By Chris Holme
In the bleak midwinter – a capital city paralysed by roadworks. No tidings of comfort and joy for traders, tourists or shoppers. And still no prospect of the new trams that will deliver us from gridlock chaos.
Sounds familiar?
Not Edinburgh this time – but Zaragoza, the historic capital of Aragon perched above the River Ebro midway on the high-speed rail link between Madrid and Barcelona.
If anything, it’s even worse there. Not just the Pasea Independencia, the equivalent of Princes Street, but going on through the old town to the river.
There are similarities – years of controversy, budgets ever-rising, deadlines missed, complaints about disruption. Zaragoza got rid of its last tram in 1976, 20 years after Edinburgh, but its original €400m budget is now within a gnat’s crotchet of the cost of the metro system like Madrid’s, which was mooted as an alternative but ruled out on cost grounds.
The difference is that Zaragoza does actually have trams running on part of the first line – and, rather than cutting back on original plans, is still heading for lines two and three over the next four years to complete the network.
It does have problems, duly reported by the Heraldo de Aragón, many of which result from unearthing material left by the successive Roman, Muslim and Christian invaders. They have had to stop a few times to investigate, but at least they haven’t had to dig whole sections up because of an initially botched job.
Zaragoza is a delightful city and well worth visiting because of its history and the friendliness of its people. But don’t go if you want to get away from tramworks.
Incidentally, the Zaragozan tram folk actually think Edinburgh’s trams are already running. They even give them top billing on their website with a picture as proof. That’ll be right, then.
Maybe we’ll all feel better when the trams are actually here. The Zaragoza tram zips through traffic lights and is very comfortable. But don’t get your hopes up – Edinburgh’s shocking record in transport planning long predates the current fiasco.
Whatever trams do, they actually get people talking. As Matthew Teller has reported, the new trams in Jerusalem have Jews and Arabs travelling together and speaking to each other for the first time.
So all they need now for Middle East is a tramway not a road map and Tony Blair as the tram driver. And being an Edinburgh boy, one of his earliest memories is probably the old trams that trundled noisily down to Joppa.
– Chris Holme helps firms and organisations to bring their history alive on the web.
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