Capital Rail Action Group (CRAG) has today launched a manifesto advocating public transport and public realm improvements for Edinburgh.
CRAG are calling for election candidates to support its proposal for the opening of a new station at Abbeyhill.
Lawrence Marshall, Chair of the Capital Rail Action Group, said:
“We hope that those seeking election to Holyrood this May will work with us to help bring about some of the schemes that we are promoting.
“In particular, an opportunity exists to open a new railway station east of the city centre at Abbeyhill. This new station would be well placed to serve the Scottish Parliament, while providing cross-city rail services for this densely populated area of Edinburgh.
“The new station could be achieved at low cost as most of the required infrastructure is already set to be delivered through Transport Scotland’s Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme, while trains sitting idle at Waverley could easily be extended the few hundred yards to the new station site.”
Regarding the Edinburgh Tram scheme, Lawrence Marshall said:
“We seek an end to the political controversy of recent years surrounding the Edinburgh tram project. CRAG would like to see the next Scottish Government acknowledge that trams will ultimately, as is well demonstrated in cities from Dublin to Denver, be of benefit to the nation’s capital and work actively to secure a resolution to the current contractual impasse.
“Those lines which have Parliamentary consent should be built and work should also commence to allow trams to run on the vastly under-utilised South Suburban Railway to open up a new public transport corridor running from Haymarket via Gorgie, Morningside and Cameron Toll to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh quarter at Little France.”
