Edinburgh

A few weeks ago I found myself needing to go to Edinburgh. That's something I avoid as much as possible as a matter of course, but this time there was no avoiding it. Planning the journey, though, reminded me of why I try to avoid the place.

The first thing that I discounted was driving. Edinburgh Council are famously anti-car - the roads are terrible, the parking is extorionate and quite some distance from the center, and if you do get lost it can be a nightmare.

For much the same reason I discounted the buses. Although there are some buses from close to the office that go in to Edinburgh, without pre-existing knowledge of Edinburgh it's really hard to know which bus you need, which stop to ask for, or indeed how to get back out. Plus, the roads are terrible.

There's the tram link. On the face of it, this is pretty ideal - it runs from Edinburgh Park right in to Princes Street, there's only one stop there, the tickets are a fixed price, and there's a tram every 8 minutes or so. Ideal.

Or it would be, except that there's no parking at Edinburgh Park. There is the Retail Park, which does indeed have parking... but only for customers. Which means that getting the tram means either walking the few miles from the office to the stop (which, in fairness, is quite pleasant - but which adds an awful lot to the journey), or it means driving to Ingliston and parking there - defeating the point of using the tram.

Finally, there's the train. Which has all the same problems as the tram, but also only runs every half hour.

However, in the end I did take the train - just not from Edinburgh Park. Instead I worked from home in the morning, then took the train from Livingston. Which was fine, since it has parking.

But, honestly, it's really not good. For Scotland's supposed capital city, it really should be more easily accessible. Really, how hard would it be to provide usable parking at the key train and tram stations along the way, so that the public can actually make easy use of the public transport that is available?