Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[Xann]

14 hours ago, sidcow said:

The thing is, for the cost of The Elizabeth line they could have built comprehensive tram systems in numerous UK Cities which would have benefit the whole of the UK far more.

Yes

14 hours ago, sidcow said:

If they had done that there would have been huge enquiries and questions over the spend yet no one bat's an eyelid at the ridiculous cost of it and only mild complaint about the enormous overspend and delays. 

Big issue here. Regional news didn't let up between it making national headlines.

14 hours ago, sidcow said:

Whereas HS2 is under ferocious forensic scrutiny from every man and his dog. If it was the same cost for London alone there would be whooping and joy all round. 

There's a massive cost of living problem, with quality of life in freefall for many,  but let's make a third line to Birmingham just for the wealthy at £307,000,000 per mile.

If you thought the botched Failing Grayling production was obscenely expensive at those 2020 prices, we've paying 2022 prices now.

The Tories are shitting it, quite rightly. It's an ongoing financial disaster in a country that's strapped for cash and in steep decline.

Can no one foresee what a state this country's going to be in a dozen years time?

People aren't very bright  

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour 30 minutes on hold to ticket office and then just cuts off. FFS all I want to do is move my seat ! 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Drake tunes. It’s just the same beat with droning monotonous rapping over it. Every song sounds the same! It amazes me how big he is. 

[Follyfoot]

25 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Drake tunes. It’s just the same beat with droning monotonous rapping over it. Every song sounds the same! It amazes me how big he is. 

same with that Meghan Trainor, same song recycled again and again 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

Yes

Big issue here. Regional news didn't let up between it making national headlines.

There's a massive cost of living problem, with quality of life in freefall for many,  but let's make a third line to Birmingham just for the wealthy at £307,000,000 per mile.

If you thought the botched Failing Grayling production was obscenely expensive at those 2020 prices, we've paying 2022 prices now.

The Tories are shitting it, quite rightly. It's an ongoing financial disaster in a country that's strapped for cash and in steep decline.

Can no one foresee what a state this country's going to be in a dozen years time?

People aren't very bright  

I've posted elsewhere about the enormous benefits HS2 will bring.   It's not at all about a few rich people getting to London 10 minutes quicker. That's just plain wrong. 

It'll be here for hundreds of years.  Does anyone question the value of the West Coast Mainline? How much it cost to build? 

Edited November 29, 2022 by sidcow

[Xann]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

I've posted elsewhere about the enormous benefits HS2 will bring.   It's not at all about a few rich people getting to London 10 mibures quicker. That's just plain wrong. 

Just watch.

[sidcow]

10 minutes ago, Xann said:

Just watch.

[bickster]

2 hours ago, Xann said:

Just watch.

Yes we'll watch the WCML freeing up capacity for more commuter services between London and Birmingham. Not only that but it will have advantages related to line capacity in some pretty far flung places like Aberystwyth, WHy Aberystwyth? Because it connects to the WCML at Wolverhampton and that line suffers heavily form delays caused by Inter City trains on the WCML. The WCML will fill the then spare capacity from the removal of Fast services with more Slow and Semi-Fast services which also require less separation between the trains for safety reasons. The benefits of HS2 will be a huge increase in capacity on the existing line. Fast services aren't that efficient

HS2 has absolutely nothing to do with getting between B'ham and London 10 minutes quicker. It's about the massive increase in the number of passengers the existing WCML will be able to accomodate with the fast services removed

And I say that as someone living in a city that is going to be right royally f***ed with HS2 because I'll either have to travel Fast or Semi-fast the Crewe / Stafford for onward travel as our London Fast Service will disappear and won't be replaced with a new service because they cancelled the Liverpool to Manchester improvements and cancelled the later phase of HS2

[ender4]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

they cancelled the Liverpool to Manchester improvements and cancelled the later phase of HS2

Is that definitely cancelled now?  Was that the part that was HS3?  or the Birmingham to North bit?

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Is that definitely cancelled now?

The Liverpool to Manchester line improvements were cancelled years ago. Well before HS3

Or sgould I say... Johnson cancelled it (but said he was modifying it) Truss brought it back and Sunak has so far said bits of it will be funded. I'll be dead before it opens

[sidcow]

Not to mention the thousands of lorries taken off the road by all the extra freight routes. 

Interconnectivity across the West Midlands improved hugely bringing efficiencies currently unavailable and reducing the cost of transporting goods across the UK helping companies become greener and more efficient. 

Peoples lives and routes to new exployment enhanced by improved mobility.  

Not to mention the huge benefits of people being employed by it (mostly in Brum) and the companies away and the South building it creating more jobs and paying more taxes. 

The benefits go on but so much of this hits people away from London as its national infrastructure, not London infrastructure. 

Building major infrastructure in a recession is a good thing and help end recessions sooner. 

[Xann]

The trains aren't shit because of capacity.

Just watch.

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Is that definitely cancelled now?  Was that the part that was HS3?  or the Birmingham to North bit?

Sorry the numbers / names get confuddling. I'm talking about the Northern Powerhouse Rail bit, the West to East and further North bit

[KentVillan]

The arguments people make against HS2 and other grand infrastructure projects are the same arguments people make against building nuclear power stations.

"It'll take too long to build, we need something now."

"It'll take years to recoup the cost."

Etc Etc

Meanwhile the world keeps turning, and 10 years later you're still in the same boat, still saying the same things, wishing you'd done it 10 years previous.

And really it's often just disguised NIMBYism.

[Xann]

I spend thousands a year on trains and regularly use both Birmingham routes to visit family.

The reason trains are shit is because they're run for shareholders.

I think the network should be modernised, but this isn't the project to start with, or the government to oversee such a vast moneyhole.

Let's see the effects of the coming cuts on the country, then decide if the bewildering cost of HS2 was worth it?

[KentVillan]

1 hour ago, Xann said:

I spend thousands a year on trains and regularly use both Birmingham routes to visit family.

The reason trains are shit is because they're run for shareholders.

I think the network should be modernised, but this isn't the project to start with, or the government to oversee such a vast moneyhole.

Let's see the effects of the coming cuts on the country, then decide if the bewildering cost of HS2 was worth it?

This is just restating Tory book balancing austerity ideology… we’re cutting govt spending, therefore this thing is bad because it involves govt spending.

[KentVillan]

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06594/

Quote

What is the state of UK infrastructure?
According to the World Economic Forum, the UK was ranked 11th out 141 countries in terms of the overall quality of its infrastructure in 2019.
There is broad consensus that over the past 40 years the UK has under- invested in infrastructure. The UK Government says that “[f]or too long the UK has under-invested in infrastructure...” In 2015 the OECD found that that since the 1980s UK infrastructure has suffered from under- investment, compared with some competitor countries.

Once you start pitching it as “we should spend more on this infra instead of this infra” you’re just playing along with the short termism.

Pretty much any infra investment that delivers a long term multiplier effect should be done - all of it, in London, in Birmingham, wherever it delivers a benefit. It’s not a zero sum game, there isn’t a finite pool of money.

We’re a rich economy with a good credit rating, there’s absolutely nothing stopping it other than irrationality, Nimbyism and inertia.

Edit: and what's a shame actually is that the Truss / Kwarteng budget has I think made fiscal "responsibility" seem incredibly important in all contexts, but not all deficits are created equal. If you're running up a huge deficit to just fund tax cuts for the rich (etc.) that is different from running a deficit to invest in the infrastructure that supports long-term growth, and I think the markets would react differently. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.

Edited November 29, 2022 by KentVillan

[Xann]

Fix first, expand later.

Quote

 

While most of the focus has been on the energy crisis, huge NHS waiting lists and the economy, public transport is also in urgent need of attention. Our railway has almost come to a halt – yes, on strike days, when workers take action against an enforced decline in their pay and conditions – but also on regular days, because of a chaotic network of private rail operators who simply cannot run the trains on time.

This isn’t just the result of the pandemic slowing our railway system down. The chaos we see today is the result of a complete lack of vision and planning for rail. It is not fit for the future and is unable to provide a reliable, green mode of transport that people can afford...

.... the problems in the system, crystallised for many by the 2018 timetable debacle, were down to fragmentation. Too many chefs in the kitchen. And worse, all those chefs were motivated by their profit-driven interest to pull in their own direction...

.... For far too long, the system has allowed private rail operators to orient the services they provide around what is best for their short-term profit margins. This simply does not work for rail users or workers.

With passenger numbers at their highest in our railway’s history just before the pandemic hit, private rail operators were able to maintain the illusion that they were doing a good job (but low passenger satisfaction numbers show this was never felt by the public). And as conditions tightened during the pandemic, it was unsurprising the system buckled.

In a properly managed railway, the pandemic should have led to the removal of private operators from the system altogether, with it being taken fully into public ownership. It was somewhat surprising this did not happen given the government and its Welsh and Scottish counterparts have shown themselves willing to take on rail franchises – such as East Coast rail, Northern rail, Southeastern, Wales & Border and ScotRail – when their private operators run aground. But instead, we saw the government decide to only take very limited control of the companies’ behaviour while safeguarding their profits.

 

New Statesmen - Yesterday

But no, let's build on a broken foundation, make that cheque blank for the chums at the trough.

[KentVillan]

13 minutes ago, Xann said:

Fix first, expand later.

New Statesmen - Yesterday

But no, let's build on a broken foundation, make that cheque blank for the chums at the trough.

It's not an either / or. How does building HS2 stop any of this from happening?

[Xann]

Just now, KentVillan said:

It's not an either / or. How does building HS2 stop any of this from happening?

Finite resources.

You trust the Tories to deliver anything but corruption, public debt (with increased interest payments) and failure?

Do the easy fix first. Take stock, then expand.

There's a massive swathe of cuts coming. Let's see what they entail before spunking even more billions on a HS2 where the costs were spiralling out of control before the recent massive hikes in inflation?