It seems to me in the UK construction costs for railways are now so high that there is really no benefit cost measure that will be much above 1, despite extremely aggressively hyping the economic benefits.
Someone in another thread was wanting the £29bn roads plan to be cancelled (similar to welsh govt) and invested into railways/public transport. But what would that actually buy? 100km of high speed rail? Maybe 200 route km of 'total track' upgrade like TRU? It's not really going to be transformative to the UK economy outside of the small area it covers, unfortunately - and I speak as someone who is extremely pro HS2.
Even small stations seem to cost an eye watering amount, that are extremely hard to justify.
Take Bristol for example, it desperately needs some sort of heavyish rail system, but projected costs of a metro were £10bn+. Compare that to the Tyne and Wear metro; which cost about £250m in 1984 money, or about £1bn now adjusted for inflation. I imagine these schemes are roughly comparable in scope, yet the bristol cost projection is 10x that in inflation adjusted numbers. Something has clearly went really wrong here. £1bn seems to buy you a few km of four tracking and electrification, or one station on the EL (whitechapel cost around that i believe?).
Ironically there is much more cross party political will these days to invest in railways, but the costs are so high that it is hard to justify. What's even more worrying is it doesn't seem to me that cost increases are slowing down at all, if anything the opposite. Perhaps in 10 years that £10bn projection for a bristol metro will look extremely affordable?
Someone in another thread was wanting the £29bn roads plan to be cancelled (similar to welsh govt) and invested into railways/public transport. But what would that actually buy? 100km of high speed rail? Maybe 200 route km of 'total track' upgrade like TRU? It's not really going to be transformative to the UK economy outside of the small area it covers, unfortunately - and I speak as someone who is extremely pro HS2.
Even small stations seem to cost an eye watering amount, that are extremely hard to justify.
Take Bristol for example, it desperately needs some sort of heavyish rail system, but projected costs of a metro were £10bn+. Compare that to the Tyne and Wear metro; which cost about £250m in 1984 money, or about £1bn now adjusted for inflation. I imagine these schemes are roughly comparable in scope, yet the bristol cost projection is 10x that in inflation adjusted numbers. Something has clearly went really wrong here. £1bn seems to buy you a few km of four tracking and electrification, or one station on the EL (whitechapel cost around that i believe?).
Ironically there is much more cross party political will these days to invest in railways, but the costs are so high that it is hard to justify. What's even more worrying is it doesn't seem to me that cost increases are slowing down at all, if anything the opposite. Perhaps in 10 years that £10bn projection for a bristol metro will look extremely affordable?