It’s not at all difficult to see why Lothian Buses is a regular award winner. The passenger experience on a Lothian bus has become rather a pleasant one; on its new fleet of electric buses, I can sit in relative comfort, charge my phone, and the head-splitting din of sitting over the back axle on an old diesel bus is a distant memory. Its sister Edinburgh Trams provide a similarly acceptable experience. This is a well-run operation.

However, context is somewhat of a killer in this respect, because the success of Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams merely highlights how one-dimensional Edinburgh’s transport system is. This is a small city with small roads, unable to cope with the range of transport they host.

This week’s Herald investigation into The Future of Edinburgh serves as a timely reminder of the capital’s national importance. Edinburgh is the beating economic heart of the country. With one of the strongest records on Gross Value Added in the UK, Edinburgh is making the money required to fix the other struggling cities and towns around it. And a massive part of Edinburgh’s economic success lies in its ability to efficiently move workers into and around the city.

Read more by Andy Maciver

I have lived in Edinburgh for about 40 of my 45 years, with my only absences being short stints in Glasgow and Dundee. I grew up in Currie; not much over 5 miles from the city centre, it is pretty much the dictionary definition of a suburb. Growing up, the borders of my world were close; my primary concern was getting to school, which I did on foot or by bike.

However my father worked in town, and normally relied on the bus. Looking back now, that journey on the Red 44 or the Green 66 was relatively easy because we lived close........

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