{"id":5460,"date":"2013-10-18T19:15:14","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T18:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=5460"},"modified":"2013-10-18T19:15:14","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T18:15:14","slug":"major-city-centre-tram-works-come-to-an-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=5460","title":{"rendered":"Major city centre tram works come to an end"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final phase of major tram construction works in Edinburgh city centre is due to come to a close this weekend with the re-opening of Shandwick Place on Saturday 19th <\/sup>October. This will be the first time for six years that the city centre has been free of any major tram construction works and is likely to be met with a sigh of relief by the many businesses in the area who had claimed they were adversely affected by the works.<\/p>\n

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A range of changes to traffic arrangements in the West End will now come into force with changes to public transport and vehicle access. These will include a return to two-way vehicle traffic at Manor Place and bus, taxi and cycle access to Shandwick Place, with general vehicles allowed access between 0800 and 1900.<\/p>\n

Although this is the end of the major works in the city centre it doesn\u2019t mean that it is completely the end of any works. Further work will be necessary to reinstate the road network back to the pre-tram arrangements and preparations will also need to be made for live tram operations. These works will mainly be localised but some traffic flows may temporarily be affected up until the end of the testing and commissioning phase of the tramway in the lead up to opening in May 2014.<\/p>\n

Cllr Lesley Hinds, Transport Convener on the City of Edinburgh Council, said: \u201cWith the tram project now nearing completion, the city centre is beginning to take shape and we can look forward to next year when passenger services will begin. We know it\u2019s been very difficult for people living and working in areas affected by the tram works and it will be a big relief that the majority of disruptive works in the city centre are now over. \u00a0Now is the time to look forward to the opportunities ahead and to embrace the benefits that a modern, integrated transport system, incorporating all transport options, can bring to our city. Our target for service launch is now May 2014 but, of course, we\u2019ll bring this forward if we can. However, it\u2019s important to remember that a thorough testing, commissioning and driver training programme is absolutely essential. There is much work still to be done and it\u2019s vital that all the appropriate tests and checks are made before we go into service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testing commenced to Edinburgh Park last week and is due to be extended to the whole system from December. Reports this week have suggested that cracks have appeared in some of the structures of the line to Edinburgh Park following the first tests with Professor Lewis Lesley \u2013 the brains behind the Trampower project and who also wanted to introduced trams to Edinburgh but his plans were ignored by the Council and they went with their own ideas \u2013 suggesting it is a concern. The Council responded saying they were in discussions with the contractors about these cracks but that it is not unusual for new structures to have issues such as this. The only surprise about this story was that John Carson didn\u2019t seem to have an opinion on how bad the trams are!<\/p>\n

* Another story reported in the Edinburgh press this week should basically read \u201cMan falls off bike just as cycling organisation are filming\u201d! Yes whilst a member of the CityCyclingEdinburgh.info was filming a cyclist managed to get his bike wheel stuck on the tram tracks and fell off his bike leading to cycling organisations \u2013 including Spokes \u2013 telling everyone how dangerous the trams will be for all those law abiding cyclists. Funny how cyclists across the world seem to manage to ride about without getting their wheels stick isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final phase of major tram construction works in Edinburgh city centre is due to come to a close this weekend with the re-opening of Shandwick Place on Saturday 19th October. This will be the first time for six years … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5461,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions\/5461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}