striking differences of the current plan from that 2006 vision are the absence of a Granton and Newhaven connection and the addition of a new line south to the Bioquarter, through Cameron Toll to Little France. The route has been designed to “link key areas of growth and development to the city” and “more than double the capacity” of the network.
But the inclusion of the Roseburn Path is provoking backlash. Questions revolve around whether it can take both trams and other users, and if a suggested adjacent 3-metre-wide active travel track - not as wide as the minimum 4 metres for shared busy pedestrian and cycle routes - is sufficient.
Cyclists have been particularly alarmed by the suggestion in the initial 2024 report that the track would be “suitable for walking and wheeling, but cycling will be discouraged".
And not only cyclists are concerned – also walkers, wheelchair users, runners and those who simply enjoy watching the birds in what campaigners call a “linear park”. Among these is local GP Suzy Scarlett, whom I met beside a bare wooden sign declaring “Save Roseburn Path”.
Over a thousand people have signed her petition. “Not all of those thousand plus signatures are healthcare professionals but a lot of them are and it represents all kinds of disciplines from physios to public health consultants, A&E doctors, anaesthetists, vascular surgeons, midwives and everything in between.”
For Dr Scarlett, an important question is: “Can they [the council and government] afford it when they can’t afford desperately needed third sector investment?”
“I wonder about their priorities. Every day we hear politicians wanting to get people back into work. But we need to have the right conditions for people to be well enough to do so – access to community and mental health support which is what is suffering with the current third sector cuts. Can the council afford trams in the first place?”
One of Dr Scarlett’s concerns is the safety of cycling near trams or across tramlines. She recalled being on Princes Street the day, in 2017, when medical student Zhi Min Soh died after being hit by a minibus when her bike got trapped in the tram track. “I saw the aftermath – it was devastating. There’s no way that I would take my children cycling along a tram network.”
Many cyclists, for safety reasons, prefer routes away from roads. I am one, an infrequent road cyclist, preferring the long route to Leith by cycle path, over the centre of town via Haymarket.
“The Roseburn path,” she said, “is part of a network and if you them remove a vital part of that it is no longer a network. The council has just invested £17m into the Roseburn to Union canal. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not just cyclists that use it. It’s walkers, runners, toddlers, urban foragers.”
“I’m approaching this very much from a healthcare perspective,” she said. “It’s about public health. It’s about having an built environment across the city where people have access to green spaces in order to move naturally as part of their everyday, to get out into the sunshine, into nature which benefits all the pillars of health.”
Her thoughts echoed those of the founder of Save Roseburn Path, Euan Baxter, a long-term user of the route, who described to me how the path was how he got into cycling in the city. “At one point,” he said, “I lived at one end and my girlfriend, now my wife, lived at the other. It connected us.”
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He recalled being shocked, when, last year "they brought this 20-year-old plan involving the Roseburn Path back to life.”
“I’m not against the tram. I think it should be extended across different parts of the city and outwith the city, but I think putting a tram on the Roseburn Path to the north isn’t the right thing.”
For him, it is not only about what it means for a cycle route and “active travel link”, but that “it takes away an urban green space and local park. “It is a haven for wildlife and biodiversity and now we understand that climate isn’t just on its own, it’s part of the twin biodiversity and climate crisis."
Baxter cited the Marmot review, Fair Society, Healthy Lives, which states that one principle for tackling inequality is access to green space. “I see this as a massive equality issue. For people who live in Drylaw and Gorgie this would be like one of your local parks being taken away. I think if you said to the people in Morningside, we’re going to take away the Braidburn valley and turn it into a tram route, they would say you’re not going to do that and probably win.”
There are those that support the route, for instance, Lawrence Marshall, chair of Capital Rail Action Group, who explained that the old railway line "confers numerous advantages".
He reeled off some: "The route already has Parliamentary consent - a time-consuming and expensive process; it won't require lots of expensive diversion of utilities which street-running will; being off-street, disruption during construction will be far less than the on-street option; the Roseburn route serves Haymarket - an important public transport."
He also noted that "it was always the long-term plan that the old railway line would be used for trams" and that even the information board at Roseburn makes that clear.
Similar positives were listed by former transport convener (now MP) Scott Arthur, summing up its advantages as: “lower price tag; lower carbon requirement; lesser impact on businesses and residents; shorter construction time; shorter journey times and better reliability; and lower operating costs.”
Christian Wolmar one of the UK’s leading railway commentators, said: “It makes sense to sacrifice the cycle path. Trams are not unsightly and making use of old railway routes is clearly a very effective thing to do. Campaigners should work to making sure there is a good alternative, rather than just naysaying something that is environmentally positive.”
Wolmar, however, noted that he had not studied the 1b plans in detail.
Undoubtedly the plans for the 1b phase are haunted by the first tram build, which came in five years late, at twice the budget, and without the key section north to the highly populated areas of Leith and Newhaven, which would only later be built.
The inquiry into the fiasco, by Lord Hardie, itself published late and with a massive price tag of £13 million, described a “litany of avoidable failures”. But since then the Newhaven section of the line, coming in on time and in budget (albeit only after the long pause of its cancellation), has brought a surge in passengers, a record 12m customer journeys in 2024. A scarred Edinburgh, it appears, is beginning to warm to its trams.
But the emotional connection to the Roseburn Path is strong, and with it comes a tense debate that sometimes pitches climate mitigation and congestion measures against biodiversity, nature questions and public health.
There is much to weigh up. The value of whatever number of mature trees removed compare with that of the 5,000 new plantings promised. The health benefits of cycle commute, or even a run or walk along the path, compared with the social benefits of a tram and health impact of walking to and from its stop. The business case for, and costs, of the different routes.
The consultation, which has already been delayed, is now set for the middle of August. I spoke with the convenor of the City of Edinburgh’s Transport and Environment Committee, Stephen Jenkinson, who took over in the job from Scott Arthur last summer, who confirmed it would include multiple routes, including Orchard Brae.
Cllr Jenkinson said he was confident that “part of what will be consulted on with regard to Roseburn Path, will be an element of active travel route alongside the tram on that route”.
One thing that could help mitigate the pressure on space, said the convener, is that “trams are narrowing rather than getting wider” as the rolling stock is renewed. “The gauge is the same, but the overhang and the space that’s required either side of the track would be less.”
The results of the consultation will shape officers’ proposals which, said Cllr Jenkinson, should come to the committee “in the early part of next year”. A strategic business case will then be developed for the line.
But the Roseburn Path, and what it means to locals, is not the only challenge the tram project faces. Another is money. The financing of the trams has long been a problem since the original funding, a city centre congestion charge, was rejected by residents in a referendum (though this idea, too, has been proposed again, 20 years after its defeat).
The estimated cost to build the scheme is in the region of £2 billion – already twice the overrun budget of the original tram, which was itself twice its original estimate.
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A report earlier this year noted: “It is expected that Scottish Government/Transport Scotland would allocate funding as the project moves forward given its inclusion in STPR2, but this is yet to be confirmed and is clearly uncertain given current Scottish Government financial constraints.”
It also noted that “it may be that alternative public/private delivery models need to be explored”.
Cllr Jenkinson was keen to bust any misconceptions that the line would be paid for out of Council Tax. “These big strategic infrastructure projects are predominantly externally funded, therefore we have to bid and we have to secure the money predominantly from Transport Scotland to deliver on these projects.”
“There’s always a chance you might not secure the necessary funding, however what you’ve got to bear in mind with Granton/Bioquarter is that the project itself isn’t just an Edinburgh project; it’s actually a strategic project that’s already on the books for the Scottish Government. They have recognised that it is part of a regional strategic solution to mobility, and it is on the books for a reason.”
Cllr Jenkinson was also keen to emphasise why the city needs this new tram route. “Edinburgh is a very congested city. Doing nothing isn’t an option. We really do have to take real steps to tackle the congestion which isn’t just a problem in the city centre – it’s a regional issue."
This is a capital city that has grown at three times the rate of Scotland in recent years, and it is straining under the population growth not only of Edinburgh itself but the Lothians around it.
According to analysis by TomTom, in 2024 Edinburgh’s city centre ranked second in the UK for slow travel time per mile and third in the UK for congestion, with an average congestion level of 40%, a +6.5% increase from 2023. There are also targets – a key one being a reduction in car kilometres travelled of 30 % by 2030.
Nevertheless, in times of financial strain, the cost of the project is significant – though a fraction of the £15 billion predicted for the Clyde Metro project. Why so much more expensive than the original build?
Construction costs and inflation are the chief culprits. “Doing any significant build in a city such as Edinburgh," said Cllr Jenkinson, "is always going to be a challenge, from an engineering and build perspective – and the costs reflect that. As you move further out of the city the costs start to reduce.”
“The council always has to be mindful of is that it would be easy to attach an unrealistic figure to a project and then be accused of not meeting that.”
But there is evidence that Edinburgh is getting better at this as it becomes a city with experience of tram-building. “I think,” he said, “the lessons have been learned from the first project which has enabled the second project to be delivered much more efficiently. It was delivered on time. It was delivered on budget. As this network develops, you’re only going to improve, learning lessons from the previous projects.”
There are those, meanwhile, with ideas for how to make the process cheaper. Not only Edinburgh trams, but British tram projects, are on the whole, at £87m per mile, more than twice as much as the average for the rest of Europe. One reason for this, said Christian Wolmar, is the moving of utilities before installation. He told the Herald, “The trams are a classic case where we in Britain are paying far more for this type of infrastructure than they are abroad. That’s partly because of the insistence that they move every bit of utility. That was a big part of the overruns.”
Wolmar affirmed his belief that such a project was vital for the city. “These sort of schemes are part of modernising towns and cities. This stuff is vital.”
Edinburgh, however, hasn’t quite finished licking its wounds. We may be warming to trams, but we have not entirely recovered from the scars of past tram builds. A group of community councils recently presented a list of remaining “defects” on the line to Edinburgh Trams. We may now enjoy our ride into town, but memories of that past “hell on wheels” have not been erased.
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