Lined up

Two cranes lined up on the Edinburgh horizon. And by careful cropping of this view towards Haymarket there is no glimpse of the ongoing tram works just this side of the station that might all be for nothing once the Council have come to a decision. It's nearly eleven at night and the meeting that started at six is still going on. There have been some numbers bandied about but given the fact they seem manufactured to support the preferred solution to run the trams to St Andrew Square can we trust them? They are not fully in the public domain either - no detail to explain where the numbers come from. And the fact that the city will have to find a lot more of the money for itself isn't being fully explained. The cost benefit seems skewed too. Apparently the methodology claims the sunk costs should be ignored in calculating the cost-benefit ratio of the line to St Andrew Square, but then the problem of wasting all that money is a big part of the reason we mustn't just cancel. Not to mention the dubious numbers being used that put a value on the worth of reduced traffic to other motorists, and the fact that even in the published figures there is a discrepancy pointed out in an appendix that reduces the claimed headline figure. Overall there simply isn't enough information being released into the public domain.