HS2 - Bin it off or carry on regardless?

[wheelnut]

Yeah so if they're flying some losses and STILL making a profit over all on average that makes it even more remarkable.

BTW not really the point of the thread, but Airlines do pay a charge to fly over other countries, a price to land etc. I was more musing on how one big complicated transport infrastructure can be so different in cost to another one which appears reasonably similar.

Roads might be a fairer comparison but a) they're shit and b) its always bring-your-own-rolling-stock day. Plus anyone like to guess what the cost would be to make driving as safe as planes or trains?

I’m the exact opposite, in a car you’ve got your own space, can sit and have a conversation with someone, listen to what you want to, set your own timings, don’t need to rely on ridiculously expensive and unreliable trains, don’t have to endure filthy stations and crowds and can go where you actually want to and not where the train stops.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Aye but when a train has a crash its on the news, whereas several dozen people would have died today alone on the road just in the UK. Cars are enormously more polluting than trains, take up way more space (i.e. car parks for the >95% of cars not being used on average), require way more "track" because their efficiency at carrying stuff is crap etc.

This is where I struggle a bit....trains should make sense as transport and yet they're still a bit shite.

It's people not behaving logically I bet. Usually the cause

[wheelnut]

Aye but when a train has a crash its on the news, whereas several dozen people would have died today alone on the road just in the UK. Cars are enormously more polluting than trains, take up way more space (i.e. car parks for the >95% of cars not being used on average), require way more "track" because their efficiency at carrying stuff is crap etc.

This is where I struggle a bit....trains should make sense as transport and yet they're still a bit shite.

It's people not behaving logically I bet. Usually the cause

Several dozen is a bit of a stretch, I think it’s about 5 or so a day over the last couple of years, which IMO, is pretty good going considering the amount of cars on the road.

Plus you’ll generally get a taxi to the station and to your final destination.

[irie]

Replying to the thread title, HS2 is a political issue and for that reason cannot be binned (IMO).

[Dodgy69]

When you look at the BIG picture, it'll take more than HS2 to sort this country out.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Several dozen is a bit of a stretch, I think it’s about 5 or so a day over the last couple of years

1695 last year for example, so 5 a day.

I thought there were 12 days in a year with my maths

[Mr Moofo]

This should never have been about "That there Luhndun"

It isn't

but about the rest of the country

It is.


There are plenty of posts in the thread detailing both these points.

I am talking about the bits that have been done so far - not the overall plan for the project.

Which was obviously completely unrealistic

[Mr. Dazzle]

When you look at the BIG picture, it'll take more than HS2 to sort this country out.

Hey, gotta start somewhere.

And so long that somewhere is near London it should work out fine

[MingtheMerciless]

20 Megatonnes on London would sort a lot out.

[gremlin]

Fast train to Birmingham, anyone?

[Horse]

He pledges to "reinvest every penny" saved

So he's not 'saving' anything

Politicians really do have their own interpretation of the language.

And this is after he denied, a few hours before, that any decision had been made ...

[gremlin]

I see the HS2 management are being binned off for mismanaging the project and a new management team are being created to spend a few billion on their own future mismanagement of the remaining Euston project.

[KungFooBob]

As a denizen of the Northern Wastes, I don't care about HS2. I can get to London in an hour forty five if needs be.

If they do as they say and spend the same money improving our (Northern) existing public transport systems, it's money better spent, imho.

[Horse]

If they do as they say and spend the same money improving our (Northern) existing public transport systems, it's money better spent, imho.

You don't think there's any chance of any or all of them being gradually cancelled or trimmed?

[Count Steer]

I'm surprised they didn't commit a few more billions and then left a note in the next minister's desk at the DoT. 'Sort that little lot out chummy. Ha. Ha.'

[Horse]

If they do as they say and spend the same money improving our (Northern) existing public transport systems, it's money better spent, imho.

You don't think there's any chance of any or all of them being gradually cancelled or trimmed?

He pledges to "reinvest every penny" saved

So he's not 'saving' anything

Labour also said most of the transport schemes listed by the prime minister had either been previously promised or planned, so these projects did not amount to new investment.

[gremlin]

Following Rishi's example I offered to buy Mrs Gremlin a new outfit last week, bought her the shoes and then stopped and reinvested the money in the existing clothes she had in the wardrobe.

[Horse]

If they do as they say and spend the same money improving our (Northern) existing public transport systems, it's money better spent, imho.

You don't think there's any chance of any or all of them being gradually cancelled or trimmed?

Www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/08 ... s-minister

Government documents that were abruptly deleted after appearing online with announcements of new transport projects were just giving “examples” of what savings from the scrapping of HS2’s northern leg could be spent on, a minister has claimed.
....
“We gave some examples to people about the sorts of things – and we know these things are priorities locally – the sorts of things that that money could be spent on, and to bring it to life for people,” the transport secretary, Mark Harper, told the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire on Sunday.

[demographic]

Should have finished it, otherwise it kind of makes a mockery of all that "Levelling Up" guff we had to listen to Boris and Rishi say every twenty seconds.