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

[Noddy]

Perhaps it would be worth considering who benefits from hs2?

1. Londoners?
Well, if you live in London and south east, you are hardly going to pay London House prices to work for less money in the rather characterless Birmingham. If your company moved to Birmingham, perhaps the faster journey might help, but in that case you'd likely sell your London pad and buy a much cheaper bigger house in Birmingham. Should you want to get a bigger house and your firm stays in London, you are likely a winner with hs2.
2. You live in Birmingham or near. Now with hs2 you are a real winner, because you can now possibly get a job in London, with London wages and entertainment etc whilst commuting. So, your Birmingham employer loses you and even more highly paid jobs go to London.

Can someone please advise how Northern or Birmingham businesses thrive as a result of hs2 Unless whole areas of government move north?

You invalidate your argument when you just talk about London and Birmingham. The proposed HS2 directly serves London, Birmingham, parts of Warwickshire, Nottingham and the East Midlands, Manchester, South Yorkshire and Leeds and allows direct travel between many of those places (eg Birmingham-Leeds will go from 2hrs to 1hr). It will also allow much quicker travel from North Wales, Liverpool, Preston, York, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh etc etc to many of those places.

So why are you just talking about Birmingham.

 

[DPWH]

I think it's generally accepted that cities benefit from high speed rail - i.e. London, Birmingham and Manchester - but that benefit isn't really felt by areas in between, especially if there are no stations. As an example, in France the LGVs benefit cities like Paris, Lille, Lyon, Strasbourg, etc but not regional places.

 

[Ianno87]

I think it's generally accepted that cities benefit from high speed rail - i.e. London, Birmingham and Manchester - but that benefit isn't really felt by areas in between, especially if there are no stations. As an example, in France the LGVs benefit cities like Paris, Lille, Lyon, Strasbourg, etc but not regional places.

Through TGV services do serve quite a range of places in France - large and small, even if only once or twice per day in some cases. I get the inpression that having a daily Paris TGV is quite important politically to minor places.

It is true that on the classic main lines from Paris, the residual local services tend to be sparse (but generally serve much less densely populated areas) - very different to the way classic UK services will operate post-HS2.

 

[nidave]

I think it's generally accepted that cities benefit from high speed rail - i.e. London, Birmingham and Manchester - but that benefit isn't really felt by areas in between, especially if there are no stations. As an example, in France the LGVs benefit cities like Paris, Lille, Lyon, Strasbourg, etc but not regional places.

Its been generally accepted that this is not true and something which keeps getting said and ignores one important fact:
Less express on the wcml and ecml means more services for those stations being bypassed currenty.

 

[Dougal2345]

If HS2 is cancelled, what will happen to land already cleared for the work in London and Birmingham - will it be left derelict awaiting the project's revival in 10 or 20 years, or will it be sold off for housing and offices, making a future revival more difficult and expensive?

 

[Bletchleyite]

If HS2 is cancelled, what will happen to land already cleared for the work in London and Birmingham - will it be left derelict awaiting the project's revival in 10 or 20 years, or will it be sold off for housing and offices, making a future revival more difficult and expensive?

I would hope (see my thread on "what if it's canned") that a modified version of the Euston work would still be done to increase the number of long platforms in the station. I don't know about Brum.

 

[D365]

Its been generally accepted that this is not true and something which keeps getting said and ignores one important fact:
Less express on the wcml and ecml means more services for those stations being bypassed currenty.

That's exactly why I bought up Milton Keynes as an example earlier. A town that will benefit from HS2 despite not being served by it.

 

[nidave]

That's exactly why I bought up Milton Keynes as an example earlier. A town that will benefit from HS2 despite not being served by it.

Which people seem to deliberately ignore anything other than "not worth it for just xx minutes quicker to x"

To be fair is a big failing on Hs2 marketing initially however even when it's mentioned here ad nausium that it's not just about speed people seem to still ignore it and we get more " not worth it for xx minutes quicker to x" arguments

 

[si404]

The 'not worth it for X minutes of a journey to Y' arguement against construction also shows why speed does matter. Yes it's a bonus feature rather than the main aim of building a new line, but if we lower design standards then those X minutes claims that make X smaller than it really is will become true, and perhaps even too optimistic and the political case for the line dies, with the naysayers being handed the narrative that even with lies they have been winning.

The naysayers' fake news of £100bn is looking like being proved somewhat right by the construction inflation and scheme slippage (the earlier outlandish figure of £80bn had the lie that CR2 was an essential requirement for HS2 and thus should add £20-£30bn to the cost. A lie that City Hall has been keen to exploit to try and get Whitehall to pay more towards the line that TfL can't afford. I'd be surprised if that £100bn figure doesn't include a sizeable contribution to CR2's budget) created by the lies. It would be silly for HS2 to hand another victory to the antis by (making their falsehoods true) on a platter, even ignoring the costs of a redesign, the relative lack of savings and the loss of benefits.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Grant Shapps seems is making the issue one of capacity over speed see Guardian and LBC interview as well as saying decision in February

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has cast further doubt on whether the government will go ahead with the HS2 rail line by stressing the problem was about capacity rather than speed and making clear he was examining alternatives.

Confirming a final decision would be made in February, Shapps said it was essential to get the facts right before embarking on “maybe the biggest infrastructure project, certainly in Europe, and the biggest this country’s ever taken, certainly in peacetime”.

 

[Purple Orange]

Not sure if this is the right place, but if only Phase 1 is built, what would be the services that operate out of Curzon Street? Would Manc and Leeds trans stI'll go via New St in order to continue on to Bristol and Reading?

 

[Gareth]

I think without Phase 2a, the line between Stafford and Handsacre probably wouldn't cope. Birmingham trains from the north currently don't use this stretch of line.

 

[si404]

Not sure if this is the right place, but if only Phase 1 is built, what would be the services that operate out of Curzon Street? Would Manc and Leeds trans stI'll go via New St in order to continue on to Bristol and Reading?

Unless there's some physical link constructed, Birmingham-Leeds trains definitely will as they're not able to otherwise!

Phase 1 draft service patterns don't have Birmingham-North services using the line. I think mostly because of Gareth's point, but also because the distance trains would spend on HS2 would be rather short and pointless even before you factor in breaking up cross-Birmingham services and the need to continue to serve Wolverhampton-Crewe/Stoke flows anyway - making it simpler to just keep the status quo.

Both Reading trains, however, will likely be diverted via Coventry. And, given it was a planned WCML improvement before HS2 came along, phase 2a (AKA the Stafford bypass) is likely to happen in some form.

 

[Noddy]

If just Phase 1 was built the only trains operating out of Curzon St would be London trains. If Phase 2a is also built you’d start to get other destinations to the NW (Manchester, Glasgow, etc). With Phase 2B you’d get trains to the NE (Leeds, Newcastle, etc) and quicker trains to the NW.

Just building Phase 1 now and cancelling other sections will ultimately just result in a long (and costly) delay in them getting built. As I said above, just like in France or Japan or every other county with HS line, once we have one successful line the politics of the whole thing will change. Then they’ll get built.

 

[krus_aragon]

As I said above, just like in France or Japan or every other county with HS line, once we have one successful line the politics of the whole thing will change.

You're excluding HS1 in that?

 

[Noddy]

You're excluding HS1 in that?

Yes because the internal UK services in Britain that run on HS1 are stopping (eg Stratford) 225kph services rather than intercity 320kph services, they don’t link any major cities together and are in effect fast commuter trains for London serving a ‘relatively’ limited geographic area. The vast majority of folk in Britain live outside this area and haven’t seen or felt the benefits of HS rail. Once Phase 1 and beyond are built a far greater number of folk get to use and experience it, or see other benefits such as more local and regional trains on the WCML (and maybe even less cars on the M1 and M6). Even just Phase 1 has direct effects as far away as Glasgow.

 

[Ianno87]

Yes because the internal UK services in Britain that run on HS1 are stopping (eg Stratford) 225kph services rather than intercity 320kph services, they don’t link any major cities together and are in effect fast commuter trains for London serving a ‘relatively’ limited geographic area. The vast majority of folk in Britain live outside this area and haven’t seen or felt the benefits of HS rail. Once Phase 1 and beyond are built a far greater number of folk get to use and experience it, or see other benefits such as more local and regional trains on the WCML (and maybe even less cars on the M1 and M6). Even just Phase 1 has direct effects as far away as Glasgow.

HS1 *is* successful. Don't get why "only" serving a few million people doesn't mean it's successful? All I see are frequent, full trains on it.

 

[Noddy]

HS1 *is* successful. Don't get why "only" serving a few million people doesn't mean it's successful? All I see are frequent, full trains on it.

I’m not saying it’s not successful!

I’m saying that the vast majority of the UK public haven’t felt any direct or indirect benefit of HS1 (because of its geographic isolation, lower speeds, doesn’t link together multiple large cities or regions, commuter trains etc) and therefore the wider public really haven’t woken up to the many benefits of new High Speed railways. I think once opened the wider public perception of HS2 will move much more in favour of the whole thing, and as a direct consequence see increased public demand for other HS rail projects (which never happened with HS1 because of its very different nature).

 

[matacaster]

Other than a fully designed up, costed, consulted route that has gone through parliamentary scrutiny and recieved powers, of course.

Worth spending money to get right, don't you think?

Yes, of course its worth spending a reasonable amount of money to get it right. £9b sounds unreasonable to me, that is an awful amount of money to spend on preliminaries and not far short of the (truncated) WCML upgrade which actually did deliver something that trains can actually run on.

As I say, if you big up the money on planning etc, you get all the rewards, but no chance of any comeback as virtually nothing has been physically produced except some demolition so no risk. That's how money is made doing reports, investigations etc and produce nothing physical - its incredibly popular in the civil service and many private companies.

 

[matacaster]

Do you think they should build some symbolic mile of track in the middle of the route so that people can point to that as construction work having commenced and then plan the rest of the route?

No, but £9b is ridiculous with no physical output. That's equivalent to 3 UK aircraft carriers including design and build.

 

[Mogster]

How much has defending the multitude of legal challenges cost?

De-scoping on speed will lead to the nay sayers going for the jugular, their major tag line of “it won’t be faster” will then be true. The project will be finished. This is all very depressing.

 

[matacaster]

Oops.

 

[D365]

Yes because the internal UK services in Britain that run on HS1 are stopping (eg Stratford) 225kph services rather than intercity 320kph services, they don’t link any major cities together and are in effect fast commuter trains for London serving a ‘relatively’ limited geographic area. The vast majority of folk in Britain live outside this area and haven’t seen or felt the benefits of HS rail.

To be fair, HS1 is not well known outside of South East London, and even then that might be being generous.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair, HS1 is not well known outside of South East London, and even then that might be being generous.

That doesn't make it a failure. The Brighton Mainline isn't a failure just because a bloke living in Wick neither knows nor cares about it.

 

[matacaster]

How much has defending the multitude of legal challenges cost?

De-scoping on speed will lead to the nay sayers going for the jugular, their major tag line of “it won’t be faster” will then be true. The project will be finished. This is all very depressing.

I'm not convinced it actually needs to be faster unless you live in Scotland. It is and should be about capacity, but wasn't always. £100b to save 30-60 mins on a 2hr journey which could easily be achieved by getting out of bed earlier or rescheduling meetings doesn't seem reasonable. Whether it's the best way of gaining capacity is in fairness more a matter of opinion.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I'm not convinced it actually needs to be faster unless you live in Scotland. It is and should be about capacity, but wasn't always. £100b to save 30-60 mins on a 2hr journey which could easily be achieved by getting out of bed earlier or rescheduling meetings doesn't seem reasonable. Whether it's the best way of gaining capacity is in fairness more a matter of opinion.

Except of course it's not £100bn to save that journey time. It's - maybe £90bn to build a new railway, massively increasing capacity, and maybe £10bn additional cost to make that railway faster than the existing railways. (I'm guessing those numbers, but I'd pretty confident they are correct to the extent that the extra cost of making the line so high speed is pretty small).

 

[Noddy]

No, but £9b is ridiculous with no physical output. That's equivalent to 3 UK aircraft carriers including design and build.

There’s already been a huge physical output. Hundreds, if not thousands, of properties have been purchased. Miles of services have been rerouted. Countless reports on the (previously unknown) heritage of this country have been produced. And that’s just for starters.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

There’s already been a huge physical output. Hundreds, if not thousands, of properties have been purchased. Miles of services have been rerouted. Countless reports on the (previously unknown) heritage of this country have been produced. And that’s just for starters.

According to latest HS2 accounts to 31/3/19 they'd spent c£2B by 1297 properties and £1B on enabling works not clear where the other 6B has gone must be those reports!

 

[Tetchytyke]

The naysayers' fake news of £100bn is looking like being proved somewhat right by the construction inflation and scheme slippage

If it's true it will cost £110bn- and the government report says that's what it'll cost- then what is this "fake news" you speak of?

Naysayers said you wouldn't build HS2 for the original budget. We were right.

HS1 *is* successful.

HS1 is such a roaring economic success it was built for £8bn and sold to the Canadians for £2bn.

Still, it's all about context. Compared to what HS2 have spent £8bn on- demolishing a pub and a derelict goods shed, upsetting the Tory Shires, and, er, that's it- HS1 is a beacon of economic success

 

[TrafficEng]

Except of course it's not £100bn to save that journey time. It's - maybe £90bn to build a new railway, massively increasing capacity, and maybe £10bn additional cost to make that railway faster than the existing railways. (I'm guessing those numbers, but I'd pretty confident they are correct to the extent that the extra cost of making the line so high speed is pretty small).

This is part of the problem. The fact the figures have to be guessed rather than readily available in the public domain makes it near impossible to justify (to the general public) why it is necessary to spend over £100bn on a railway which the promoters have chosen to call "High Speed 2".

Maybe the solution is to do some rebranding? Is there a speculative ideas thread for that?

When the actual costs of the chosen option still haven't been nailed down to +/- £10bn then it isn't surprising there might be doubt about value for money compared to an alternative option.