HS2 support in 2015

[Snapper]

New blog on the election & the anti Hs2 campaign;

"Phew – what an election night that was! Those pundits claiming it was going to be boring were proved wrong. Then again, so were the pollsters. So much for a hung Parliament and another coalition…"

More here...

https://paulbigland.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/hs2-the-election-first-thoughts/

 

[Envy123]

I share the concerns of the northern cities becoming "commuter towns" once HS2 opens and driving house prices there up, but that's high speed rail for you. People commute daily from Figueres to Barcelona in Spain using high speed rail, the same will happen with HS2 and the other major cities.

 

[NotATrainspott]

I share the concerns of the northern cities becoming "commuter towns" once HS2 opens and driving house prices there up, but that's high speed rail for you. People commute daily from Figueres to Barcelona in Spain using high speed rail, the same will happen with HS2 and the other major cities.

As I've said so many times before, the possible effect of HS2 upon commuting patterns in Northern cities could only be tiny. Manchester is a city of 3m people, of whom only a few thousand would ever be able to fit on the HS2 trains in the morning peak.

 

[Philip Elliott]

As I've said so many times before, the possible effect of HS2 upon commuting patterns in Northern cities could only be tiny. Manchester is a city of 3m people, of whom only a few thousand would ever be able to fit on the HS2 trains in the morning peak.

No Manchester is a city of 550,000. The figure you quoted is for the county of Greater Manchester. In that case the town of Warwick has population of over 2 million...:roll:

 

[quantinghome]

No Manchester is a city of 550,000. The figure you quoted is for the county of Greater Manchester. In that case the town of Warwick has population of over 2 million...:roll:

Surely the conurbation population is more relevant here? The city of London has a resident population of only a few thousand, but that has no relevance for planning transport.

 

[NotATrainspott]

No Manchester is a city of 550,000. The figure you quoted is for the county of Greater Manchester. In that case the town of Warwick has population of over 2 million...:roll:

Surely the conurbation population is more relevant here? The city of London has a resident population of only a few thousand, but that has no relevance for planning transport.

Precisely. Wrangling over the actual definition of city boundaries doesn't change the fact that 3m people live in or near the urban conurbation centred on Manchester city centre, and would be the people taking trains, buses and trams in to then take HS2 services to wherever else.

 

[Philip Elliott]

The City of London has a population of 8 million - ignore that square mile rubbish which is just the financial district.

The conurbation of 'Greater Manchester' (Manchester + Salford + Stockport + Sale) etc is a little over 1 million.

To get the 3 million figure requires a radius that includes Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Oldham and Wigan and millions of acres of open farmland. Those 'urban farms' must have really taken off then...

What station do you think residents in the Wigan area will use - Wigan North Western or Manchester Piccadilly? To include the population of Wigan as part of Manchester for transport planning is demonstrably wrong.

 

[NotATrainspott]

The City of London has a population of 8 million - ignore that square mile rubbish which is just the financial district.

The conurbation of 'Greater Manchester' (Manchester + Salford + Stockport + Sale) etc is a little over 1 million.

To get the 3 million figure requires a radius that includes Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Oldham and Wigan and millions of acres of open farmland. Those 'urban farms' must have really taken off then...

What station do you think residents in the Wigan area will use - Wigan North Western or Manchester Piccadilly? To include the population of Wigan as part of Manchester for transport planning is demonstrably wrong.

I'm sorry, but where else are the people of Oldham and Bury going to go to take HS2 services? For people on the very west of the Greater Manchester built-up area they may have a choice but the service provision for Wigan itself is going to be not much more than one classic-compatible service an hour, compared to three captive services an hour in the centre of Manchester. The idea that the population of the built-up area is irrelevant in planning public transport provision for Manchester is totally absurd.

 

[33Hz]

A summary of the voting patterns re HS2 http://blog.railnews.co.uk/?p=257

 

[7griffinjack]

The City of London has a population of 8 million - ignore that square mile rubbish which is just the financial district.

No it doesn't. The City of London has a population in the region of 7000.
Greater London has a population of over 8 million.

Greater London is split into 32 boroughs, similar to the way that Greater Manchester is divided into 10 boroughs.

And if you exclude Wigan from the debate, the Manchester Urban Area still has a similar population in the region of 2.7 million when the adjoining areas of Cheshire etc are included. While the Manchester Urban Area isn't as densely populated as Greater London, to disregard nearly 2.2 million inhabitants because they aren't part of the borough of Manchester is ridiculous.

 

[Haydn1971]

Oh dear... There's always one :-/

 

[AM9]

Oh dear... There's always one :-/

Why doesn't somebody just say what (in their opinion) the population of a Manchester HS2 station catchment area is? Then maybe have an argument about just how much traffic it might generate, rather than argue semantics about what constitutes a city population.

This discussion is in danger of degenerating into another north vs south or even another Liverpool vs Manchester argument!

 

[Haydn1971]

It's the splitting of hairs that generally makes me sigh and go do something else, but appears to form the bedrock of Internet forums....

Anyways, the catchment areas... In my humble opinion, the catchment will largely be dependant on the linkages to the HS2 station rather than any geographical borders, direction of linkage is vital too, for example, would you go back on yourself 10 miles to get HS2 or head to the next onwards station 30 miles downstream....

At the early stages of this proposal, geographical areas are an easy way to look at at point to point travel, add factors for potential growth, bingo... £100k later and hulking thick report... As the design moves forward, more detail has to be co-ordinated into the reporting, costing more and producing more report thickness.

Without having access to the raw data available, I doubt that anyone outside of the HS2 design teams could reasonably calculate expected catchment areas for a service that doesn't exist, but provides a step change in travel choice.

 

[HSTEd]

Well Manchester Picadilly and Manchester Airport can be safely assumed to subvert all the London bound traffic out of Manchester Picadilly, Stockport and probably Wilmslow. Especially with the transport investment supposedly plotted in in connection with regard to Metrolink.

If the stockport Metrolink line does get built all you would need is a curve and you could run Stockport-Airport trams.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Precisely. Wrangling over the actual definition of city boundaries doesn't change the fact that 3m people live in or near the urban conurbation centred on Manchester city centre, and would be the people taking trains, buses and trams in to then take HS2 services to wherever else.

You under estimate the power of an imaginary line drawn in the sand. I was born barely 29 miles from Manchester but would not knowingly give it a fraction of a sheckel. If I can avoid it on my journeys I will and I will despise anyone who forces me to use it as a 'hub'.

 

[Deerfold]

You under estimate the power of an imaginary line drawn in the sand. I was born barely 29 miles from Manchester but would not knowingly give it a fraction of a sheckel. If I can avoid it on my journeys I will and I will despise anyone who forces me to use it as a 'hub'.

I was born 25 miles away from Manchester. I was two buses or one bus and a train from both Leeds and Manchester with similar journey times to each. Until I was in my late teens I'd visited Manchester 3 times, having lived, worked and been educated in West Yorkshire. I had little to no interest in Manchester or Lancashire.

However once I was of an age to enjoy a night out at a club, my trips to Manchester became far more regular - Leeds nightlife gave up at around 2am, with my last train being 2230 (and that involved a 2 minute run to get my last bus or a 40 minute walk home.

In Manchester I could stay out all night and make my way home on the first bus or train for a fraction of the cost of a taxi home from Leeds.

Once I went to university in Nottingham I came home via Leeds if I wanted speed or via Manchester if I wanted a scenic bus ride through the Derbyshire Dales. Fares were similar.

My point being - things can change if there is some reason for people to choose that route.

Do you have a good reason for disliking Manchester so much?