White elephant on the tracks: New £41 million railway station gets a fraction of expected number of passengers [Sunday Post]
Date: 27/08/2017
A NEW £41m railway station has been branded a white elephant less than a year after it opened as figures show it was used by barely a third of the expected number of passengers. Taxpayer-funded Edinburgh Gateway opened on the outskirts of the capital last December but is often deserted because it does not connect to the busiest rail services. And it has now emerged that construction costs for the station were originally estimated at £24m but soared to £41m by the time it was completed. Transport chiefs said they expected 500,000 to 600,000 passengers a year to use the station, which lies next to the depot for the citys controversial £1 billion tram line. But figures obtained by The Sunday Post show just 134,655 people have used it in its first eight months putting it on course to fall dramatically short of its target. The passenger shortfall is being blamed on the decision to drop plans to connect the station to the busy Glasgow-Edinburgh line.
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Sunday Post
A NEW £41m railway station has been branded a white elephant less than a year after it opened “ as figures show it was used by barely a third of the expected number of passengers.
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