Great Western Coffee Shop

From another forum ...


What do members feel should be transport-related priorities for Boris Johnson to have sorted out?

Steering the Ship of State safely through dangerous waters would be my first priority.

I suspect that Brexit will be the main priority, with tensions in the Middle East a close second.
Transport is probably fairly low on the agenda.

Transport "policy" will probably consist of rather vague aspirations that don't promise much.

Scrap HS2, commit some of the £100 billion cost to creating & improving nationwide infrastructure for the benefit of all.

Isn't HS2 creating nationwide infrastructure for the benefit of all?

If it is cancelled then expect years of hugely disruptive engineering works as creaking old lines are further patched up.  Anyone remember the West Coast Main Line fiasco at the turn of the millennium?  And of course there's the current disruptive failure to upgrade the GWML to anywhere near original timescales and budget. 

Still, we might save a few billion.  ::)

NO!

He should revive one of his previous bridge plans – a bridge direct from Downing Street to the hairdresser!
He should also revive Boris Island. Return flight not needed!

If I were him, I would keep a fast car around the back, for when it all goes wrong.

Using one fiasco to justify spending £100 billion on another is interesting logic indeed.

Interesting logic, but that's the two options you have.

The botched WCML upgrade came in much under its original scope for around £10bn (2008 prices) after 140mph running, amongst many other things, was shelved.  It still achieved a great deal, but is now starting to creak at the seams again.  So do we spend another £10+bn?  To do much with the East Coast Line will probably cost the same if not more as massive cost would be incurred widening the existing two-track sections south of Peterborough as well as where it is struggling to meet demand further north.  The Midland Main Line is pretty much full and still set to be diesel only beyond Market Harborough and again is pretty near full of trains - perhaps another £10+bn to do anything with that as, amongst other things, St. Pancras would need new platforms.

Those are the three trunk routes that stand to gain from the existing HS2 scheme (the nationwide infrastructure benefiting all part of this), in that they would (in theory at least) enable more freight and local trains to deal with that demand as a healthy chunk of the fast traffic switches to HS2.  So, probably well over £30bn to make some improvements, and the massive disruption upgrading a live railway entails, with nowhere near the affect that HS2 would have on journey times and extra capacity.

Then if you spend some of the remaining money on building lots of new railways serving places currently cut off then that is great news.  Until of course you realise that all these places will often feed more passengers into the existing network which will struggle to cope anyway.  What then?

I guess the point I'm making is that HS2 is a bloody expensive scheme, but in terms of cancelling it, beware of what you wish for!

So, HS2 at any cost?

HS2's chairman has just this past week warned that the project cant meet its £56bn budget and costs could increase by £30bn. That is approaching three times the original estimate. Is £86bn a good price for another railway between Birmingham and London?

Could increase by £30bn.  Recent evidence on railway works suggests there's a good chance they will, but it's an important distinction to those calling it out at costing £100bn.  For me, the cost of construction per year over the lifetime of the project, balanced against the benefits such as employment in the construction industry and supply chain, together with the problems with the alternatives I listed, mean it is still worth doing.  Not at any cost, but at the best estimate of cost the HS2 Chairman currently has.



It is rather more than that though, isn't it?  Others, yes, but I'm a little surprised you would make such as statement.

Wouldn't it be nice Bojo's government electrified Didcot-Oxford-Bletchley for the WCML. A lot of benefit could accrue from this one scheme

Get the Didcot - Oxford stretch done first.

For the Northern Power house,install ticket gates at Preston and Sheffield and it might go some way to financing HS2.

The new PM's first improvement to transport didn't take long. Farewell, Mr Grayling! Time to spend more time with a ferry.