WORK is set to get under way to allow city centre traffic to be diverted before the trams roadworks begin in earnest.
Barriers, signposts and traffic islands will be removed from a number of busy city centre streets from today ahead of a full traffic management programme starting next month.
Shops and businesses in the city centre have been sent letters telling t
hem "enabling" works will take place in St Andrew Square, Queensferry Street and Charlotte Square over the next four weeks.
It is thought this will allow tram firm TIE to divert some city centre traffic on to these routes when work to move utility pipes in the city centre gets underway next month.
Sources close to the project have already indicated that Princes Street will need to be temporarily closed to traffic during the utility diversion work.
Other busy streets on the Newhaven to airport route, such as Shandwick Place, could also be facing temporary closures under plans being considered by tram chiefs.
Some of the enabling work over the next few weeks will involve unpicking measures put in place during the city's botched £4.5 million traffic management reorganisation in 2005.
Motoring groups today called for TIE to pull out all the stops to ensure there was no repeat of this situation, and warned drivers to brace themselves for disruption.
Willie Gallagher, TIE's executive chairman, said: "These works will enable us to put in place the necessary temporary traffic management measures that will maintain traffic flows as we get on with the utility diversion work. They will remain in place as the tram infrastructure is laid in 2009."
A schedule of works obtained by the Evening News shows how areas currently restricted to traffic at North and South St Andrew Street will be adjusted.
Barriers and street furniture will be removed outside House of Fraser at the junction with Hope Street and Lothian Road.
Other preparatory work will also take place at the junction of Frederick Street and Princes Street, and the central reservation on Princes Street will be removed over the coming month.
The utility diversions work in the city centre is expected to last until August, though there is expected to be further disruption when contractors return later in the year to begin laying the tram tracks.
Neil Greig, head of policy in Scotland for the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: "This will be the first in a long, long list of announcements that will involve disruption for drivers.
"What is crucial is that all of the alterations are properly communicated – particularly given the track record of Edinburgh council during the last big set of changes in the city centre."
The council's central Edinburgh traffic management scheme saw westbound traffic banned on Princes Street, and George Street cut in half by bollards in 2005.
Ten junctions were closed to all vehicles and many other roads gave access to buses and taxis only. The scheme proved unpopular and council chiefs agreed to reverse the worst of the measures after a campaign by the News.
The full article contains 514 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
