Does everyone have a car in Aberdeen? I think not!

As someone from the central belt of Scotland who doesn’t know Aberdeen well I found the coverage of the Aberdeen Donside by-election virtually non-existent, and as usual STV did better than the BBC (until its results coverage that is which was very poor indeed). Hopefully it was much better locally to the granite city.

I found the campaign very odd. It seemed to consist of everyone sitting in TV studios talking about a roundabout, roads and being left out in the cold by the Scottish Government investment wise.

The transport question was particularly odd as not one participant talked about anything other than roads. Does everyone have a car in Aberdeen? I think not!

As someone looking in the priorities for transport in Aberdeen and Inverness would be as follows…

1. Aberdeen road bypass. 
2. Extending the dual carriageway sections of the A9 to make it continuous from Perth to Inverness. 
3. Improvement of train services to every half hour between Aberdeen and Inverness and reopening of stations to improve rates of usage. 1 train per hour to be express, second to be stopping. 
4. Doubling of single train line between Stirling and Aberdeen, and/or reopening of Angus link from Perth via Forfar to Aberdeen with resultant improvements to train services which are badly needed so there are half hourly services from both Glasgow and Edinburgh. 
5. Replacement of semaphore signals with coloured light signalling equipment north of Perth and Dundee at least as far as Inverness. 
6. Reopening of Deeside railway line at least as far as Banchory, with a view to reopening remaining line to Aboyne and then Ballater. 
7. Reopening of rail line to Peterhead.
8. Reopening of rail line to Fraserburgh. 

As far as I am aware 1 and 2 and at least part of 3 is all ready planned, but I would strongly agree that is odd that Aberdeen as Europe’s oil capital city has been left out of major transport projects until now.

Perhaps however this is partly due to the preoccupation of the local political parties with roads that seemed to come across from the recent media coverage (what there was of it anyway).

If the Scottish Government was permitted by its own people to gain control of all the economic levers available to it I believe the above would become of greater importance than they are now. Vote Yes in next years independence referendum!