The Scottish government won't extend its concessionary bus travel for young people to trams - your views online

Tram fares

Council chiefs face a bill of £500,000 a year to cover free tram fares for under-19s because the Scottish government won't extend its concessionary bus travel for young people to the Capital's tramline

Jon Clark

The tram is so useful and goes so many places, they need to give the tickets away free to get anyone to use it. But don’t worry in about 100 years time it will pay for itself! We are all paying the insane cost of phase one of the tram, one way or another. And soon the rising costs of the subsequent phases. This route from airport to York place costs £1 billion+. Our children’s children will still be paying for this when they have retired. It ridiculous.

William Kay

A bizarre set up. In most continental countries where things can be well integrated and where trams are seen as buses on rails, rather than some spooky thing to be reviled, as seems to happen in Edinburgh, there would be no question about fares and concessions being the same on both. Remember in some cities you don't get the choice of a tram or bus. Your bus service can be a tram and that's basically it. You just have to use it. Indeed many cities just won't offer a bus in areas where there are trams except to cover less viable or non parallel routes.

Graham Mitchell

At 19 I was working and paying my own fares. Sadly the youth of today are bone idle, lazy, useless, sods most of whom will never get a job.

Thomas Imrie

Surely free travel should be extended to all. End of the day most income comes from those aged 22-59 ,so why should one half of the city benefit and not the other?

Jimmy Scott

This seems to be why we pay the highest tax in the UK, paying for all the freebies that the Scottish government give out.

Jeff Bailey

Ultimately the taxpayer foots the bill, no such a thing as a "free ride".

Robin Thomson

We don't use the trams because we are lucky to be old enough for bus passes, but live just beyond the city boundaries, so would have to pay for the tram service. Not a problem really - quite happy using buses, they go where we want to go! If we get independence it will all change anyway - the government won't be able to afford the cost of the bus pass system!

Michał Strzelecki

Now, if I identify as an 18-year-old person, can I still use the service for free?

Pam Brown

This city will cure global pollution on its own for sure! Integrated, not. You get off a train at Gyle and a family of four pays £19.60 for a mile journey to the airport – pure rip-off robbery. Taxi fare just over £3. Wait till he audited accounts are published for this black hole tram – £12 million loss before Covid; running empty for 14 months, plus there will never be the same level of punters travelling, even under 22s are free - the hole just gets bigger.

Stephen Flynn

Here’s a thought – get the parents to pay for their kids travel.

Mark From-Central

Instead of laying tramlines they should have considered bendy buses and guided bus ways, as this would have been cheaper and easier for managing routes.

Virus restrictions

Scottish government is to review Covid restrictions in East Renfrewshire and Midlothian this week

Michael Riddell

The situation won't get any better until we stop foreign travel. I would rather ban travelling abroad for two years until the rest of world catches up with the vaccination programme, so we can eradicate this disease. Going without a foreign holiday for two years is a small price to pay for getting back to normal life.

Kev Heath

Guess what, you go mass testing and looking for cases then you’ll find them. Absolutely ridiculous to move people back in level three days after they got into level two. This virus will always be around, the most vulnerable have been vaccinated if they wanted to be. Why are we acting like we’re still in December? We can’t go back to moving in and out of levels every week!

John Keating

Appears that almost all hospitalised Indian variant cases in the UK are of people who have not been vaccinated. Surely this again emphasises the need for everyone to get at least one jab ASAP, and for the anti-vaccination people to think more of their families and communities.

Thomas Monkhouse

Increased local testing in Pollockshields in Glasgow – wasn't there a large gathering there last week that was praised by Scottish government ministers?