HS2, is it right for the UK?

Pennywise

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

wotsthat wrote: »

It just seems odd to me that a small country like the UK didn't consider better links from the North to London decades ago.

They did. We had a world beating infrastructure in the form firstly of the canal network, and then the railway network took over. Unfortunately, the politicians decided that the roads were the way forward and scrapped a huge amount of railway lines and stations leaving just the bare bones.

Now that rail travel has become popular again, the relatively few lines that were left alone are grossly overcrowded with local commuters fighting for space against inter-city travellers.

The lines were torn up with undue haste and land sold off meaning that many routes which would be handy today are no longer available due to housing, roads, etc blocking their old paths meaning years of planning wrangling, compulsory purchase orders, etc., before they could be reinstated at huge cost and delay.

Had those routes still been available, it would have opened the possibility for local routes to be re-opened for local journeys, (possibly more by light rail or tram than proper trains) meaning the main lines could have less local/slow traffic meaning more scope for faster inter city routes.

It's about time the politicians butted out and left such important things to those who know what they're doing and aren't influenced by tomorrow's newspaper headlines.

Jennifer_Jane

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

Just been watching a bit about this on yesterday's Daily Politics. Apparently, it's a question of capacity and something HAS to be done about that. So why not do a proper upgrade.

To simply upgrade the current network will require weekend work for the next 14 years. It's already bad enough that we cannot get from where I live down to London on a later train that 14:30 on a Sunday.

We need the capacity, we need a fast rail line which is on a separate line to the current ones (see Dominic's post above). Let's do it properly.

michaels

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

Just been watching a bit about this on yesterday's Daily Politics. Apparently, it's a question of capacity and something HAS to be done about that. So why not do a proper upgrade.

To simply upgrade the current network will require weekend work for the next 14 years. It's already bad enough that we cannot get from where I live down to London on a later train that 14:30 on a Sunday.

We need the capacity, we need a fast rail line which is on a separate line to the current ones (see Dominic's post above). Let's do it properly.

But say we could do it 'not properly' and have an extra 30bn to pay for cancer drugs, paediatricians etc at the 'cost' of having the additional capacity on the existing network and it taking 20 minutes longer to travel from Leeds to London?

shortchanged_2

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

mayonnaise wrote: »

e.g. huge investment in power generation and expanding airport capacity in the S-E.

Why has there got to be more airport capacity in the SE?

Is there not a case for building a large airport in say the Bristol/Wales border area which would cover quite large areas of population. Close the existing airports at Bristol and Cardiff and have one large airport in that area.

And why not a more substantial airport for the north? There is quite a large population there. Why does everything have to be SE centric?

CLAPTON

given HS2 is a cost effective solution and generally supported by industry, why not simply let the private sector fund it and take the profits that will flow?

shortchanged_2

No, it's a waste of money and it could be better spent elsewhere.

CLAPTON wrote: »

given HS2 is a cost effective solution and generally supported by industry, why not simply let the private sector fund it and take the profits that will flow?

Because it will be a typical public funded infrastructure scheme. All the upfront costs and risks are funded by the taxpayer for the private companies to then come along and cream off future profits with bailouts whenever they are needed.

Mulder00

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

More than one infrastructure project can run at the same time, so the "we have other more important priorities" argument doesn't wash.

HS2 isn't just about shaving 20 minutes off someone's commute, it's about capacity, not only for now, but for the future. Similar to the argument when they built the first bit of the underground, it wouldn't necessarily have been faster to get from Paddington to King's Cross, given waiting times, but you could get a lot more people moved between the two below ground than above.

CLAPTON

shortchanged wrote: »

Because it will be a typical public funded infrastructure scheme. All the upfront costs and risks are funded by the taxpayer for the private companies to then come along and cream off future profits with bailouts whenever they are needed.

just like the M6 Toll road

mayonnaise

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

shortchanged wrote: »

Why has there got to be more airport capacity in the SE?....

...And why not a more substantial airport for the north? There is quite a large population there. Why does everything have to be SE centric?

It doesn't HAVE to be SE centric, but it's the situation we have to deal with at the moment.
Look at flight options to the emerging economies out of LHR and compare them with CDG, Frankfort am Main and Schiphol and you'll know what I mean.
Also, CDG : 4 runways FF : 4 runways Schiphol : 6 runways LHR : 2 runways. Two.
It's a joke. Let's have another runway in LHR and one at Gatwick to start with.
A substantial airport in the North? Even today there's not enough demand to fill the current capacity at Manchester, Leeds Bradford, Newcastle etc..., so why would we need a substantial airport in the North??? As a hub to take some pressure off London airports maybe, yes.

MFW_ASAP

Yes, the benefits to the UK are far too great to ignore.

shortchanged wrote: »

Never for business, occasionally for pleasure, find the service fine apart from some overcrowding issues, but surely this can be sorted out in some other way.

Suspected as much. I'd suggest that travelling for pleasure is much less time critical than travelling for business and happens much less often. Try a few years of travelling on a weekly basis between Manchester and London and I'm sure you'll be glad of those time savings, especially when you're returning home on a Friday evening to your family.

A more interesting poll would be to see how many people who were 'for' and 'against' the HS2 would actually use it on a regular basis and whether for business or pleasure.