why all the hate for hs2?

I just read this great passage about high-speed rail:
"High-speed rail is a deeply obsolete technology based on the assumption that society in the future will be based on ever-growing city-hubs, requiring mass transit not only between them but to them, within the centralised regions they serve. The case for high-speed rail has turned on two factoids: (1) it isn’t air travel; and (2) journey times are shorter – but that will only encourage people to make more journeys – and, anyway, train-time is Grade 1 useful time for work, sleep, conversation and thinking. In fact, the convergence of special conditions – cheap energy, large-scale engineering and transport infrastructures, and robust demand backed by high incomes – will no longer exist, either for high-speed rail or for air travel itself. The present programme to build high-speed rail will draw scarce resources from the undoubted asset of local rail, breeding a new generation of white elephants, like the nuclear power stations. Phantom tracks will be named after their advocate, like the Maginot Line.

"The unanswerable question at the heart of transport is the one asked by the farm labourer standing bemused one day in the mid-eighteenth century at the side of the Liverpool-Manchester turnpike, crowded with urgently-speeding coaches: “Who would ever have thought that there were so many people in the wrong place?"
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It's from David Fleming's recent book: 'Lean Logic' http://www.leanlogic.net/
 
His objection to HS rail isn't well explained. Why does he think the convergence of "cheap energy, large-scale engineering and transport infrastructures, and robust demand backed by high incomes" won't exist from 2030 onwards?

And his comment about nuclear power is a bit on the stupid side. They're a great solution (until fusion is commercialised) for countries with no domestic energy sources that want energy security.
 
TJM said:
His objection to HS rail isn't well explained. Why does he think the convergence of "cheap energy, large-scale engineering and transport infrastructures, and robust demand backed by high incomes" won't exist from 2030 onwards?
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You need to read the synopsis of the book and some reviews to understand his reasoning.
 
my tax going towards something i'll never use or anyone in a 100 mile radius around where i live just to save 30 minutes?

i'd rather they made a new northern line..
 
I do love a good current affairs GD bump. Never been a fan of HS2 mainly due to my lack of faith in a project this size been delivered on time and budget. 4 years before the start of the first stage - the cost has jumped up!

Former business secretary Lord Mandelson said all the parties should think about the rail project again as its estimated cost rises to £42.6bn. The Labour peer supported the proposed link from London to the north when he was in government. But, he wrote in the Financial Times: "I now fear HS2 could be an expensive mistake … all the parties, especially Labour, should think twice before binding themselves irrevocably to it."
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A few reasons why one might have reservations about HS2:

  • Patrick McLoughlin, admitted last week that the estimated cost of HS2 had risen from £34.2bn to £42.6bn.....The original cost estimates were "almost entirely speculative" (Mandelson)
  • New lines from Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds would come at the expense of "a large number of intercity services"
  • The last Labour government had assumed that the project would attract funding from the City rather than the burden falling on taxpayers
  • The economic benefits of HS2 were "neither quantified nor proven" and failed to take account of how the money might be spent on other projects instead, Mandelson added. These included upgrades to the east and west coast mainlines and improvements to rail services in the regions and provincial cities
  • Work on the first phase of HS2, between Birmingham and London, is due to begin in 2017. A damning National Audit Office (NAO) inquiry, published in May, calculated it faced a £3.3bn funding gap
  • Economic benefits from HS2 have fallen radically during the planning process. Back in 2010, it was envisaged that every £1 spent on the first stage of the line between London and Birmingham would yield £2.60 of benefits. Since then the figure has fallen to £1.40 – and that was using the old projected costs
  • Assumptions have been made in calculating the supposed economic benefits. For example, the colossal sum of £12.6bn is meant to arise from carrying business travellers at faster speeds. But the Department for Transport appears to have assumed that business folk do no work on trains, which is clearly nonsense in the age of Wi-Fi

Source 1
Source 2

So tell me again why we need HS2?
 
I used to live in Japan and I can tell you their rail transport system makes ours look like it belongs to a third world country.

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Just give all the money to plebs to build new houses. Free houses for single pleb mothers. Yay!
 
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Freakbro said:
State funded construction jobs?

Though I could probably think of better ways of achieving this....Houses anyone?
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You don't need more houses. More houses and more people won't create more jobs, just a bigger benefit bill. This country could do with reducing it's population, especially of plebs.
 
xibinim said:
  • Patrick McLoughlin, admitted last week that the estimated cost of HS2 had risen from £34.2bn to £42.6bn.....The original cost estimates were "almost entirely speculative" (Mandelson)
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Do you really expect them to be able to realistically forecast the costs of a project this big before even getting the proper go ahead. Estimating is a major expense and it is common for early estimates to be way out for projects such as these. It's like the Olympics.

It's like getting a builder round to quote you on a 2-storey extension without him knowing the building materials and ground quality, then moaning when his official quote comes in higher because he needs to move a drain.

An accurate refelection of costs will not be known until the project is well underway, so knowing the cost / benefit is again completely impossible. Of course it's all guess work at this stage.
 
Apparently it would take me 1hr20min to get to London, why would I want to get there any faster?

It doesn't stop in Staffordshire anyway although it does run past my front door. Some Council idiot is suggesting a station in Keele :rolleyes: Nobody flipping lives in Keele!

Keele's road system couldn't support an additional teashop, never mind a HS2 station.
 
@feedtheram - I realise it is far from an easy task but the Olympics cost 5.2 times higher than the original £1.7bn budget (though nothing on Scottish Parliament building; £40m > £400m). A big jump but at least ~£9bn is a manageable figure. It seems more and more pointless if the economic benefit comes below every £1 spent. Furthermore as the tax payers are stumping more of the bill than originally thought, budget rises will be met with more hostility (plus inevitable increased ticket prices as a result).

@bitslice - please tell me you are joking. Spent 6 years at Keele; the campus holds 3000+ people and the village itself can't be many more. Terrible, terrible idea!
 
It's not just shortening the journey time, it's also increasing capacity due to building a totally new track.
Upgrading the existing track would cost even more and not add much more capacity.

I would rather this project than non. But I don't think it's the best project.

Should have a bigger focus on quad track, which for many places can't get on existing dual track, due to buildings being built right upto it.. Shipping container freight stations for cargo in all cities(with much lower tax penalties for companies shipping their freight by train, then just lorry for the last few miles, compared with just road haulage), and reopen/new stations in towns/villages. As well as new/improved metro networks say top 25 cities to start with.
And a much bigger roll out of EV charging points.
Cycle tracks that also allow small electric vehicles, say anything upto 30mph and x-size/weight.

Trouble is one scheme won't sort the wider transport issues, and far too many projects are not planned with the wider scope and end up not integrating into the bigger transport network.

But the biggest thing is integration. You need bus routes to the train stations that are also in sink with the train timetable, you need plentiful and cheap parking for people to use the train, it all has to integrate and this is what most recent projects seem to neglect.
 
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I think the fundamental assumption that we'll need/want to travel more in the future is the problem. We should be investing in ways of working and living to enable us to travel less in the future. The 'perfect' future is one where all our needs and wants are satisfied without having to travel much. HS2 is a step in the wrong direction, it further embeds long distance travel.

Anyway, the travel problem most people face most of the time, isn't national access into London, it's the local commute between their homes and their offices around all the normal towns and cities around the country. I'd like to see the tens of billions spent on improved urban light rail, improved cycle infrastructure, improved public transport... in Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow etc... This is where several million people lose 10s of minutes each and every day! The impact of improving the daily local commute is far greater than improving the long distance route for a few thousand each day.
 
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Jono said:
If you add the cost of the new trains too, the cost is £50bn. Madness. Just don't bother.
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What would you rather spend the money on?

It's better to spend money on infrastructure because at least you have something to show for it.

Britain is a joke. Look at the amazing bullet train network, where every city is connected by clean, punctual, fast and comfortable trains.

It's expensive too, which keeps plebs away.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2018.html


Listening to radio 4 this morning and it's all talk of mallard locomotives and how trains were pioneered here. It's all celebrating the past... :(
 
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