why all the hate for hs2?

clv101 said:
Opposing advancements? Who's to say this is an 'advancement'? If better solutions, benefiting more people (like local, light rail, cycling infrastructure and faster data networks) can be had the less money surely that's more advanced leaving HS2 looking like a 20thC century dinosaur, 40 years too late.
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It's not 20thC, people need to move about, confrence calls or not.
 
neil_g said:
as i think somone else touched on i think we have more important things to spend money on than saving 30 mins on a journey. like as mentioned nationwide internet infrastructure or fixing the state of the appauling roads.
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BT are working on getting Fibre everywhere at the moment of their own back, I doubt Virgin trains or Railtrack are planning to launch their own super train scheme.
 
iamtheoneneo said:
why all the hate? I presume you dont live in an area where they prepose to develop. Literally I will be able to see the line from my house - at the moment all I see is lush green fields and lots of dog walkers.

Pretty big reason to hate it wouldnt you say?
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I would imagine that it doesn't affect the majority of the people calling all those who oppose it 'hippies'.

Of course people will oppose it if it adversely affects them, it's what anybody would do.
 
ubersonic said:
BT are working on getting Fibre everywhere at the moment of their own back, I doubt Virgin trains or Railtrack are planning to launch their own super train scheme.
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On top of that, there is funding avilable to councils to get villages and other non profitable areas upto fast broadband speeds by 2015.
 
Glaucus said:
It's not 20thC, people need to move about, confrence calls or not.
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Why do we need to move about more? Surely advancement should allow us to do what we need to do without moving about as much as we used to! We should be looking at solutions that improve the local situations in dozens of towns and cities, and solutions that reduce the need to physically move between. Physically moving (even on a high speed train) is a waste of time and energy. Let's build physical and social systems that reduce this need.
 
The Victorians would have built the bloody thing by now. What happened to the nation that gave the world the railway?

Anyway for those saying "All it does is shave 30 mins off a journey" well it also frees up space for freight trains on the other East Coast lines and thus increases capacity.

Government should grow some balls and get the NIMBY idiots to shut up. Isambard Kingdom Brunel is probably spinning in his grave. Now where can I get some Navis?
 
The 32bn is an investment in the future, not just today as has already been said. Saving 35mins on a journey is an immense undertaking. What people fail to remember is that the current rail network was designed and built in Victorian times yet has over 20,000 miles of track to maintain. How much do you think that would cost to rip up and start again? 32bn would seem like a drop in the ocean!

For years the railway has been a victim of cost cutting (by both governments) and only recently has the railways been invested in through Network Rail. There is now a huge amount of investment in the rail network and while it may not benefit you directly, it will benefit the country as a whole by alleviating motorway/city congestion and thus serve to benefit everyone in one form or another. I would agree that there is much more to be done but investments such as this are surely a step in the right direction. I can't understand peoples objections other than resistance to change and advancement in technology.
 
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I don't know a great deal about the project, from my limited knowledge it seems foolish to spend the next 14 years (or whatever it is) installing last generation railway when other parts of the world are already running Maglevs.
 
clv101 said:
Why do we need to move about more? Surely advancement should allow us to do what we need to do without moving about as much as we used to! We should be looking at solutions that improve the local situations in dozens of towns and cities, and solutions that reduce the need to physically move between. Physically moving (even on a high speed train) is a waste of time and energy. Let's build physical and social systems that reduce this need.
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We should be doing that as well. People don't and won't just stay indoors. People travel for a multitude of reasons, that never changes and never will. We also have an increasing population. We need such projects, we also need a lot of other projects.
 
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clv101 said:
I expect they would have. Luckily in the 21st century we have more advanced solutions to our problems than they had in the 19th century!
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You mean we have lost the ability to actually get stuff done. I don't see how all this hand-wringing and voter pampering is helping the economy. The 19th Century approach would have got people working.
 
w3bbo said:
The 32bn is an investment in the future, not just today as has already been said. Saving 35mins on a journey is an immense undertaking. What people fail to remember is that the current rail network was designed and built in Victorian times yet has over 20,000 miles of track to maintain. How much do you think that would cost to rip up and start again? 32bn would seem like a drop in the ocean!

For years the railway has been a victim of cost cutting (by both governments) and only recently has the railways been invested in through Network Rail. There is now a huge amount of investment in the rail network and while it may not benefit you directly, it will benefit the country as a whole by alleviating motorway/city congestion and thus serve to benefit everyone in one form or another. I would agree that there is much more to be done and investments such as this are surely a step in the right direction.
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Hear hear!
 
Glaucus said:
On top of that, there is funding avilable to councils to get villages and other non profitable areas upto fast broadband speeds by 2015.
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I think they have put a lot of that on hold atm due to cost and are looking at the possibility of using 4g for the more remote areas. Not that there is any problem with that, will still be fast at a fraction of the cost.

Has anyone got any links to BT rolling out a nationwide FTTH project?
 
Glaucus said:
We should be doing that as well. People don't and won't just stay indoors. People travel for multiplied of reason, that never changes and never will. We also have an increasing population. We need such projects, we also need a lot of other projects.
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This.

If it was a case of upgrading the entire existing rail network to high-speed I don't think anyone would be complaining (except about the cost of course).
 
Because it's pointless, it's going to shave off what...30 mins travel time between London and Birmingham?

It's going to cost LOADS, this money can be used to improve our current networks and trains.

Yes, it willl create jobs for the people having to build it, which guess what, funnily enough they need paying too.

Just meh.
 
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