The Skakagrall

We are being opportunistic on this one.

Of course we should introduce conjestion charges, but I would like to see a corresponding reduction in other local taxes.

The SNP are for abolishing the council tax and replacing it with a local income tax, which implies fairer rates.

However I understand the congestion charge will go to fund the tram lines.

I support local income taxes. Administratively it is much cheaper, as it can be collected by the central government. Fraud and evasion would drop too, thus reducing the burden for honest citizens.

Whether or not it would be "fairer" is a very subjective matter, on which I personally remain to be convinced. All taxes are kind-of "unfair" to the poor souls that have to pay them.

It would be lovely to have trams again, but they are horrendously expensive, not just to build, but to run. Especially in hilly terrain like Edinburgh. We would be burdening future administrations with fixed expenditure for decades to come.

By all means try to tax and spend "fairly", but we need some genuine tax lowering policies.

My current favourite penny-saver is abolition of the monarchy.

I am not a republican but I am all for scaling the monarchy back to a largely decorative role.

I would be happy to see Holyrood Palace made into a museum and visiting royals offered hospitality at 47 Dalry Road.

the return of a tram system can only benefit any city within scotland which adopts them.

On congestion charging if this money is ring fenced to be only spent on public transport improvements then Ido not have a problem with it and feel the snp should be bold on this initiative

I think the key here is not the principle of congestion charging but the specific scheme Edinburgh is proposing. The Edinburgh scheme is tied in to a return of the Trams but even the Tram scheme is flawed and is likely to have a detrimental effect on the bus service in the City.
What is needed in Edinburgh is the regulation of bus services which would allow more control over the areas of the City served by buses - connecting communities with the city centre and places of work and ensure nonsense like the Bus Wars of 2001 are not visited on the City again.
Buses can be easily rerouted prestige tramways cannot.

It's interesting that the topic of the congestion charge and trams attracts more comments than any other subject here.

When I lived in HK and Tokyo, I didn't have or wish to have a car. Both had good public transport systems that were regular and basically faster than private transport.

Coming to Edinburgh a car seemed essential. We had no wish to spend our time waiting on wet, cold street corners for buses that might or might not be running, or spend huge sums of money on taxis.

For tourists, buses are about the most unfriendly form of transport possible, with irregular services, complicated routes, and hostile drivers, with the general mood exacerbated by the (typically British) nonsense of not giving change.

Trams on the other hand are pleasanter for visitors to use and much easier to run regularly. In HK/Tokyo I would walk down to my local station knowing that a tram would either be waiting for me or would be coming within two or three minutes. The service hardly ever failed me.

Trams are also much cleaner and that's the basic point, isn't it? The congestion charge and trams will make the city cleaner.