Scotsman.com & @Thescotsmannewspaper

Your comments on some of the most popular stories of the day taken from The Scotsman website and Facebook page

Tram repairs

Repairs have had to be made to 133 sections of Edinburgh’s tram line after concrete that should have lasted 50 years has crumbled under the weight of buses. Damage totalling 40m long on Princes Street and other roads is being fixed by contractor Bilfinger, which is completing the work at its own expense.

They should have had a continuous maintenance programme on the entire network fixing small issues as they arise but we seem to just abandon things and let them build into major problems before dealing with them. And as for the tram inquiry, why bother? It’s just more money spent telling us what we already know. They have already said nobody will be held accountable.

Chris Bridgman I suspect that a continous maintainance plan would have made the original business plan less attractive. Although to be fair, it was total nonsense anyway

– they could easily have added £20m more projected passengers to cover the maintainance costs.

Alan Brown

Sadly, the level of competence for such projects is not available here, and that fact hasn’t changed in years. So this is what happens

Fearghas Ó Déaghaidh

Should have gone for the busway project using bendy buses, would have been far cheaper and given more options in regards to route management.

Mark From-central

Perhaps that's why tram lines in the past were laid on streets with causey setts. No mention here, though, of our streets being hammered daily by the two-ton, 4x4, energy-guzzling giant vehicles that pass as normal family cars these days.

Henry Campbell Gillan

It's been a fiasco from start to, well, unfinished! Edinburgh Council’s ineptitude, lax controls and scrutiny, legal contractual disputes – and it's the people of Edinburgh that ultimately pick up the bill for this white elephant project to "Europeanise" Edinburgh. Thankfully, I live in East Lothian and the bus services here are fine, as they are in Edinburgh. Getting into Edinburgh it's train or bus – both function fine. The only time I have used the tram was to get to the airport, and I was not impressed!

Jamie AA Shearer-bromfield Why is it that from the 1890 Glasgow Corporation could build the most extensive tram network in Europe – only London had more miles of tram lines – and build and underground yet 130 years later, with all the advances in engineering and construction methods, eight miles of tram line can be hit with so much trouble? What a short-sighted decision that was to rip up Glasgow’s tram network in the early ’60s.

Joe Rockss

Let's puts a positive spin on this. Bilfinger holds up its hands, admits responsibility and corrects its poor workmanship at its own expense. Well done.

Witold Miedzybrodzki

Edinburgh had the best bus service in the UK ten years ago. The trams are a disaster for the city and the public. Speed bumps, road narrowings and cycle lanes another disaster. How many pot holes could have been filled with this money?

Alexander Duncan

So it’s the buses and other traffic that have caused this, not the trams. Is this not just the same as a pothole?

Brian M Geddes

That's not a lot of repair work considering the tram goes for about seven miles from the city centre to the airport.

Patricia Anderson

Testing times

Driving examiners have backed strike action over a new test schedule. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency says the new schedule is needed to tackle a massive backlog of practical tests.

Strike because they are asked to do one more test a day? Some folk need to look at themselves in the mirror. There’s already a backlog of tests, Driving instructors we’re out of work for months due to Covid, many of them brought to great hardship, whilst civil servant driving examiners were getting paid every day for sitting in the house.

Robert Sharp

I’m just glad that the nurses, doctors and all the key workers that have worked their backsides off before, during and after lockdowns don’t have the same attitudes as the examiners have.

Louise Wilson

People expected to do the job theiy are paid to do? Whatever next? Doctors start seeing patients instead of calls?

Keith Tait Replace them with the instructors under emergency powers.

David Sinclair Pull together and help in a crisis? Not us!

Ian Danbury