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

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jayah

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The fact that we're already providing something shouldn't mean that we have to keep it. Using that argument would mean that we kept our coal powered power stations as we already had them.

If we reduced the amount of roads which we're maintaing, either by reducing the total miles and/or by reducing the width of them then the net result could be a reduction in emissions.

Now whist there's an increase in travel due to HS2 much of that comes from the way it is being assessed. In that any increase in population which uses HS2 counts as new trips, this is the right way to assess it. However it doesn't provide an assessment of the number of new car journeys.

However as a comparison by 2050 the strategic road network is expected to grow by between 29% and 59% so a comparable percentage of new trips as HS2 (when you compare on a similar time frame, where in 15 years time it'll be between 15% and 30%).

However given that 25% of HS2 is 25 million trips, whilst 15% to 30% of the strategic road network is an increase of about 180 to 360 million trips.
Coal generated electricity has been replaced by gas and wind.

I am unclear what you are proposing to replace the M1 with?

Road vehicle usage has barely grown in 20 years. Rather like the rail network, usage grows when capacity is increased and little expansion has taken place since the 1990s.

Road growth forecasts are fanciful - based on extrapolating three consecutive years of slight growth over decades. The actual figure is still barely changed on 2000. But more importantly HS2 is the biggest strategic transport project since the motorway programme and makes no meaningful impact on road transport.
 
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jayah

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I absolutely agree. But jayah said:

It clearly isn't too far to reach by other means, and '100% car ownership' being blamed on this being 'too far' would suggest that for some people, the only reason that they need a car is to get to the station.

Putting a huge number of new homes in an empty green field by virtue of it being an airfield 70 years ago is not sensible planning and is not conducive to public transport.

It is clear from the expansion of station parking what effect token gestures are having. Sadly HS2 is but another example of disintegrated transport.
 

Ianno87

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Putting a huge number of new homes in an empty green field by virtue of it being an airfield 70 years ago is not sensible planning and is not conducive to public transport.

It is clear from the expansion of station parking what effect token gestures are having. Sadly HS2 is but another example of disintegrated transport.

But surely you need HS2 to free up local network capacity first, in order to mean there's then capacity for an influx of passengers to stations made possible by local schemes?
 

jayah

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But that isn't a rational choice.
Buying a car, along with all the expense involved that's required to run it, just to drive to a station that can be easily reached in ten minutes by bus is not rational.
Using a car that you *already have* is possibly more rational, if the cost of fuel and parking is less than the cost of the bus.
So all those people owning cars are wrong? People en masse make rational choices, when you live in a field surrounded by houses you need a car. If you want to reduce car ownership (remember that is where most of the emissions come with EVs, not from actual use) then a completely different approach is needed. HS2 as the largest strategic transport project since the motorway network is not coming close. More car parks in fields at Toton will actually drive employment out of town and make the problem worse.

We should not be entertaining £100bn on a project that delivers so pitifully little change in modal share. That is why parties like the Greens are also opposed.
 

Bletchleyite

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We should not be entertaining £100bn on a project that delivers so pitifully little change in
modal share. That is why parties like the Greens are also opposed.

And this is why we have such an unpunctual rail system.

It's a resilience and capacity project for the south WCML. A bit like Manchester Piccadilly P15/16.

It isn't supposed to bring masses of modal share.

Why are we so opposed to this kind of thing in the UK? In Switzerland they build the appropriate infrastructure for the timetable. We need to as well.
 

jayah

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But surely you need HS2 to free up local network capacity first, in order to mean there's then capacity for an influx of passengers to stations made possible by local schemes?
Outside London most rail networks are slow, inconvenient grossly underutilised with tiny trains running very full even at peak times that can't operate without huge subsidies even when they are completely full.

You would be much better off looking schemes to get more routes into or under the likes of Birmingham, Manchester and running longer trains on the lines you already have, instead of fragmenting and disintegrating the existing connectivity with new city stations and others some miles out of town.
 

jayah

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And this is why we have such an unpunctual rail system.

It's a resilience and capacity project for the south WCML. A bit like Manchester Piccadilly P15/16.

It isn't supposed to bring masses of modal share.

Why are we so opposed to this kind of thing in the UK? In Switzerland they build the appropriate infrastructure for the timetable. We need to as well.

In Switzerland they operate a timetable based on the infrastructure that exists. Here they operate based on the infrastructure they wish they had.

The arguments for HS2 as provincial capacity relief are very weak. Little of the congestion at New Street or Piccadilly is caused by those London trains. Provincial trains are far too slow. The routes need massive re engineering. There are many sizeable settlements with no station. In 2019 regional lines in the north should not be at 30mph average speeds.

Switzerland is a good example. They didn't treble capacity through Zurich by betting the house on building a high speed line to Bern?
 

The Ham

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Coal generated electricity has been replaced by gas and wind.

I am unclear what you are proposing to replace the M1 with?

Road vehicle usage has barely grown in 20 years. Rather like the rail network, usage grows when capacity is increased and little expansion has taken place since the 1990s.

Road growth forecasts are fanciful - based on extrapolating three consecutive years of slight growth over decades. The actual figure is still barely changed on 2000. But more importantly HS2 is the biggest strategic transport project since the motorway programme and makes no meaningful impact on road transport.

Whilst there's been some replacement of coal powered power stations with other methods of generation some have gone as we now use less energy than we did in the past due to being more energy efficient.

The same could be true of travel. Some would be replaced by rail, however others just wouldn't need to be replaced if the roads were more efficient. In a 12m length of road you can fit 2-14 people of they use cars, however use a bus and you can get 70 people in the same space.

That means instead of needing 5 lanes of traffic you can replace it with a single lane. However that's fairly simplistic in that it doesn't take into account stopping distances. However given that buses need slightly longer to stop, whilst 2 cars need less distance but that distance to be double, the overall difference isn't going to be that much different.


A lot of trips are fairly short and so the impact of not driving would be fairly small.

For instance 22% of all trips are less than 1 mile, however ~19% are made by a mode other than walking (the vast majority of which are driving). Likewise 56% of all car trips (by number) are less than 5 miles. Those distances lead themselves to other modes fairly well (less so walking once you get above about 2 miles, but even then that's not totally outrageous to do).

Those short distance tend to happen in cars as people "need" a car for other purposes. By improving rail (including HS2) you reduce that "need" and so reduce the likelihood of someone owning a car in the first place.

If you reduce the likelihood of them owning a car then they stop driving those short distances as the cost of owning a car increases to the point is not viable.

Few people who own a car will be paying less than £2,000/year in purchase/deprecation, maintenance, insurance, finance, replacing tyres and other costs associated with ownership which doesn't include fuel costs.

£2,000 gets you a fair distance on bus/train season tickets. Even if you throw in some car hire and taxis. If you are doing much less than the average (circa 7,000 miles a year) milage in a car then chances are you are paying quite a high figure on a per mile basis.

Where have I said that we should replace the M1?

I've given the distance of road which could be closed to result in a net zero carbon emission of we built HS2. However chances are it wouldn't be just close 350 miles of the total strategic road network, is more likely to be not need to build a given road improvement or reduce the size of a road (say from 3 lanes to 2) which could be viable if alternative travel options existed. Whether that's better local facilities like improve local trains, buses, cycle lanes and the like or whether that's building a new intercity line, in any case being able to compress the amount of roadspace required for any given number of people to travel.
 

Comstock

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But true the best way to cut emissions is to cut economic activity. Not sure that is good policy though...

Well that is basically the policy of Green parties across Europe. How you do it in practice without making the poor poorer has never really been explained to my satisfaction.
 

Ianno87

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Outside London most rail networks are slow, inconvenient grossly underutilised with tiny trains running very full even at peak times that can't operate without huge subsidies even when they are completely full.

You would be much better off looking schemes to get more routes into or under the likes of Birmingham, Manchester and running longer trains on the lines you already have, instead of fragmenting and disintegrating the existing connectivity with new city stations and others some miles out of town.

Funnily enough, HS2 indeed provides an extra route into Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds....
 

jayah

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Well that is basically the policy of Green parties across Europe. How you do it in practice without making the poor poorer has never really been explained to my satisfaction.
Most advocates of zero net carbon would have you believe it can be done without shrinking the economy and will actually generate additional jobs. The focus being decarbonisation of what is already there and not building any more airports or main roads.

I am not aware of any mainstream party questioning the existing trunk road network.
 

jayah

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Funnily enough, HS2 indeed provides an extra route into Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds....
HS2 relieves relatively few paths into the major conurbations the vast majority of which of local trains.

At Euston, even leveraging OOC, there is a more than doubling 2010-37 of National Rail LUL interchanges under Phase 2 as East Coast / East Midlands custom is sucked out of KGX/STP. I don't see an viable plan to manage this.

The idea of building a new terminal station in Birmingham disconnected from New Street is one of disintegration.

The comparison with Zurich where they delivered a new route for both IC and regional trains, removed many reversals and saved 8-9mins on reversing services - all for about 3% the cost of HS2 despite going straight under the city and building 4 new platforms underground, is clear to see.
 

jayah

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Nothing could really reduce the faff. I only have to walk 15 minutes to get a fast train to London, then in station transfers via tube.
How do you make that easier than just getting in my car?
Very few people outside the M25 can walk to a fast London train (or even their nearest conurbation) in 15mins from their door.

Where that is the case you will find rail has a high modal share and car ownership is much lower.
 

jayah

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I don't knbow how EVs manage heating and ventilation/cooling but I assume that heating relies in part of heat given off by the battery when working. Maybe that will drive better insulated vehicles and better ventilated cooling systems as well.
Even if four passengers with their phones with fully flat batteries all charged then at the same time, that would be no more than 10W x 4 for less than an hour, - a drop in the ocean given that even now, EV batteries are upwards of 30kW* so the phones would only deplete them by less than 1/750th of the total.
* I wouldn't count the current range of sub-100mile range cars as being relevant as we are talking about the future.
Nissan Leaf accord to Wiki is 40-62KWH.
 

Bletchleyite

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Switzerland is a good example. They didn't treble capacity through Zurich by betting the house on building a high speed line to Bern?

But they did enhance capacity (and as a sideline speed) on a number of relations by adding a NBS - Neubaustrecke - bypassing a section of line and adding two more tracks.

This is exactly what HS2 does for the south WCML. It also does it for the WCML local stations around Manchester once the whole thing is built, and the Trent Valley local stations, but to a lesser extent. I think the HS bit is shouted about to stop the regions shouting "but what about us" - I'm not sure that wasn't a mistake, as that's sort of being lied to, and they wouldn't shout about how Crossrail would benefit the regions as it, er, wouldn't.
 

Railwaysceptic

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Outside London most rail networks are slow, inconvenient grossly underutilised with tiny trains running very full even at peak times that can't operate without huge subsidies even when they are completely full.

You would be much better off looking schemes to get more routes into or under the likes of Birmingham, Manchester and running longer trains on the lines you already have, instead of fragmenting and disintegrating the existing connectivity with new city stations and others some miles out of town.
I agree with this, although as a general proposition, not just in the context of HS2.
 

jayah

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But they did enhance capacity (and as a sideline speed) on a number of relations by adding a NBS - Neubaustrecke - bypassing a section of line and adding two more tracks.

This is exactly what HS2 does for the south WCML. It also does it for the WCML local stations around Manchester once the whole thing is built, and the Trent Valley local stations, but to a lesser extent. I think the HS bit is shouted about to stop the regions shouting "but what about us" - I'm not sure that wasn't a mistake, as that's sort of being lied to, and they wouldn't shout about how Crossrail would benefit the regions as it, er, wouldn't.
Only HS2 trains use the new station at Birmingham. There is an added delay and capacity constraint resulting at all HS2 stations that are terminals. Large terminal stations are a bad habit we should be moving away from.

All HS2 trains still have to use Euston. Again HS2 ends there, it doesn't go through. There seems to be no credible plan to cater for the huge uplift in onward travel from Euston even when a good proportion of Crossrail capacity has been absorbed by tapping that from OOC.
 

Ianno87

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HS2 relieves relatively few paths into the major conurbations the vast majority of which of local trains.

At Euston, even leveraging OOC, there is a more than doubling 2010-37 of National Rail LUL interchanges under Phase 2 as East Coast / East Midlands custom is sucked out of KGX/STP. I don't see an viable plan to manage this.

It's called Crossrail 2.

The idea of building a new terminal station in Birmingham disconnected from New Street is one of disintegration.

The comparison with Zurich where they delivered a new route for both IC and regional trains, removed many reversals and saved 8-9mins on reversing services - all for about 3% the cost of HS2 despite going straight under the city and building 4 new platforms underground, is clear to see.

Well we *could* do that for Birmingham, HS2 or otherwise. But it would be vastly more expensive and disruptive to the city centre (underground stations need surface worksites).

Curzon Street on the other hand protects the existing city (which is basically across the street anyway) whilst stimulating development on otherwise unused brownfield, unused land in the immediate area.
 

si404

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KX/SP traffic diverted into Euston can board the Northern (City branch) or SSLs one stop earlier, or the Victoria one stop later. There will be a big upgrade of Euston tube and the integration of Euston Square into Euston NR as part of the station's rebuild for HS2.

HS2 traffic on the tube at Euston isn't expected to be the main driver of increased demand for the tube there - increases in demand for travel in London is. CR2 uses HS2 as an way to try and get national funding and support by saying it's not just a London and South East scheme, but necessary due to lines opening 1-200 miles further north. TBF, it is, but it's not the main reason why another Euston to West End line is needed.

DLR to Euston is more about Docklands (can't merely have the Lilac Liz Line to OOC - got to have another connection to HS2!) and DLR problems (Bank being the only real interchange for Z1, and incredibly crowded because of that) than distributing traffic from Euston.
 

The Ham

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All HS2 trains still have to use Euston. Again HS2 ends there, it doesn't go through. There seems to be no credible plan to cater for the huge uplift in onward travel from Euston even when a good proportion of Crossrail capacity has been absorbed by tapping that from OOC.

In addition to Crossrail 2 or should be noted that the Southern Approach to Heathrow will reduce the need for a lot of Southern England which is served by SWR services from having to travel though London.

That not only reduces the number of people traveling to/from Euston but also reduces those traveling to/from Waterloo.

It would also improve local rail capacity as well as making long distance rail travel more attractive when partnered with HS2. Which is likely to reduce the need for people to own a car.
 

HSTEd

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One could probably rebuild New Street to take all the trains going into Birmingham, including HS2, but it would be obscenely expensive.

Would involve a loop tunnel in all likelihood so the station turns into a one way loop

Only 46 trains per hour off-peak into NS at present, and they have 13 platforms in the existing station complex.

With all trains rolling in the same direction you could eliminate conflicts and get many more trains than that going through.
 

The Ham

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Very few people outside the M25 can walk to a fast London train (or even their nearest conurbation) in 15mins from their door.

Where that is the case you will find rail has a high modal share and car ownership is much lower.

It very much depends on where you live, where I live nearly all of the circa 8,000 (soon to be 9,000+) people who live in my settlement can walk to a train station with a fairly quick journey to London. (Or probably explains why rail usage is circa 800,000 per year)

When I lived with my parents it was a 15 minute cycle ride to the nearest station with fast links to London and a similar cycle time to a different station to two other significant towns. That was in a town with 50,000 in it.

Now whist is true the larger the settlement the harder it is to be within 15 minutes of the train station, there's relatively few places which fall into this category. However even those which do will have a significant population which are still able to walk or cycle to the train station within 15 minutes.
 

jayah

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One could probably rebuild New Street to take all the trains going into Birmingham, including HS2, but it would be obscenely expensive.

Would involve a loop tunnel in all likelihood so the station turns into a one way loop

Only 46 trains per hour off-peak into NS at present, and they have 13 platforms in the existing station complex.

With all trains rolling in the same direction you could eliminate conflicts and get many more trains than that going through.
The Swiss did all of this for something like £3bn. It is after all one station, 4 platforms and a few km of tunnel. About 20% of Crossrail.
 

jayah

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KX/SP traffic diverted into Euston can board the Northern (City branch) or SSLs one stop earlier, or the Victoria one stop later. There will be a big upgrade of Euston tube and the integration of Euston Square into Euston NR as part of the station's rebuild for HS2.

HS2 traffic on the tube at Euston isn't expected to be the main driver of increased demand for the tube there - increases in demand for travel in London is. CR2 uses HS2 as an way to try and get national funding and support by saying it's not just a London and South East scheme, but necessary due to lines opening 1-200 miles further north. TBF, it is, but it's not the main reason why another Euston to West End line is needed.

DLR to Euston is more about Docklands (can't merely have the Lilac Liz Line to OOC - got to have another connection to HS2!) and DLR problems (Bank being the only real interchange for Z1, and incredibly crowded because of that) than distributing traffic from Euston.
The demand forecast for National Rail to LUL at Euston 2010-2037 in the AM peak is of the order 30,000 to 65,000.

Are you sure this isn't mainly to do with HS2? Tube travel has actually stagnated in recent years.
 

jayah

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Crossrail 2, Euston DLR extension?
None of this is funded. Crossrail 2 will leave little change from £40bn.

A railway dumping another 100,000 a day at Euston and expecting someone else to clear up the mess as well as saturating Crossrail 1 is a project that needs a rethink.
 

jayah

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It's called Crossrail 2.



Well we *could* do that for Birmingham, HS2 or otherwise. But it would be vastly more expensive and disruptive to the city centre (underground stations need surface worksites).

Curzon Street on the other hand protects the existing city (which is basically across the street anyway) whilst stimulating development on otherwise unused brownfield, unused land in the immediate area.
Another terminal station is a massive failure. Another station detached from the transport hub at New Street is a second massive failure.

The Zurich project is well worth a read. It translates very well towards Manchester or Birmingham.

Crossrail 2 on the other hand, not committed, will need about £40bn to clear up the mess created by repeating the failure of centuries past in dumping 100,000 extra people a day at a terminal in Euston.
 
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