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Why are people opposed to HS2? (And other HS2 discussion)
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It's not London centric at all, if anything it's Birmingham centric
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Did you miss the bits in this thread about NPR depending in part on HS2? Or all many, many posts that have pointed out to you the different ways that HS2 benefits the North and the Midlands? The faster trains from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds, for example? Or the release of capacity on the Manchester-Stockport corridor?
60% of the benefits of HS2 are for places other than London, if you don't believe me ask those who often highlight that 40% are for London as if this was a reason not to build HS2.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
NPR is itself a solution to Castlefield, isn't it? Because in full it would remove expresses from it, allowing an "S-Bahn-Manchester" concept to be built up?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
It's places-between-Milton-Keynes-and-Euston-centric. Its main benefit is decongesting that horribly congested part of the WCML allowing local and regional express services to be improved. In essence it's another pair of fast lines for that stretch. It also similarly "4-tracks" the line into Birmingham itself, allowing the poor local service between Coventry and New St to be improved. And if it's built all the way into Manchester, it does the same between Crewe/Macclesfield and Manchester Piccadilly - for instance Levenshulme and Heaton Chapel would probably justify 4tph a la Merseyrail but at present there's just no room.
It also provides a benefit to people from places that aren't London who want to go there a bit quicker. Though that is really a side benefit - its main raison d'etre is capacity.
The people it benefits least of the places connected are probably actual Londoners, unless they happen to have work connections with a specific set of cities (e.g. BBC staff).
Well I did hope that putting the sentence in quotation marks would indicate that I was suggesting what the government might say, not putting forward my own view. Sorry if that misled you.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
No chance.
HS2 is a construction organisation, ready to go.
NPR a collection of transport planners, engineering and environmental consultants. The project is at least 5-7 years behind HS2.
To use an aviation analogy: HS2 is at the start of the runway, fully crewed, engines running with full tanks of fuel, waiting for clearance to take off. NPR is a 1:200 conceptual model in the designers office, and no one knows where the factory is to be built.
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
By far the biggest non-London benefit will be the journey times between Birmingham and the North, which will be absolutely transformational compared to current journey times (far more so than to/from London).
squizzler
Established Member
No, shovel ready. The government think railway employees still cook their food on the coal shovel in the firebox."Oven ready"
Which is why I said building bits of HS2 so that both can claim progress.
NPR is seen as actually happening, whilst HS2 would have infrastructure ready to connect to once the Southern end gets further North. It would alleviate the fears that HS2 will just stop being built once it reaches Birmingham and could be seen as "listening" to those who say that it needs to be built from the North as well as from the South at the same time.
I may have misunderstood. There is zero chance of NPR being asked to build parts of HS2 - they are not capable of doing so. Indeed it is much more likely that the people doing HS2 would be asked to build NPR.
It would of course be possible to rebrand parts of HS2 to be part of NPR
Grumpy Git
On Moderation
Why is the route into Manchester so tortuous, its farcical other than avoiding the wealthy Tatton area?
Some rebranding would help a lot. "HS2 Phase 2b" makes it sound like an afterthought.
In general, I think the election result is good news for HS2 and NPR (and hopefully other infrastructure projects too such as Crossrail2 and Heathrow). The worst result would have been a hung parliament where all controversial decisions would have been kicked into the long grass.
civ-eng-jim
Member
While it looks a little curvier than the majority of the HS2 alignment, the spur to Manchester is still a 230kph railway for the bulk of it and of optimal speed as it slows towards the airport station and city station. If the route were to continue on a Southwesterly bearing from Manchester airport it would have to stay in tunnel (£££) to go under Tatton park, Knutsford and Mobberly - nothing to do with the wealth of the area. The route it takes from Manchester Airport to the Junction follows largely open country side.
Are you implying that everything to and from Manchester is going to stop at the airport station? It does look like a somewhat tortuous route, but in fact it seems to be only 4 to 5 miles (c.15%) longer than the direct line from Crewe. No use, of course, for anything going north from Manchester, which just helps to make the point about this being a "London and ..." railway.
Also means that it keeps the HS2 main line towards Wigan fairly straight (thus fast), so Manchester trains slow to take the diverging route, as they're having to slow down anyway for Manchester Airport. Plus it pretty much makes the Manchester Spur as short as is possible (joining at almost right-angles to the main line), joining at the nearest point (saving £££) and parallels the M56 motorway for a distance, reducing its local impact.
This is the problem. Anti HS2 campaigners are very skilled at bombarding their MPs and the media with their protests until everyone thinks that nobody wants it and that there is no business case for it. Pro HS2 campaigners who generally are far better informed simply bombard each other.
civ-eng-jim
Member
I don't know what the stopping patterns will be like for the Airport - My point was principally that you don't need a 400kph-capable alignment all the way up to the buffers. Manchester Airport could act like Watford Junction does today for people in North London by allowing passengers who live in south Manchester area to travel south without having to go into town and come back out again. So there might not be a lot of harm stopping all services there.
Since HS2 isn't proposed to extend north of Wigan at present, another chord at the junction (I'm sure it has a name...) to form a triangular junction (Shown in red in picture) would only provide a longer route to get to the WCML. In future it could facilitate a future north-bound service from Manchester onto an extended HS2 towards Scotland.
Taking up the moderator's advice, I will continue what I wrote on the other closed thread to write that there is no doubt that the most environmental benefits would be obtained by getting people out of local journeys by car, rather than providing faster inter-city travel. Of course one would have to price folk off the railways, motorways and airways. The result would be that only business people and rich ones could undertake more than occasional long-distance journeys, and this would mean that the present WCML infrastructure would be more than adequate, thus destroying the case for extra capacity. Mancunians would have to make do with Skype and Whatsapp when contacting Grandma in Neasden and wait for West End shows to gravitate to Manchester or watch it on TV (etc, etc). Unfortunately for this 'Greta' argument, politicians, except for the Green Party, are not interested in these policies, being mostly middle-aged or older men, who like boys' toys. They also need to get elected. Most of the correspondents on here will be in the same category as I am where fascination for fast things is concerned.
So HS2 it has to be.
So HS2 it has to be.
There's also the argument that by providing HS2 as an alternative to using cars/flying that you can then bring in regulations and/or higher taxes to discourage people from traveling long distances by these other modes.
The more "I can't do that without a car" trips which people are able to do by using the rail network, then the fewer cars which people will "have" to own and so they're more likely to walk/cycle short distance trips as it's not going to be as easy to use the car.
If you live in a household with two cars then you're now likely to have access to a car for that short trip to the school, shops, etc. than of there's only one car. Therefore, with more limited access to a car you're going to walk those sorts of trips.
Few people would justify the cost of owning a car just for journeys up to a mile or maybe two (one expedition would be for health reasons), and so public transport needs to look at how it can provide for those journeys which people make where they justify car ownership (such as visiting family).
If public transport was a viable option for those trips, then the justification for car ownership gets harder to make.
If we increase rail use by 50% (from 8% of miles traveled to 12%) but that reduces car travel by 1/10th (from 78% to 70%) we'll be better off. As not only will we have reduced total milage by 4%, but another 4% will be by a mode which (even if powered by the same fuel source) is more environmentally friendly.
underbank
Established Member
What about the extra mileage between home and the public transport "hub"? People need to get themselves to the railway station in the first place, so there could be a lot of "unforeseen" taxi journeys, lifts from friends, etc., especially in places where bus services are poor or where they don't run early morning/late night or skeleton weekend services. Same at the other end of course. Lots of people live many miles from a train station and likewise their ultimate destination is many miles from a station. Not everyone lives in a city and wants to travel to another city centre.
You need a properly integrated public transport service to run alongside better railway network.
Also it needs to be a proper 24/7 operation. It's stupidity in the extreme that people in the more distant corners of the North West can't get by train to Manchester Airport for the early morning flights, or can't get home again if their return flight lands late at night. You really can't have a public transport system that only works fully during the day time 5 or 6 days per week. Similarly the first South bound London train on a Sunday is 11am from preston. Then people wonder why cars are still the "mode of choice" for most journeys.
I am of the school that thinks new infrastructure is not a wasted investment. However, just building HS2 without any change in the current Regional Political system, will sadly make the case less inviting than what it could be. I would like to see HS2 entice investment away from the South. I would like to see a sea change in our current Regional Political System.
I would like to see strong Regions which can be linked together by great infrastructure improvements. HS2 alone is not the key, but it could be the link that makes things happen.
I would like to see strong Regions which can be linked together by great infrastructure improvements. HS2 alone is not the key, but it could be the link that makes things happen.
Halifaxlad
Established Member
Because perhaps it's needed?But why do we want to improve capacity to Scotland ?
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