Edinburgh : Why trams belong in museums and not on city streets

愛丁堡的面子工程
Why trams belong in museums and not on city streets
作者：英國《金融時報》專欄作家約翰•凱



When I was a small boy in Edinburgh my father took me to see the last tram roll along Princes Street. The lord provost waved to the crowds as the tram disappeared into history. The next day workmen began pulling up the track. Fifty years later, the rails were relaid, only for Edinburgh city council to decide last week to abandon plans to run trams on them again.


小時候，在愛丁堡，有一次父親帶我去看最後一班有軌電車繞行普林西斯街。市長大人站在車上向人群揮手，有軌電車就這樣成為了歷史。第二天，工人開始卸除鐵軌。 50年後，鐵軌重新鋪設，只不過最近愛丁堡市議會決定，放棄重開有軌電車的計劃。

Another expedition with my father took me to the National Monument at the east end of Princes Street. A replica of the Parthenon overlooking Edinburgh's New Town was planned to mark the delight of citizens at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Unfortunately, the delight of the citizens was less than anticipated.


還有一次，父親帶我去了普林西斯街東頭的國家紀念碑。按照原計劃，要復制一個帕台農神殿(Parthenon)，俯視愛丁堡新城，以彰顯拿破崙戰爭結束後市民們的欣喜之情。不幸的是，市民們的欣喜之情沒有預想的那樣強烈。

A few lonely pillars, colloquially known as “Edinburgh's Disgrace”, have stood there since 1830 when the money ran out. As did the money for the tram. Edinburgh's second disgr​​ace will be a half completed tramway running from Edinburgh airport to Haymarket, some distance short of the city centre.


幾根孤零零的柱子（俗稱“愛丁堡之辱”），自1830年資金耗盡之時起，就一直矗立在那裡。用於有軌列車的資金也已耗盡。從愛丁堡機場到距離市中心有一段距離的Haymarket之間未完工的電車鐵軌，將成為愛丁堡的第二個恥辱。

When the scheme for a new tramway was mooted, I wrote a column in this paper, prompted to ask what had changed in the decades since I travelled to school by tram. Nothing, I discovered. Trams were phased out because they were inferior to buses as a means of public transport. They still are.


重開有軌列車的計劃剛剛提出來的時候，我在英國《金融時報》上撰寫了一篇專欄文章，提出了一個問題：從我乘有軌電車上學到現在的這幾十年間，發生了什麼改變？我發現，什麼都沒有改變。有軌電車退出歷史舞台，是因為作為一種公共交通工具，它比不上公共汽車。如今情況還是如此。

A tram requires a dedicated track. A bus can use a dedicated track but need not: it can use a busway, a lane on a main highway, or simply share the road with other vehicles. This gives bus services flexibility to cope with varieties of traffic conditions and changing user requirements. Modern trams are cleaner and more comfortable than most buses, mainly because trams are ordered by visionaries who do not much care about costs while buses are operated by hard-nosed business people. You can buy 10 environmentally friendly modern buses and still have change from the cost of one of Edinburgh's trams. The tram may have twice as many seats but the bus can offer a more frequent service. New Jersey's Lincoln Tunnel expressway carries eight buses a minute; the planned frequency of the Edinburgh tram is six an hour.


有軌電車需要專用軌道。公共汽車也可以使用專用車道，但這並不是必須的：它可以使用公共汽車道、馬路、主幹道，或乾脆與其他車輛共用道路。這使得公共汽車能夠靈活應對各種交通狀況和不斷變化的乘客需求。現代有軌電車比大多數公共汽車乾淨、舒適，主要原因在於：有軌電車出自那些不太在乎成本的空想家之手，而公共汽車是由不講情面的商人運營的。購買一輛愛丁堡有軌電車的錢，買下10輛環保型公共汽車富富有餘。有軌電車的座位或許比公共汽車多一倍，但公共汽車往返的速度更快。美國新澤西州林肯隧道高速公路每分鐘能夠通行8輛公共汽車，而愛丁堡有軌列車的計劃運行頻率是每小時6班。

The operating costs of a tramway are generally similar to the total cost of providing similar public transport by bus – roughly £1 a trip in a busy urban area. If the Edinburgh tramway had been completed as planned it might have expected


有軌電車的運營成本大體上與公共汽車差不多——在繁忙的城區跑1趟大約要1英鎊。如果當初愛丁堡有軌列車按原計劃完工，也許每年能夠運載1000萬至1500萬名乘客（大部分是從現有的公共汽車乘客中分流出來的），相當於愛丁堡公共交通客流量的約5% 。運行時間約為25-30分鐘的機場巴士會被有軌列車取代，後者的運行時間為25分鐘。預計有軌列車的年營運收入將在1000萬至1500萬英鎊的區間內，跟機場巴士差不多。即便建造成本為零，有軌電車的收入也是微不足道的。

10m-15m passengers a year, mostly diverted from existing bus services, and accounting for perhaps 5 per cent of public transport journeys in Edinburgh. The bus service that takes you from the airport to the city centre in 25-30 minutes would have been replaced by a tram taking you there in 25 minutes. Anticipated revenues, for trams or buses, would have been in the £10m-£15m a year range. The tramway would have been a marginal proposition if it had cost nothing to build.


但愛丁堡有軌電車項目的預計成本為5.45億英鎊。 2006年，當時資金充足的蘇格蘭政府承諾提供5億英鎊的財政支持。 1年後，新當選的蘇格蘭民族黨(Scottish National party)政府試圖收回資金，但遭到議會否決。如今，看上去似乎這個計劃的實際成本會接近10億英鎊，而人們也早已放棄了完成它的打算。要鋪設完通往Haymarket的最後一段鐵軌並投入使用，最少還要投入2.5億英鎊。愛丁堡自身管理不善，加之新當選的蘇格蘭民族黨政府打定主意要讓市議會品嚐自己種下的苦果，這一切導致愛丁堡市民最終為此埋單，平均每人負擔500英鎊。

But the projected cost of the Edinburgh project was £545m. The Scottish government, flush with money in 2006, offered £500m of this. A year later, the newly elected Scottish National party government tried to withdraw funding but was outvoted in parliament. It now appears that the actual cost of the scheme would be closer to £1bn and thoughts of completion have long been abandoned. Even the almost useless line to Haymarket will cost another £250m or so to complete and commission. Edinburgh's own mismanagement, and the insistence of the re-elected SNP government on letting the city council bear the results of its own folly, leaves the citizens of Edinburgh to foot this bill, at about £500 a resident.


政府計劃就項目慘敗展開一項調查，追究那些在一個“面子工程”上浪費了7.5億英鎊公款的市議員和官員們的責任。但其他相關人員也難逃其咎：在論證項目合理性過程中採用了暗箱操作模式的諮詢顧問們，不遺餘力地宣傳這種偽科學分析結果的“人民公僕”們，以及在整個歐洲各地方政府推廣有軌電車的天真之徒和只顧賺錢的承包商。有軌電車應該呆在交通歷史博物館裡，而非現代城市的街道上。

The planned inquiry into the fiasco will inculpate the councillors and officials who wasted £750m of public money on a vanity project. But other groups should not escape censure. The consultants who deployed black box models to provide justification for the scheme and the civil servants who promoted – indeed insisted on – such pseudoscientific analysis. The naive enthusiasts and cynical contractors who have promoted trams to municipalities across Europe. Trams belong in a museum of transport history, not the streets of modern cities.