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

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Esker-pades

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It would be pretty easy (not popular) to restrict car travel by rationing patrol and eliminate internal plane flights by banning them.
We don't yet have the rail infrastructure to implement those policies.

Not that I would want those policies implemented anyway. I'm very pro-rail, and very against internal flying, but I'm hesitant to start banning them.
 
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The Ham

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The whole HS2 business case is based on increasing travel. That isn’t good for the environment.

The business case is based in 75% of the 100 million expected passenger movements to come from existing long distance services (75 million).

Of the rest:

1 million will switch from air travel (so based on 200 people/flight that's at least 5,000 fewer flights, I say at least as once a flight had too few people it gets cut so it could be more).

4 million will switch from cars

20 million will be new journeys, however that's new journeys compared to those journeys carried out now. That means that any extra journeys due to population growth would be included within this figure. Those journeys would be happening anyway and without HS2 chances are they would be air travel or going by car.

The reason that they are counted as extra is that we need to be reducing our emissions compared with now, so any extra movements are extra emissions we need to deal with. However by having then go by train that's less of a problem to overcome than of they went by another mode.

That'll lead to people saying "Ah, so therefore we should be limiting our population so at to not increase our emissions".

Maybe, as the UK has a per person emission level of about the worldwide average and is falling fairly quickly. As such on average anyone coming to the UK wouldn't be making the global situation any worse. However, those that come to the UK often come from Europe and other western countries, as such their moving here is likely to result in a net benefit globally.

Of course, those predictions could be wrong, for starters they're already not very accurate due to the growth in rail passengers leading to passenger numbers being about 1/3 adrift from where they currently should be. If this continues then rather than there being 75 million passengers a year from existing rail services it could well be 100 million.

Current fiance rail vs car emissions is that rail is 1/5 of the CO2 emissions, even if you double that is triple that then you are still reducing the total emissions. As such you can "afford" to have quite a few new trips and still be overall "better off" by reducing the number of car trips.
 

Meerkat

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So HS2 creates 20m new polluting journeys, probably with a large number of them involving driving to a parkway station.
And if you take cars off the road you reduce congestion which attracts more car drivers to fill the gap.

HS2 is greener but I wince a bit when it is exulted as a a green solution and can understand why the Green Party aren’t keen
 

SECR263

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Post 3272 : - "The whole HS2 business case is based on increasing travel. That isn’t good for the environment". "4 million will switch from cars."

But how do you get car drivers our of cars with a walk on fares being so high?

I would hope that all the trains are fixed formation of a least 12 cars with no cabs interrupting pass looking for seats, or the trolley selling wares and decent seats. If HS2 generates the traffic predicted to have 2 x 5 cars joined together would be not to the passengers advantage especially when the operator would run a five when he could get away with it leading to mass overcrowding.

Also do we have "an intelligent informed customer" who can see through the paperwork and report to the Government on what is really happening with the project. (costs and timescales) We cannot afford another Crossrail debacle. Dft should pay for an engineering firm to be imbedded with the contractors seeking the truth and not rely on HS2 saying all is wonderful.
 

quantinghome

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So HS2 creates 20m new polluting journeys, probably with a large number of them involving driving to a parkway station.

Calling HS2 journeys 'polluting' is very wide of the mark. Rail is the least polluting long distance transport mode; the UK's electricity supply is already 50% decarbonised and will be well on its way to full decarbonisation by the time HS2 opens. Carbon emissions from HS2 journeys will be effectively zero.

And if you take cars off the road you reduce congestion which attracts more car drivers to fill the gap.

That's an argument against building any alternative to cars.

HS2 is greener but I wince a bit when it is exulted as a a green solution and can understand why the Green Party aren’t keen

It is totally a green solution. I don't understand at all why the Green Party aren't keen. It makes no sense whatsoever.
 

quantinghome

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Post 3272 : - "The whole HS2 business case is based on increasing travel. That isn’t good for the environment". "4 million will switch from cars."

But how do you get car drivers our of cars with a walk on fares being so high?

I would hope that all the trains are fixed formation of a least 12 cars with no cabs interrupting pass looking for seats, or the trolley selling wares and decent seats. If HS2 generates the traffic predicted to have 2 x 5 cars joined together would be not to the passengers advantage especially when the operator would run a five when he could get away with it leading to mass overcrowding.

HS2 is designed to take trains which are 400m long. That's about 16 carriages, 1100+ seats per train. Plenty of scope for cheaper fares.

Also do we have "an intelligent informed customer" who can see through the paperwork and report to the Government on what is really happening with the project. (costs and timescales) We cannot afford another Crossrail debacle. Dft should pay for an engineering firm to be imbedded with the contractors seeking the truth and not rely on HS2 saying all is wonderful.

It quite agree that HS2 do not appear to be a particularly competent organisation. But they are not alone. We are witnessing a crisis in management of large engineering projects.
 

Meerkat

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Calling HS2 journeys 'polluting' is very wide of the mark. Rail is the least polluting long distance transport mode; the UK's electricity supply is already 50% decarbonised and will be well on its way to full decarbonisation by the time HS2 opens. Carbon emissions from HS2 journeys will be effectively zero.

Rail isn’t less polluting if it creates new journeys, and those journeys will not be zero carbon if they involve driving to parkway stations
 

quantinghome

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Rail isn’t less polluting if it creates new journeys, and those journeys will not be zero carbon if they involve driving to parkway stations

Of the new journeys created by HS2, how many are going to come from the 3 planned parkway stations? Of those journeys, how many will involve driving, given all of them are having public transport links developed to serve them? And of those car journeys how many will be ICE-powered, given we're talking about 15 years into the future when electric vehicles will be fully mainstream? You're talking about a fraction of a fraction of a fraction, which will be entirely insignificant to the overall green case for the scheme.
 

jfowkes

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Rail isn’t less polluting if it creates new journeys, and those journeys will not be zero carbon if they involve driving to parkway stations

Any new rail scheme will create new journeys, some of which will involve driving. HS2 isn't special in that regard. Why single it out? Unless you're suggesting a moratorium on all transport investment beyond maintenance.
 

JonathanH

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It is totally a green solution. I don't understand at all why the Green Party aren't keen. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Environmental campaigners are free to argue that *any* non-essential travel is polluting (not recognising that sitting at home increases heating / power demands - maybe you also ration power). So, they might argue that local commuting to ensure that people can get to a workplace is reasonable from a green perspective but long-distance travel should be avoided at all costs as it is never necessary. On those grounds you can take the view that HS2 is very much not needed.

The way to implement this policy is to make all railway lines into 'metro' lines with trains calling frequently at all stations, prevent long-distance travel by not running any trains over, say, twenty miles in length, rationing petrol such that long or frequent journeys are impossible and banning plane flights. Clearly it can't be introduced overnight but HS2 would not be needed.
 

quantinghome

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Environmental campaigners are free to argue that *any* non-essential travel is polluting (not recognising that sitting at home increases heating / power demands - maybe you also ration power).
Anyone is free to argue anything they want, of course. Doesn't make it a sensible argument.

So, they might argue that local commuting to ensure that people can get to a workplace is reasonable from a green perspective but long-distance travel should be avoided at all costs as it is never necessary. On those grounds you can take the view that HS2 is very much not needed.

The way to implement this policy is to make all railway lines into 'metro' lines with trains calling frequently at all stations, prevent long-distance travel by not running any trains over, say, twenty miles in length, rationing petrol such that long or frequent journeys are impossible and banning plane flights. Clearly it can't be introduced overnight but HS2 would not be needed.
Well that would work. One benefit of economic collapse would be a massive cut in emissions, for sure.
 

PeterC

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Anyone is free to argue anything they want, of course. Doesn't make it a sensible argument.


Well that would work. One benefit of economic collapse would be a massive cut in emissions, for sure.
I trust that you weren't taking the post seriously.
 

The Ham

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So HS2 creates 20m new polluting journeys, probably with a large number of them involving driving to a parkway station.
And if you take cars of

No, HS2 is accredited with 20 million journeys which aren't currently undertaken.

A percentage of those will be due to increased population and therefore will happen regardless of if HS2 happens or not.

As such you can't be sure that HS2 would or wouldn't increase emissions compared with what will happen, all you can say is that they will be more people traveling.

It then gets note complex in that some cars will be electric and so will be reducing the emissions of some driving.

Whilst the grid is much greener than it was (even 5 years ago) and so the emissions of rail is falling as more of the network is electrified and those electric trains are using greener electricity.

Overall the picture is unclear, however if HS2 was last assessed on CO2 emissions from electricity mix from 5+ years ago then the emissions will be lower and so the impact of those extra trips (even if they were all additional to what would be happening anyway) is going to be a lot lower. This could mean that it is carbon neutral (after assisting for construction emissions) a lot sooner.
 

Meerkat

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Those journeys won’t necessarily happen if you don’t build capacity for them.
 

AM9

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No, HS2 is accredited with 20 million journeys which aren't currently undertaken.

A percentage of those will be due to increased population and therefore will happen regardless of if HS2 happens or not.

As such you can't be sure that HS2 would or wouldn't increase emissions compared with what will happen, all you can say is that they will be more people traveling.

It then gets note complex in that some cars will be electric and so will be reducing the emissions of some driving. ...
If we are talking about HS2 journeys, then they would be about 200 miles long. It will be some time before a majority of road trips of that length are taken in e-cars. Much more likely that those who have invested in electric cars will mainly use them for local and shorter regional runs.
 

The Ham

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Those journeys won’t necessarily happen if you don’t build capacity for them.

If we don't build HS2 as it may increase journeys for what is a relatively few trips in the greater scheme of things, then we don't provide at least 75 million seats (if not at least 150 million seats) for local travel on the existing network.
 

underbank

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Or we could implement policies to discourage unnecessary journeys, like encouraging firms to set up offices/branches outside the overcrowded South East and back into the regions like there used to be. How about reduced employers NIC for firms who employ workers living within 5/10/20 miles of home? Get employment back into the regions, run-down towns etc. - double whammy - reinvigorate the regions AND reduce excessive commuting distances - what's not to like? Encourage more remote working, skype, internet meetings, etc and discourage people travelling hundreds of miles just to sit in an office for an hour or two discussing things that could have been discussed by remote methods? All HS2 will do is get even more people concentrated in an already overcrowded corner of the country - crazy in this day and age. Govt policy should be to reverse the London-Centicity and grow the regions instead.
 

quantinghome

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Or we could implement policies to discourage unnecessary journeys, like encouraging firms to set up offices/branches outside the overcrowded South East and back into the regions like there used to be. How about reduced employers NIC for firms who employ workers living within 5/10/20 miles of home? Get employment back into the regions, run-down towns etc. - double whammy - reinvigorate the regions AND reduce excessive commuting distances - what's not to like? Encourage more remote working, skype, internet meetings, etc and discourage people travelling hundreds of miles just to sit in an office for an hour or two discussing things that could have been discussed by remote methods? All HS2 will do is get even more people concentrated in an already overcrowded corner of the country - crazy in this day and age. Govt policy should be to reverse the London-Centicity and grow the regions instead.
That is happening (and has been for years), but counter-intuitively, this actually produces MORE long distance travel, not less. I work for a company with many regional offices, and I end up working with people based all over the country. We can do this because it's easy to share information, have conference calls etc. BUT, it does mean I need to travel relatively frequently for meetings, because ultimately you need to be face to face with people. 30 years ago limitations in communication technology would have meant we would all have to be working in the same office to work on the same project and hence travel requirements would be reduced.

Another example - HMRC are due to open a massive new office in the centre of Leeds, a stone's throw from the station. Do you think this will increase or decrease passengers on Leeds-London trains? The same is true for Channel 4, Salford Quays, and the numerous other developments we're seeing around the country.

Employment patterns are now very different to what they were only 30 years ago. Small to medium size towns are particularly affected; previously being relatively self-contained with people working for local employers, there is now much more commuting, mostly to the nearest big city. And employers are much more likely to be part of larger corporate groups which is bound to increase the need for travel. I'm certainly in favour of shifting work to our regions, but don't expect that to reduce the need for travel, quite the reverse in fact.

Over the past 200 years we have seen incredible leaps in communications technology. Can you name a single one that has ended up reducing people's travel?
 

Alex McKenna

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If we are talking about HS2 journeys, then they would be about 200 miles long. It will be some time before a majority of road trips of that length are taken in e-cars. Much more likely that those who have invested in electric cars will mainly use them for local and shorter regional runs.
The range for many new EVs is now more than enough for long journeys, even if you insist on driving non-stop to Carlisle without breaking for a visit to the loo, or a coffee. It is now easy to recharge an EV in 20 minutes.. It will be even easier for long distance with all these new EVs coming in 2020. The Internal combustion engine is going to disappear faster than many oil firms hope..
 

underbank

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Over the past 200 years we have seen incredible leaps in communications technology. Can you name a single one that has ended up reducing people's travel?

Yes, the internet and online accounting software has massively reduced my travel and my clients' travel. I run a small accountancy practice. 20 years ago, we'd have at least yearly meetings as standard with all clients, and all clients would be travelling to our offices to drop off their "books". Now, with email, online accounting software, etc. we can go many weeks without a single client coming through the door and without leaving our offices. We have clients all over the UK and many overseas who we never even speak to, not even by phone, as all support is done via email and we have real time access to their computerised accounting records so there are no "books" to pass between us anymore. Today is Thursday, and not a single client has even phoned us this week, yet we're getting dozens of emails every hour.

We get the occasional new client who thinks they need a face-to-face meeting, simply because that's what they're used to, usually if they've been working for big organisations where face to face meetings are "necessary" simply due to momentum of that's what they're used to. But we just push back and continue working email/remotely and they soon realise they don't need to waste their (and our) time to come for an unnecessary meeting.

I have no doubt that in some cases, face to face meetings are essential, but from my experience, the majority simply aren't. We have meetings where there is something particularly & unusually complex to discuss, like a business being sold/bought or takeover, but for the vast majority of the client interaction, it's just not needed.

I have numerous clients engaged in marketing, training, development, etc. - they're all working from "home based" offices here in the North West, and their clients include blue chip companies, banks, etc., mostly based in London, but their travel is virtually trivial - just the occasional trip, maybe once or twice a month to London where they stay for a couple of days and see a few clients at once. Outside those visits, it's all email, skype, conference calls, etc.

We usually have a laugh at another accountancy practice just 2 doors away. We know the partners there as we all worked together as trainees 40 years ago. Whenever we walk past, there are clients coming and going, dropping off/picking up boxes of "books" etc. Whenever we talk to them, they're always whingeing about how "busy" they are, how they can't get any work done because of constant interruptions from clients coming in, etc. We keep trying to get them to embrace email and online software, but they just can't see it as they're bogged down with the "face to face" mentality.
 

Meerkat

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From years of working on projects in fund administration I still think there is a place for face to face.
Progress meetings are best on calls, but sometimes you achieve much more progress by sitting in a room around the same screen.
For collaborative work there is a definite gain from a physical meeting with all the before and after to develop the relationships
 

AM9

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The range for many new EVs is now more than enough for long journeys, even if you insist on driving non-stop to Carlisle without breaking for a visit to the loo, or a coffee. It is now easy to recharge an EV in 20 minutes.. It will be even easier for long distance with all these new EVs coming in 2020. The Internal combustion engine is going to disappear faster than many oil firms hope..
I agree that the range is adequate for a large proportion of the journeys up-country (e.g. 150-250 mile), but it will take some time for two-car households to have both cars electric and until then, the IC car will be regarded as the vehicle of choice for longer journeys. There's widespread paranoia about range now and it won't disappear overnight whatever the actually achievable range of available vehicles is.
 

underbank

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From years of working on projects in fund administration I still think there is a place for face to face.
Progress meetings are best on calls, but sometimes you achieve much more progress by sitting in a room around the same screen.
For collaborative work there is a definite gain from a physical meeting with all the before and after to develop the relationships

Yes, of course there's still a time and place when meetings are required. What we need to change is the habitual behaviour of just assuming a meeting is needed simply because it's what we're used to. From my experience and observations, I'd say we could all halve the number of long-distance meetings/travel at a stroke without any detrimental effects at all.

Our business insurance firm used to send someone up from Leicester to the Lake District every year to have "renewal meetings". The poor guy used to get to about four or five accountancy practices in the day, approx 30 minutes at each, with the rest of the day spent driving. What a monumental waste of time, money and CO2 emissions. Just why? A few years ago, they changed it and now do telephone calls instead. The same guy tells me he can now do 10-15 renewals per day. There's absolutely no difference between him asking my client numbers over the phone as there was face to face. He now does the paperwork to be e-signed instead of wet signature. I can't even see why he insists on a phone call - it could be done fully via email. If I have any questions/claims/issues etc we communicate by email throughout the year.
 

underbank

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The range for many new EVs is now more than enough for long journeys, even if you insist on driving non-stop to Carlisle without breaking for a visit to the loo, or a coffee. It is now easy to recharge an EV in 20 minutes.. It will be even easier for long distance with all these new EVs coming in 2020. The Internal combustion engine is going to disappear faster than many oil firms hope..

Having been stuck in very slow moving traffic on motorways a few times recently, I'd still be very wary of a limited range electric car. If you're stop/starting at very low speeds for dozens of miles without a service station in sight, you're going to start panicking. And when you get to the service station, it's inevitable the charging points will already be taken by other cars who've been ahead of you stop/starting who now need to charge too.

It's exactly what happens now with the fast food outlets on motorways. Everyone who's been stuck in the traffic stops to go to the loo and get their burger and chips which results in ridiculous queues for the toilets and fast food counter.

I just don't think the charging infrastructure is anywhere near good enough yet and is probably slowing down the take up of electric cars. A motorway service station with just two charging points is a joke.
 

AM9

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From years of working on projects in fund administration I still think there is a place for face to face.
Progress meetings are best on calls, but sometimes you achieve much more progress by sitting in a room around the same screen.
For collaborative work there is a definite gain from a physical meeting with all the before and after to develop the relationships
I agree absolutely, routine communications are now dealt with by electronic means as long as there is fundamental agreement on most points. However, life isn't like that everywhere and (in my experience) engineering disagreements can be difficult to resolve by e-mail dialogues. Video conferencing doesn't always help much either, especially the cheapo desk to desk type which is often conducted with one end or the other (or both) in an unsuitable open plan environment.
Effective communication involves three channels:
a) words - either spoken or written. studies have revealed that as little as 7-10% of the message is communicated this way
b) music - this relies on hearing the voice of the message sender, speed, intonation, emphasis, pauses etc.. In a face to face meeting, this can add 30-40% of the message
c) dance - this include body language from the head down to the feet. Facial expressions, eye movements, mouth and jaw positions, shoulders, hand actions, leg and feet movements, not to mention involuntary actions like flushing or losing facial circulation can contribute up to 50% of the message​
These are all human actions that assist in communicating information, particularly where the two sides don't naturally agree on issues.
E-mail and other purely textual communication is fine for simple factual transfers, but anything nuanced by opinion, or where one party may have something to gain over the other can be doomed to end in conflict.
That is why the always work-at-home boom has been just around the corner for decades, and probably will for some time to come.
 

underbank

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That is why the always work-at-home boom has been just around the corner for decades, and probably will for some time to come.

The work at home boom may be still around the corner for employees, but it's definitely here for the self employed. Very, very few of my clients rent offices or workshops - the vast majority work from home, either in a home office or a workshop/barn type of building in their grounds.
 

AM9

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Having been stuck in very slow moving traffic on motorways a few times recently, I'd still be very wary of a limited range electric car. If you're stop/starting at very low speeds for dozens of miles without a service station in sight, you're going to start panicking. And when you get to the service station, it's inevitable the charging points will already be taken by other cars who've been ahead of you stop/starting who now need to charge too.

It's exactly what happens now with the fast food outlets on motorways. Everyone who's been stuck in the traffic stops to go to the loo and get their burger and chips which results in ridiculous queues for the toilets and fast food counter.

I just don't think the charging infrastructure is anywhere near good enough yet and is probably slowing down the take up of electric cars. A motorway service station with just two charging points is a joke.
Ironically, I think that the actual range of electric cars is less affected by being stuck in traffic jams than IC vehicles. Apart from lighting, - which can be switched to low levels when stationary or crawling, the power consumed per mile by EVs is roughly the same from just above 0mph, to speeds where aerodynamics start to become an issue (say 30-40 mph) above which it gets increasingly less efficient. Add to that the fact that predictable braking gives some energy recovery. But most derivers don't understand how their cars behave in energy terms anyway so the range paranoia spreads, helped greatly by dis-information on social media (not here).
 
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AM9

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The work at home boom may be still around the corner for employees, but it's definitely here for the self employed. Very, very few of my clients rent offices or workshops - the vast majority work from home, either in a home office or a workshop/barn type of building in their grounds.
Different requirements in different areas of business, (or public service). Work at howe is fine where just information is the product but work is also done where it is needed. YMMV.
 
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