Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)

[coppercapped]

Not just one way at all. Another option would be to incentivise businesses to operate outside the Capital and/or penalise those who operate within the Capital so that employment starts to be spread more evenly across the country again. Something like reduced employers NIC for businesses outside the M25/increased employers NIC for businesses inside the M25 - i.e. additional employment cost for operating in London. Or more grants and capital allowances for businesses setting up outside London. Review of business rates so that London businesses pay more and non-London businesses pay less. Lots of ways to start to force businesses to think about options outside London. Such changes could be phased in over say 10 years to lessen the immediate impact. Or a massive expansion in incentives such as Enterprise zones to bring life back to run down towns and cities across the country. Complete madness that there are areas with cheap or empty housing. We've had decades of London-centric thinking, so it's time to reverse that as it's simply not sustainable.

At the same time make better use of the vertical dimension and build more flats. Land is expensive in the UK, and is needed for more than building houses on. We also need, as a society, to regard things like housing and transport to be finite limited resources, and be treated as such, so a shift toward fewer single people living in four bedroom houses which is a horribly inefficient use of limited space.

Another option, if possible, is to encourage/persuade companies to set up in cities away from London. It is illogical to try and cram much of the employment opportunities into one small pocket of the country, then complain that the services and utilities required to serve the people who move and live there because of the employment opportunity, are bursting at the seams.

I have a feeling a déja vû...

The reasons cities grow is part due to geography and part due to the economics of agglomeration - which is also the reason why there are limits to growth. Trying to force organisations to move, or set up, somewhere which is not suitable for their type of business will affect economic growth generally and the employment opportunities will be fewer as a result. There used to be an organisation called the Location of Offices Bureau, set up in 1953 (and abolished in the early 1980s) to allocate permits to developers wishing to build offices in London as it was felt that London was too crowded. It claimed that between 1963 and 1969 more than 20,000 jobs a year were re-located outside London. It's advertisements were placed in tube trains and the declining population was one of the reasons it was so difficult to get approval to build the Victoria Line.

The net result of this and other measures was that London became a dying city with a decreasing population. The population was about 8.6 million in 1939 which fell during the war, dropping to 8.2 million in 1951; the population continued to fall over the next 40 years to a low of 6.4 million in 1991. Over the past 25 years it has recovered and risen to 8.8 million in 2016, for the first time surpassing the pre-war total.

So we're back to where we were in 1938. Nothing new there, then. But the wheel turns... I read recently that because of Brexit uncertainties the financial services sector in London has, since the referendum, relocated some 2,000 senior jobs to Dublin, Frankfurt and Amsterdam together with billions in assets now run by companies registered in those countries.

 

[The Ham]

*Invest in high-speed interne

Confirmation of the current average broadband speeds reaching ~55mb/s:

http://www.cityam.com/277312/uk-average-broadband-speeds-rise-fifth-hit-superfast-level

The regulator said average speeds have passed the 50Mbps mark - one of the most commonly-available levels of superfast broadband - for the first time, after an 18 per cent surge to 54.2Mbps

I'll ask again, how much faster does it need to get?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'll ask again, how much faster does it need to get?

Depends where you are. I've got 500MB fibre to the home now, and it's not *that* much faster than BT Infinity was, I switched because it was half the price.

What needs improving is to put the infrastructure in place so everyone can get a usable connection. Usable probably is defined as "good enough to stream BluRay quality movies" to start with.

The average doesn't really tell the story properly on its own.

 

[MarkyT]

As an aside though: Does anyone think that people travelling through London who don't want to go to anywhere in London is a big enough problem by itself to warrant much intervention? Yes, it would make journeys somewhat more pleasant if people can avoid travelling on the underground between London termini, but I'd imagine that, as a proportion of people using the London termini, the proportion of people doing such journeys is going to be small. And HS2 will of course help that to some extent by providing the interchange at OOC.

There are always going to be some journeys where crossing central London is the best option. The straighter the line of a notional journey across the capital, the more likely that is, and people are not going to negotiate a circuitous orbital leg when it adds journey time. New and improved Cross London main line routes such as Crossrail and Thameslink, and their direct interchange at Farringdon for instance, will at least help to avoid use of the Tube for inter-terminal transfers, and edge nodes like Stratford, Clapham Junction and Old Oak Common can direct some journeys away from the centre entirely. That's not a universal solution however. I'd argue ECML and MML don't need such edge city alternatives for longer distance service calls. There are no obvious major interchange locations for such hubs on these routes, apart from Finsbury Park, which I'd argue is too close to Kings Cross, and West Hampstead, which is not comprehensive enough an interchange. Neither have significant potential for major development either, which seems necessary to help fund major station upgrade work.

 

[anme]

Not just one way at all. Another option would be to incentivise businesses to operate outside the Capital and/or penalise those who operate within the Capital so that employment starts to be spread more evenly across the country again. Something like reduced employers NIC for businesses outside the M25/increased employers NIC for businesses inside the M25 - i.e. additional employment cost for operating in London. Or more grants and capital allowances for businesses setting up outside London. Review of business rates so that London businesses pay more and non-London businesses pay less. Lots of ways to start to force businesses to think about options outside London. Such changes could be phased in over say 10 years to lessen the immediate impact. Or a massive expansion in incentives such as Enterprise zones to bring life back to run down towns and cities across the country. Complete madness that there are areas with cheap or empty housing. We've had decades of London-centric thinking, so it's time to reverse that as it's simply not sustainable.

I think this misses the point. Major employers don't just decide between locating in London or in the provinces. They decide whether to locate in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, China, etc. It's already much much cheaper to set up an office or a factory in Sunderland than in London.

The British regions need to make themselves more attractive relative to other countries. Unfortunately they are currently in the process of doing exactly the opposite.

 

[jfowkes]

Here's a question: according to the press, HS2 is much more expensive per mile than high-speed rail in other countries. Is this true? If so, why?

 

[The Ham]

Depends where you are. I've got 500MB fibre to the home now, and it's not *that* much faster than BT Infinity was, I switched because it was half the price.

What needs improving is to put the infrastructure in place so everyone can get a usable connection. Usable probably is defined as "good enough to stream BluRay quality movies" to start with.

The average doesn't really tell the story properly on its own.

I'm aware of that, however there's options, such as 4g and Satellite internet, which can bypass slow broadband infrastructure.

Yes they may cost more, but Satellite internet claims 30mb/s. Which if all you can get is 5-10mb/s would be quite a step up.

However it's worth noting that something like 9 million people live in rural areas. That figure includes anyone in a town of <10,000 people.

In terms or remote locations the population is something like 500,000. £1bn of spending would get you something like 13 years of free satellite internet for those people (assuming 2.4 people per household).

Then there's the funding providing 100mb/s fiber broadband for rural schools (with future proofing for 1,000mb/s), which had recently announced that its looking for more schools as there's still finding available after providing it to 100 schools. Those schools getting fiber will then provide the local settlements with a fiber connection which they could then benefit from.

Yes there's a need for the lower speeds to be increased significantly to bring in a base level for all, but that can be done for about 2% of the HS2 budget and is generally happening anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes there's a need for the lower speeds to be increased significantly to bring in a base level for all, but that can be done for about 2% of the HS2 budget and is generally happening anyway.

I would certainly not argue against HS2 for it. It needs to be done anyway in order to allow rural people access to more jobs and services, and should be funded separately.

Satellite broadband is way too expensive; if that was used it would require subsidy.

 

[The Ham]

Here's a question: according to the press, HS2 is much more expensive per mile than high-speed rail in other countries. Is this true? If so, why?

Yes, land prices.

Well that and the amount of tunneling which is proposed. Most of the French network doesn't have high speed lines into cities but rather relies on the existing lines. That's not an option, firstly due to the capacity constraints in our cities, secondly, due to the existing not being able to have European sized trains.

 

[Clip]

*Invest in high-speed internet

I have high speed internet at home. My clients in the North West prefer to see me face to face so its pretty useless for work eh?

What about all the journeys made via London where people don't actually "need" to go via London which not only increase travellers on the trains around London, but also the Underground. The Rail system is London-Centric. If I want to go from the NW to most South Coast or other locations south of London, I have to travel via London. Why are there no "hubs" around London so people can by-pass the most congested train services? It makes no sense.

Birmingham could be classed as a hub but that is very congested also - though I would imagine that if you take out its ICWC services you could ease that congestion a little. I wonder how to do that though?

Here's a question: according to the press, HS2 is much more expensive per mile than high-speed rail in other countries. Is this true? If so, why?

Thats possibly because they have to build more tunnels than anywhere else because the nimbys in the chilterns complained

 

[The Ham]

I would certainly not argue against HS2 for it. It needs to be done anyway in order to allow rural people access to more jobs and services, and should be funded separately.

Satellite broadband is way too expensive; if that was used it would require subsidy.

I agree, hence the suggestion of it being offered for free (or probably more likely subsidies to bring it down in price to typical broadband costs).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Here's a question: according to the press, HS2 is much more expensive per mile than high-speed rail in other countries. Is this true? If so, why?

Part of it is the extent of tunnelling to get out of London and through the Cotswolds, as well as all the environmental protection along the route.
That's on top of permanently high land prices, especially in the south.
Phase 2a and 2b are, relatively speaking, significantly cheaper per mile than Phase 1, with less tunnelling and cheaper land.
I believe new French high speed lines were "cheap" because they have had plenty of practice in constructing such lines, and the builders are keen to have a rolling business.
Italy and Spain have also benefitted from an intensive building programme (and Spain is relatively "empty" in terms of land purchase and routeing).
Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are more like us with a rather stop/start approach, and high land and environmental costs.
The Netherlands has also had major ground problems with tunnels, and overall have not had a good performance from their HSL.
We do things on a one-off basis and pay the penalty of high overheads and lots of staff turnover and training.
You can see the same phenomenon in the electrification programme, where we had a 5-year blitz and broke the delivery capability at great cost.

 

[underbank]

I'll ask again, how much faster does it need to get?

Like trains, no point in being fast if they're not accessible to significant numbers of the population. Rather than concentrating on ever-increasing speeds in some/most areas, they should be concentrating on making a reasonable fast broadband available to everyone. There are still far too many areas with low speed internet and with flaky/non existent mobile broadband. My home and a separate office are in a large village (7,000 population), within a few of miles of two towns (one population 20,000, the other population 40,000) all within 8 miles of a city. I can't even get a mobile reception for voice/texts in my office, let alone mobile internet. The fastest broadband available is 15mbs (or whatever) and in reality, is often far less than that which often drops at peak times due to volume of use on the local telephone exchanges. There are other nearby villages who have had to pay for private broadband providers to install cabling - some just 10 miles from the city which they can actually see across the fields! It's a national disgrace that the availability of fast broadband is so slow to be rolled out across the country. Fair enough for remote hillside cottages dozens of miles from anywhere, but to suffer poor connectivity in large built up villages areas close to towns and cities is simply inexcusable. Rather than continue to make it even faster for those who already have good access, how about diverting resources for all the others who don't?

 

[Adsy125]

Like trains, no point in being fast if they're not accessible to significant numbers of the population. Rather than concentrating on ever-increasing speeds in some/most areas, they should be concentrating on making a reasonable fast broadband available to everyone. There are still far too many areas with low speed internet and with flaky/non existent mobile broadband. My home and a separate office are in a large village (7,000 population), within a few of miles of two towns (one population 20,000, the other population 40,000) all within 8 miles of a city. I can't even get a mobile reception for voice/texts in my office, let alone mobile internet. The fastest broadband available is 15mbs (or whatever) and in reality, is often far less than that which often drops at peak times due to volume of use on the local telephone exchanges. There are other nearby villages who have had to pay for private broadband providers to install cabling - some just 10 miles from the city which they can actually see across the fields! It's a national disgrace that the availability of fast broadband is so slow to be rolled out across the country. Fair enough for remote hillside cottages dozens of miles from anywhere, but to suffer poor connectivity in large built up villages areas close to towns and cities is simply inexcusable. Rather than continue to make it even faster for those who already have good access, how about diverting resources for all the others who don't?

What people forget is that the vast majority of people in the UK live in urban areas, where fast broadband is available, and you’re free to move their if you want. I must admit, I’ve lived with 15Mbps and had no issues at all. On the reception side, remember there are 4 UK networks, and it’s likely one of them does cover your office, in rural areas you generally have to find who is best for you and stick with them.

 

[underbank]

What people forget is that the vast majority of people in the UK live in urban areas, where fast broadband is available, and you’re free to move their if you want.

The whole point is that the local services (transport, health, education, etc) would collapse if more and more people move into the urban areas. We need to reverse the trend and encourage people to live outside the densely populated urban areas, firms to grow their businesses in lesser densely populated areas etc. There's a limit to how many more railway lines, stations, hospitals, etc you can put into already over-crowded areas. There are loads of areas with long established infrastructure that could support large influxes of people and businesses with minimal disruption. It's crazy to ignore that and continue to force people and businesses into already densely populated areas.

 

[The Ham]

What people forget is that the vast majority of people in the UK live in urban areas, where fast broadband is available, and you’re free to move their if you want. I must admit, I’ve lived with 15Mbps and had no issues at all. On the reception side, remember there are 4 UK networks, and it’s likely one of them does cover your office, in rural areas you generally have to find who is best for you and stick with them.

Indeed, hence why I highlighted the fact that there's 9 million in rural areas (which includes settlements of up to 10,000), which is about 15% of the total population. However very few of those are in locations which are remote from any settlements.

Yes there's always going to be town A or place B which are down the list of places due to get faster broadband.

In the example given 15mb/s is a fairly reasonable speed. Yes a long way short of the 300mb/s which some can get, but still an OK speed.

If speed is critical then you're going to be willing to pay for the extra speeds which the likes of satellite internet will get you off there's no other viable alternative giving you the speed.

If there's a town of 5,000 and enough start saying they're not going to have broadband because it's too slow then the companies will start to look at what they can do.

It's worth noting that as an individual 10 years of satellite internet at the mid price package (£75, low cost is £30) would cost £9,000 over a 10 year period, which for most people would still be cheaper than paying for cables to be provided to their house and paying for broadband.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What people forget is that the vast majority of people in the UK live in urban areas, where fast broadband is available, and you’re free to move their if you want.

I shed no tears for rich London commuters who choose to move to rural Buckinghamshire and whine the broadband is too slow to work from home - tough - pick one of your brand-new Range Rovers, get in it, drive to the station and get the train to London. But in the countryside in the rest of the UK it's a story of deprivation which would be better with some money brought in rather than it being steadily depopulated, farms closed and just becoming holiday homes with minimum-wage jobs available for the summer season and nowt the rest of the time.

 

[Bald Rick]

Here's a question: according to the press, HS2 is much more expensive per mile than high-speed rail in other countries. Is this true? If so, why?

Because:

1) England, particularly that part south of the M62 and east of Offa’s Dyke is much, much more crowded than almost anywhere else in Europe (or, indeed, the world) - meaning more bridges and tunnels to build, more utilities to divert, more neighbours to provide mitigation for.

2) We pay people more money on a comparable basis than most of the rest of the world for the types of jobs involved in designing and building railways, or indeed building anything.

3) Most European high speed lines run from city and avoid the very expensive bit into the city centres. This is because they often have oodles of spare capacity at their main city centre stations already.

4) we account for work differently than some (but not all) other countries. Many countries account for certain items as overheads to their main railway business - rather like BR used to do. You won’t find SNCF being compensated for revenue losses due to planned engineering works, for example. Going further, some other railways don’t include in their ‘costs’ the value of tax that will be paid back to government in the equivalent of VAT or in some cases income taxes for those working on it.

 

[PR1Berske]

Confirmation of the current average broadband speeds reaching ~55mb/s:

http://www.cityam.com/277312/uk-average-broadband-speeds-rise-fifth-hit-superfast-level



I'll ask again, how much faster does it need to get?

It should be that quick for everyone. Let's spend money on making the whole country connected to decent internet, rather than only connecting bits of England to London.

It's not about "how much faster", you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking, "why can't the whole country have access to decent broadband speeds?"

 

[anme]

It should be that quick for everyone. Let's spend money on making the whole country connected to decent internet, rather than only connecting bits of England to London.

It's not about "how much faster", you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking, "why can't the whole country have access to decent broadband speeds?"

British Telecom was privatised over 30 years ago. We leave these things to the market now.

 

[6Gman]

*Reflect actual passenger numbers in timetabling to make traffic flow more responsive to actual need (of you like, make timetabling smarter)
*Use alternative destinations than Euston

I really don't understand the first point. Given that the WCML is at capacity at peak times what are you actually suggesting in timetabling? Thinning out the off-peak service could save a (small) amount of money, but it doesn't add any capacity. So does "smarter" timetabling actually mean anything?
On the second point where are you suggesting as alternatives to Euston? And why?

 

[6Gman]

*Extra lines and signalling modernising on the WCML

"When a new railway is being built on top of an existing one it is not reasonable to expect that traffic will always flow without delay ... we took 15.5 min to cover 6.5 miles from Bletchley to Leighton Buzzard" OS Nock in Railway Magazine June 1964. His train took one hour 54 minutes Rugby to Euston.

Of course, in those days the railway was a lot less busy and Health & Safety was much less strict. Today it wouldn't be an hour's delay; it would be rail replacement buses for months.

 

[6Gman]

How high over budget would HS2 have to go before even you had to admit "enough is enough"?

How high over budget would Manchester - Blackpool electrification have to go before you would say "enough is enough" ?

 

[6Gman]

Smart timetabling, n, a concept in timetabling that is sufficiently complex such that if you need a detailed explanation you obviously aren’t smart enough to be able to understand it*, and therefore no explanation will be given.

*Even if you’ve been working with timetables most of your career, and have never heard of the phrase.

A philosophical concept which states that an NHS Clerk from Preston knows better than the guys who do it for a living.

 

[Bald Rick]

The whole point is that the local services (transport, health, education, etc) would collapse if more and more people move into the urban areas. We need to reverse the trend and encourage people to live outside the densely populated urban areas, firms to grow their businesses in lesser densely populated areas etc. There's a limit to how many more railway lines, stations, hospitals, etc you can put into already over-crowded areas. There are loads of areas with long established infrastructure that could support large influxes of people and businesses with minimal disruption. It's crazy to ignore that and continue to force people and businesses into already densely populated areas.

It isn’t crazy at all, indeed it makes good economic and environmental sense. There is a clear relationship between high density land use and high economic productivity. There is also a clear relationship between high density land use and lower energy use through more efficient use of all types of infrastructure. It is better for us as a society, and better for the planet, to live and work in cities.

Once that principle is established, it also clear that to get the best out of your cities, you want them to be well connected. And the most efficient and environmentally sustainable method of connecting large cities around 50-250 miles apart is high speed rail.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

A philosophical concept which states that an NHS Clerk from Preston knows better than the guys who do it for a living.

I cannot help thinking that "reflect passenger numbers to actual need" is one of the finest cliche terms ever used , - but the example of "smart timetabling" I will continue to use for many years , and not just in licensed premises surrounded by a small group of people with over a century's practical and operational planning and operations.

Timetables since time immemorial are either demand and market led , in the aggregate - or in a few cases "stakeholder" led. In most cases the production of a "simple" timetable takes about 2 years - on the complex WCML (and I have mentioned this many times before) - the 2004 Timetable took the best part of 5 years.

Rather amazingly - we studied very hard the actual and planned loadings of most key passenger flows and consulted freight operators - we interrogated the very data rich passenger flows and worked out which city needed particular "linked" services - proved for example that a Wolverhampton - New St - Coventry all stations had little cross Brum flows (but it was perceived as important) - I could set an exam paper on "what are the key flows from Liverpool" - or Lockerby - or even Holyhead. Planned timetable specifications were then run though complex modelling to see if the changes and plans were worthwhile. Meanwhile - the issue of key resources - simple things like train crew , station capacity, and dare I say it - rolling stock was always in the back of the minds as part of the complex equation.

To intimate that the deeply experienced planners do not do this , is in my opinion a deep insult.

Perhaps there are those who do , and some with very little base knowledge who opine on the former.

 

[Bald Rick]

but the example of "smart timetabling" I will continue to use for many years , and not just in licensed premises surrounded by a small group of people with over a century's practical and operational planning and operations.

I look forward to the discussion!

 

[The Planner]

I look forward to the discussion!

I can imagine many spleens are vented...

 

[Bald Rick]

I can imagine many spleens are vented...

After 4 pints of Landlord there’s plenty of venting going on

 

[The Ham]

It should be that quick for everyone. Let's spend money on making the whole country connected to decent internet, rather than only connecting bits of England to London.

It's not about "how much faster", you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking, "why can't the whole country have access to decent broadband speeds?"

The problem with computers is that people will always try and use whatever capability/speed that there is. This results in the thought that if only we could have speeds of X we could do Y.

However by the time you have got to the faster speeds the requirements have got higher.

The same is true of the internet, first it was we want images, then better images, then we want video, then full screen video, then HD, then 4k, then 8k, soon it'll be 16k video.

Meanwhile most work which can be done remotely can be undertaken without too much delay by the cat majority of people. Either through direct access for most people or through planning (i.e. downloading files in advance of using them), or by paying for enhanced speeds (i.e. satellite internet).

Satellite internet starts at £30/month for 10gb of data (with overnight uncapped) at a speed of 30mb/s. Yes that's not cheap given it is a little restrictive, however given that Virgin's cheapest internet only package is £37/month and gets you an average of 57mb/s. Which interestingly those who live locally to Virgin Media's head office can't get as there's no cable network, even though the offices does have cable.

It's also worth noting that there's still companies offering average speeds of 10mb/s for not a lot (£10-£15/ month), as such for those with low speeds but a need for some faster connections at times it could work out good value to opt for a cheap slow broadband provider for day to day use and boost it with the low end satellite internet as and when they need to.