Tories flirt with heresy

[Richard Hakluyt]

There's about 30 people who really care about building more windmills and they all work for the Guardian.

I hate to pile onto the Guardian, and I know she only usually writes for CiF, but you know who I can't stand?  Laurie Penny.   Sometimes I read things from New Statesman, where she really is on staff, and inevitably bump into her pieces, and she's almost seems like a right-wing plant in how irritatingly she conveys her pseudo-left perspective.

I particularly liked her piece on how getting her hair cut was a blow against the patriarchy 

Shame about the New Statesman; maybe I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses but it used to be a serious magazine about socialism, nowadays it is more like a soapbox for people overexcited about whatever minority victim status they can manage to claim.

[Valmy]

I particularly liked her piece on how getting her hair cut was a blow against the patriarchy 

The Patriarchate is offended by any cutting of hair!

[Duque de Bragança]

None of it is the least bit surprising is it, Shelf ?

We're what, 14 months off an election and the Tories are tapping into any Nimbyist/Daily Mail friendly prejudice they can find, in an effort to sure up their vote and stop is leaking away to UKIP and the consequent post-election confusion.

Although in fairness, HS2 has its second reading next week.

Will it pass? Britain, namely England has very good geography conditions (small size and lack of mountains) for high-speed train, better than France.

[mongers]

None of it is the least bit surprising is it, Shelf ?

We're what, 14 months off an election and the Tories are tapping into any Nimbyist/Daily Mail friendly prejudice they can find, in an effort to sure up their vote and stop is leaking away to UKIP and the consequent post-election confusion.

Although in fairness, HS2 has its second reading next week.

Will it pass? Britain, namely England has very good geography conditions (small size and lack of mountains) for high-speed train, better than France.

But at least twice the population density. And more so in the South East/Midlands.

[Sheilbh]

Surely that's an argument for more and better public transport?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Greater general capacity and faster local links may be a better way of spending the money 

[Duque de Bragança]

I forgot to mention that high-speed lines work better with high population density.
I've heard the line about the lack of population density ergo of potential in France but it reeked of Nimbyism, in the Basque South-West by the bizarre and very short-sighted coalition of usual suspects of hicks, greens, farmers, hunters, local politicos trying to be relevant. They forgot to mention than it would not be a pure high-speed link and that it would connect Iberia to Europe by rail since one link by Catalonia is not enough.

Richard

Well greater general capacity is obtained by the high-speed link since it the classic line is left to local inter-regional transit.
Avoid "beet stations" though

LGV route designers have tended to build new intermediate stations in suburban areas or in the open countryside several kilometers away from cities. This allows TGVs to stop without incurring too great a time penalty, since more time is spent on high speed track; in addition, many cities' stations are stub-ends, while LGVs frequently bypass cities. In some cases, stations have been built halfway between two communities, such as the station serving Montceau-les-Mines and Le Creusot, and Haute Picardie station between Amiens and Saint-Quentin. The press and local authorities criticised Haute Picardie as being too far from either town to be convenient, and too far from connecting railway lines to be useful for travellers. The station was nicknamed la gare des betteraves ('beet station') as it was surrounded by sugar beet fields during construction. That said, the station is now used by a reasonable amount of people, especially impressive as it has no service to Paris (so not to extract passengers from Amiens station).[23] This nickname is now applied to similar stations away from town and city centres, whether in the vicinity of beet fields or not.

The other classic example would be Lorraine TGV built because Metz and Nancy would not agree on who was to get the main Lorraine TGV station (A4 motorway controversy again!). So They built one in the middle of nowhere and are planning to move it to a somewhat better location.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de_Lorraine_TGV

[mongers]

Surely that's an argument for more and better public transport?

I wasn't taking a for or against position, but implying it means at least twice  nimbyism  rate per sq mile.

[Gups]

Greater general capacity and faster local links may be a better way of spending the money 

HS2 has been marketed very badly. The speed is actually not the main reason for it - it's really about enhancing capacity on the west coast mainline and allowing faster local links to London and to Brimingham (for phase 1).

Whether that is worth the huge price tag is another matter and the destruction of people's property (it's not fair to label people who will lose their home and their communities as Nimbys) and I don't think anyone will really know for some years.

One of the problems with HS2 is that (unlike projects like Crossrail) it doesn't bring any benefits to the communities near the line, since there are no stations between London and Birmingham International. The journey time for someone in Aylesbury won't be reduced one bit - and as they aren't on the WCML, they won't get any capacity enhancement benefits either.

[Razgovory]

I'd say the vast majority of people who claim environmentalism is a religion are opposed to the idea of environmentalism.

I bet you would.

Why wouldn't I?  It's the truth.

[Sheilbh]

Greater general capacity and faster local links may be a better way of spending the money 

We should do both

I think, though I could be wrong, that Beeching closed lots of links that were between other cities in favour of hub routes (largely through London - and, for our sins, Crewe). I think it'd be a good idea to look at them again and see if there's any routes that should be reopened.

For example I always love that Andrew Adonis stat that there was a quicker rail route from Oxford and Cambridge in the 1910s than there is now. It seems mad that we've got two global universities seventy miles apart but it takes about two hours to get from one to the other. There'd be a lot of potential benefits to joining them.

On HS2 I agree with the IPPR idea that we should reverse the construction phases. Start building the phase 2 HS2 links between Leeds, Manchester, Crewe, Birmingham and the rest first (and I'd link to Scotland even if they leave). Then do the planned phases 1 to London. I think as it's currently planned it's a bit mad to say we think it'll help boost the economy in the North and then spend the first decade building a rail-line that'll just drag Birmingham into the commuter belt - helping London, yet again.

It's expensive, £33 billion is a lot but the last upgrade to the West Coast Main Line cost £10 billion and I don't think it's delivered anywhere near as much as HS2 (and more) could. But I think we should be way more ambitious with infrastructure in general - for example building a new airport in London (Boris Island?).

[Gups]

The plans for phase 2 are some years away from being fnalised.Reversing construction would just delay phase 1, it wouldn't bring phase 2 about any quicker.

How does Birmingham becoming part of the London commuter belt help Londoners exactly?

Boris Island is one of the stupidest ideas anyone has ever had in the history of mankind.

[mongers]

The plans for phase 2 are some years away from being fnalised.Reversing construction would just delay phase 1, it wouldn't bring phase 2 about any quicker.

How does Birmingham becoming part of the London commuter belt help Londoners exactly?

Boris Island is one of the stupidest ideas anyone has ever had in the history of mankind.

That assumes the man is incapable of coming up with even worse ideas; I think he has plenty of potential remaining.   

[Agelastus]

Why do people call it "Boris Island"; if he's planning it for where I think he is its just a rehash of an old idea from the Seventies...and the Eighties...and the Nineties...

[mongers]

Why do people call it "Boris Island"; if he's planning it for where I think he is its just a rehash of an old idea from the Seventies...and the Eighties...and the Nineties...

The twist is, in order to save money it's only having a mean height above sea level or around 2ft6.