why all the hate for hs2?

I read this the other day and it all made sense to me:

http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/...l-interests-transport-policy-and-government-s

Summary:
• The decision to build High Speed 2 is not justified by an analysis of the costs and benefits of the scheme. Even the government’s own figures suggest that HS2 represents poor value for money compared with alternative investments in transport infrastructure.
• Ministers appear to have disregarded the economic evidence and have chosen to proceed with the project for political reasons. An analysis of the incentives facing transport policymakers provides plausible explanations for their tendency to favour a low-return, high-risk project over high-return, low-risk alternatives.
• A group of powerful special interests appears to have had a disproportionate influence on the government’s decision to build HS2. The high-speed-rail lobby includes engineering firms likely to receive contracts to build the infrastructure and trains for HS2, as well as senior officials of the local authorities and transport bureaucracies that expect to benefit from the new line.
• An effective lobbying campaign in favour of HS2 was initiated and funded by concentrated interests expecting to make economic gains from the project. This effort appears to have been effective at marshalling support for the scheme among policymakers.
•‘Vote buying’ incentives were also important in building political support for a high-speed line. The policy was initially adopted partly as a response to local opposition to Heathrow expansion.
• The main losers from HS2 - the taxpayers in every part of the UK who will be forced to fund it - are highly dispersed, and therefore have weak incentives to actively oppose it. By contrast, members of communities along the route, where losses are concentrated, have had very strong incentives to campaign. This pattern of activity has enabled the debate to be misleadingly framed in the media in terms of local objections versus national economic benefits.
• Policymakers have strong incentives to ‘buy off’ opposition along the route at the expense of taxpayers, for example by increasing the amount of tunnelling or diverting the line. The large scale of HS2, its high political salience and its potential electoral importance, increase the risk that budgets will be expanded.
• Local authorities, transport bureaucracies and business groups are already lobbying central government to fund new infrastructure along the route, with several schemes already identified. HS2 will trigger billions of pounds of additional expenditure on commercially loss-making, taxpayer-funded projects.
• Along with design changes to ‘buy off’ opposition and subsidised regeneration projects, these proposals threaten to push total spending far beyond the basic budget. £80 billion plus is a plausible estimate of the overall cost, if these extras and the trains are included.
• In addition to the direct costs, there will be even larger opportunity costs from the misallocation of transport investment. Institutional reform is needed to reduce the malign influence of rent-seeking special interests on transport policy. New infrastructure could then be provided on a more economically rational basis.
Click to expand...
 
I'm still not sure where I stand on this.

  • The rail network does need investment. Most definitely. I think most parties agree our current network is full to capacity, and we could only benefit from expanding it.
  • The Y-shaped route seems like a poor choice. Everything funnelled towards London, whereas people up North would rather have, for example, a high speed route between Manchester and Liverpool.
  • The costs are still spiralling, anywhere between £42 billion and £80 billion, depending on who you ask.
  • Other European nations are investing in high speed rail, but then the case for a Europe-wide high speed rail network is much easier to make.
  • Even the first phase won't be finished until 2026. Brunel and co managed to build their lines in a few years.
  • Support among business leaders is dwindling all the time. In our modern world, with home working and web conferencing, moving people is less important. Moving freight is still a concern, but most freight doesn't need to be transported at 250mph.
 
Manchester and Liverpool are far too close to have a meaningful high speed route. The line goes where it goes because that's where the capacity problems are, either now or by forecast.

The length of time taken to build it is a mixture of dragging the build out so it costs less per year (because everyone keeps complaining its costing too much) and the ever increasingly expensive route changes like extensive tunnelling (ironically demanded by the same NIMBYs who are complaining it costs too much).

I have a horrible feeling we will end up canning HS2 and will spend the next decade cringing at our collapsing rail infrastructure and looking back whistfully at what we could have had with some forward thinking and less self serving interests. Its basically the Heathrow expansion problem but a decade later, look how screwed we are with that problem now.
 
If you really wanted an accurate forecast of cost for a project like this then you would probably need to spend close to a billion on that alone. The simple fact is we won't know the final cost until well into the project. Supporters will low-ball and opposition will high-ball.

It really is impossible to know if this will be a success or not - it's a risk either way.
 
article on the BBC news site today detailing some of the areas that are expected to receive a negative financial impact due to the building of this.

Something the parties in favour of it seem to have completely glossed over up until now.
 
Phreaky said:
I have a horrible feeling we will end up canning HS2...
Click to expand...
I have a good feeling we'll can HS2 and instead figure out ways to get our work done and have a good time, without having to travel as much as we do now.

For most, travelling is a means to an end. Most folk don't travel specially for the sake of it. We need to find ways of achieving our ends without as much travelling - threat the disease rather than the symptom. Simpy building more capacity is the dumb approach to the problem.
 
clv101 said:
I have a good feeling we'll can HS2 and instead figure out ways to get our work done and have a good time, without having to travel as much as we do now.

For most, travelling is a means to an end. Most folk don't travel specially for the sake of it. We need to find ways of achieving our ends without as much travelling - threat the disease rather than the symptom. Simpy building more capacity is the dumb approach to the problem.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the need for travelling is much reduced these days, and who knows how things will be in 2026? We might have rolled out fibre to the home by then (haha, as if).
 
I wonder if we hadn't close all those lines in the 1970s (thanks, Beeching) if we'd still have capacity problems these days. He didn't just close the branch lines, but stripped out a lot of main lines too, where they were deemed to duplicate existing routes.
 
Windle said:
Based on one report
Click to expand...

That KPMG report is the first to look at regional impact nationally on the project.

There have been plenty others on the project in general..

National Audit Office said:
“It’s too early in the High Speed 2 programme to conclude on the likelihood of its achieving value for money. Our concern at this point is the lack of clarity around the Department’s objectives. The strategic case for the network should be better developed at this stage of the programme. It is intended to demonstrate the need for the line but so far presents limited evidence on forecast passenger demand and expected capacity shortages on existing lines. It is also unclear how High Speed 2 will transform regional economies by delivering jobs and growth. The Department is trying against a challenging timetable to strengthen its evidence and analysis, which at present provide a weak foundation for securing and demonstrating success in the programme in future."

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 16 May 2013
Click to expand...

http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Full-Report.pdf

Institute of Economic Affairs said:
The decision to build High Speed 2 is not justified by an analysis of the costs and benefits of the scheme. Even the government’s own figures suggest that HS2 represents poor value for money compared with alternative investments in transport infrastructure.

Ministers appear to have disregarded the economic evidence and have chosen to proceed with the project for political reasons. An analysis of the incentives facing transport policymakers provides plausible explanations for their tendency to favour a low-return, high-risk project over high-return, low-risk alternatives.

A group of powerful special interests appears to have had a disproportionate influence on the government’s decision to build HS2. The high-speed-rail lobby includes engineering firms likely to receive contracts to build the infrastructure and trains for HS2, as well as senior officials of the local authorities and transport bureaucracies that expect to benefit from the new line.

An effective lobbying campaign in favour of HS2 was initiated and funded by concentrated interests expecting to make economic gains from the project. This effort appears to have been effective at marshalling support for the scheme among policymakers.

‘Vote buying’ incentives were also important in building political support for a high-speed line. The policy was initially adopted partly as a response to local opposition to Heathrow expansion.

The main losers from HS2 - the taxpayers in every part of the UK who will be forced to fund it - are highly dispersed, and therefore have weak incentives to actively oppose it. By contrast, members of communities along the route, where losses are concentrated, have had very strong incentives to campaign. This pattern of activity has enabled the debate to be misleadingly framed in the media in terms of local objections versus national economic benefits.

Policymakers have strong incentives to ‘buy off’ opposition along the route at the expense of taxpayers, for example by increasing the amount of tunnelling or diverting the line. The large scale of HS2, its high political salience and its potential electoral importance, increase the risk that budgets will be expanded.

Local authorities, transport bureaucracies and business groups are already lobbying central government to fund new infrastructure along the route, with several schemes already identified. HS2 will trigger billions of pounds of additional expenditure on commercially loss-making, taxpayer-funded projects.

Along with design changes to ‘buy off’ opposition and subsidised regeneration projects, these proposals threaten to push total spending far beyond the basic budget. £80 billion plus is a plausible estimate of the overall cost, if these extras and the trains are included.

In addition to the direct costs, there will be even larger opportunity costs from the misallocation of transport investment. Institutional reform is needed to reduce the malign influence of rent-seeking special interests on transport policy. New infrastructure could then be provided on a more economically rational basis.
Click to expand...

http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/The High Speed Gravy Train.pdf

etc
 
Last edited:
FoxEye said:
I wonder if we hadn't close all those lines in the 1970s (thanks, Beeching) if we'd still have capacity problems these days. He didn't just close the branch lines, but stripped out a lot of main lines too, where they were deemed to duplicate existing routes.
Click to expand...


Beeching closed the branch/duplicated lines because nobody was using them and they were haemorrhaging money. (Despite his closures BR continued to haemorrhage money)

The closures were not a bad decision in the context of the day.

The truly catastrophic error was however not to mothball the unused lines/routes/infrastructure. Instead it was all more or less destroyed (Like when TSR2 was cancelled)

This was a monumentally short sighted decision! Nobody knows what the future will hold and removing the possibility of ever reopening them should the situation change was mindbogglingly stupid! :mad:

Many of those "Unused" branch lines could be reopened today and provide popular and busy routes (especially in the SE). The nature of commuting has changed out of all recognition since the 60's and commuters now live in rural areas which would never have been considered in the 60's and I am sure would just love to be able to use the train instead of grinding along rural roads on daily commutes!

Sadly the loss of the rights of way makes reopening the branch lines almost impossible! The tragic loss of a valuable national asset built up over generations of hard work and discarded with the short sighted stroke of a pen! :(
 
Heliospherez said:
So how will this benefit the majority of the UK who don't live anywhere near London exactly ?
Click to expand...

It doesn't even benefit anyone living near London, because it addresses "problem" of people who already have a direct connection, two operators competing for scarce business with trains every 20 minutes and fares of £11 return if booked couple of days in advance.

People who live anywhere near London would kill for such deal on local commuter lines, because if I wanted to take a train instead of car to work, living only 30 miles along rail tracks away from King's Cross, it would cost me £38.
 
The problem with canning this 'vanity project' and using the money on existing infrastructure is that the latter won't happen - no politician in this day and age will fritter away their time in power making minor tweaks around the edges.

Its a sad state of affairs, but you either have HS2 or status quo (and don't give me that rubbish about telecommuting, its completely impractical for 90% of the UKs workforce, for reasons that can't be solved by bunging in a few more fibre optic cables).
 
starfighter said:
HS2 is a good idea, we need more capacity...
Click to expand...
Why?

The only reason it looks like we need more capacity is that we've done a really poor job of organising ourselves for the last few decades. Many people are left with long commutes because either their work places or housing isn't optimally located. We should spend the next generation addressing this problem by reducing demand, not by building capacity.
 
clv101 said:
Why?

The only reason it looks like we need more capacity is that we've done a really poor job of organising ourselves for the last few decades. Many people are left with long commutes because either their work places or housing isn't optimally located. We should spend the next generation addressing this problem by reducing demand, not by building capacity.
Click to expand...

While i do agree we need more housing, there is always going to be a shortage, we need both. Also HS2 frees up capacity for freight on existing lines. It isn't just about passengers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom