PAIN BEFORE GAIN: THE EDINBURGH TRAMS

SquareOne News Feature

by Chris Hammond

With the furore over the Edinburgh trams getting increasingly heated SquareOne caught up with a tram travelling expat Scot living in the Polish City of Wroclaw for his opinion.

Gregor Gowans is a part time music journalist and English teacher who has been living in Poland for nine months now. He knows Scotland like the back of his hand and is in a perfect position to comment on the advantages and disadvantages of the tram system in one of the biggest cities in central Europe. Does he, like so many people in Edinburgh agree that the trams are going to be detrimental in the long and short term?

“Well I know what Edinburgh is like, the traffic is hellish. It’s a really congested city and I can’t think anyone would really fancy driving around there. Thing is though Wroclaw is a much bigger city and just as busy but you just don’t get the same sort of problems over here and yeah that could well be down to the efficiency of the trams. They are cheap, clean and fast. I use them whenever I can.”

Gregor tells SquareOne the trams vary in age and are still dependant on the flow of traffic for making it to their stops on time. But he also thinks their status as environmentally friendly could work in their favour over here.

“There aren’t actually many routes the trams take but the ones they do use are much better than the buses. To be honest the other thing about them is that they are seen as environmentally friendly and as a real student city people seem to like this. I mean Edinburgh is pretty polluted right? You hardly see a bird in some parts of town. Wroclaw isn’t great either but trams are better than anything else in that respect”.

So without being in Edinburgh right now can Gregor appreciate the problems that are being caused by the introduction of the trams and does he think that the ends will justify the means?

“You know what it’s a little pain for a lot of gain. Petrol is going up in price and this is the time for other kinds of transportation. If a city can get away with it now then why not do it? Sure the commotion will cause problems and I don’t expect that the work will be quick but it’ll be worth it”.

Photo by Katie Lips

EDINBORING

SquareOne Opinion

by Dave Hynes

Edinburgh Castle has just been painted pink for the rest of 2008, with a proposed change to deep purple in 2009. Leith Walk will be turned into a blue and yellow Champs Elysee once the tram is finished. Plans to turn the Cowgate a light turquoise are being discussed at Holyrood today. Or maybe not.

I love Edinburgh, I really do. It’s a city that offers so much; culture, entertainment, the arts… battered mars bars. It has some beautiful buildings too, so beautiful in fact the city seems to sparkle with colours of every hue. Well, actually, no it doesn’t because unfortunately Edinburgh is almost uniformly grey. The use of granite may make Scottish buildings practically eternal, but I think the city is in dire need of a facelift.

The architecture of cities often reflects a civic personality and speaks a lot about its citizens and its history. Greyness may say a lot about Edinburgh; hard, proud, no- nonsense, intelligent- even beautiful. But it also says another thing . . . boring! What Edinburgh needs is an Antoni Gaudi to spruce up the place, someone with a vision that goes beyond the dour greyness of Edinburgh’s esteemed edifices. Where is Edinburgh’s imagination? Why do our buildings have to be so serious?

Give me black or give me white, but I’m afraid I’ve had enough of grey. A greyness which in the short winter days kinds of adds to the dourness of the season. Between George IV Bridge and the Royal Mile colour is so scarce it’s as though a grey sheet of architectural fog has descended. Edinburgh has surely one of the greatest cityscapes in the world; Princes St and South Bridge overlook a magnitude of beautiful architecture but my goodness aren’t they mostly grey.

Grey, grey, grey is what Edinburgh is today. Where is Edinburgh’s Pompidou Centre or its Sagrada Familia? Edinburgh’s cityscape needs imprecision and audacity, and most of all it needs humour. In some ways Holyrood Parliament has at least attempted to tickle our funny bone but it’s unfortunately the jokes is a bit s_t.

Colour is light-hearted and I would prefer another architectural catastrophe than a more traditional, sublimely built but dull grey monolith. What Edinburgh needs is a little imagination, and one that goes beyond the trams. We need a facelift, a make-over which looks towards Edinburgh’s future rather than taking pride in its past. We need colour, especially during winter. Edinburgh’s buildings should reflect the vibrancy of life in this city; they should stand out not so much for prestige but for daring and endeavour. Let’s have a bright ochre statue in George St, and a maroon pyramid on Charlotte Square. Let’s turn our theatres bright green and our libraries shining white.

Not everything in life is black and white. But sometimes it should be and in Edinburgh’s case, shades of grey are no compromise at all. Just add colour!

Got any good suggestions for where Edinburgh could do with a lick of paint. Fancy the castle painted like a rainbow during festival time? Should we renovate the Cowgate into deep crimson or how about an ocean blue for Holyrood Palace? Let the SquareOne News team know.

SquareOne - Scottish Cities In A Word

1 Glasgow - mental

2 Edinburgh - grey

3 Aberdeen - cold

4 Dundee - why?

5 Inverness - rural

Photo by absolutwade