Well this is about Middlewich, and to traffic from Northwich, Knutsford and Altrincham to Crewe.
It's not to reduce traffic on the A556 (which won't be impacted by the Middlewich rail line according to the finance case) or in places from Altrincham north. From a glance at the finance case of those 340 people who will use the staiton, about 100 people go to crewe, about 100 to manchester, and 100 to Altrincham/Stockport, and then presumably return later. Another 40 will go from Crewe to Northwich, Knutsford and Altrincham, and 40 from N/K/A to Crewe. I suspect there will be very few interchanging at Northwich.
Is it to create more journeys that wouldn't otherwise be worthwhile (i.e. someone who is unable or unwilling to drive to their destination would use the train if it existed, but wouldn't use the bus)?
Is it to provide resilience in the transport network (like with the far north line)
Is it to reduce the cost to the economy (in time and money) of existing journeys
Is it to reduce the cost to the individual (in time and money) of existing journeys
Or is it to move existing journeys, perhaps reduce the traffic at railheads where people currently drive and park?
I'm impressed that a new station at Middlewich will only cost £370k, given a temporary station at Workington north cost £210k (£240k in todays money). I guess that 24/7 working really jacked up the price! A new car park at Leighton Buzzard station cost £1,000,000, so to reopen a line, open a new station and upgrade another station for £970k is amazing value for money.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of it, the total cost is about
7 hours of a token bombing of Syria, and the returns look far better than the Borders line.
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So how are those 4, 8 and 12 coach trains in the north west going? And the 6tph on the chester line?
The demand for road transport is inevitably far higher than that of rail because cars take people from where they are to where they want to be, where trains take them from somewhere else to somewhere else. Roads only create the demand for a journey in that they enable journeys that wouldn't normally be taken as the cost (in time/stress)/benefit ratio is lower.
But people will only use the road or the rail if it goes where they want to go. Typically people don't "go out for a drive", they have a journey to make. A new road will mean taking that journey from somewhere else (a different road, a bus, a train), or allowing a journey to be made that would be otherwise not made (thus costing the economy if we accept that journeys lead to economic activity, and that that's a good thing).
Given that nowhere near 1500 people per hour use the chester-altrincham line, this line is more like 1500 people per day (in each direction - about 1 million journeys per year), this would be 2 cars per minute on a road, even if every person had their own car.
A station at middlewich will serve 680 people per day, or about 42 people per hour, or about 1 car every 4 minutes in each direction. It won't make any difference to traffic levels anywhere.
