White elephant road closures…

[Ivan stewart]

Great so as well as HS2 being the biggest waste of money and bad for the environment, it’s now starting to affect the road network with roads sometimes trunk roads and motorways being shut , causing economic damage ,inconvenience, diversions and danger with unsuitable roads being overused ..
Cunch of bunts Labour and that Bellend Adonis and then Tory cretins continuing with it oh well onward and upward…

[TDK-C60]

Ivan stewart said:

Great so as well as HS2 being the biggest waste of money and bad for the environment, it’s now starting to affect the road network with roads sometimes trunk roads and motorways being shut , causing economic damage ,inconvenience, diversions and danger with unsuitable roads being overused ..
Cunch of bunts Labour and that Bellend Adonis and then Tory cretins continuing with it oh well onward and upward…

When did you start to care about economic damage?

[valiant]

Construction causing inconvenience shocker.

Hold the front page.

[Chrisgr31]

Bad for the environment? As a mode of travel it will produce significantly less emissions than the cars on the road, and of course it’s construction is creating significantly less emissions than the construction of any road

[sociopath]

Ivan stewart said:

Great so as well as HS2 being the biggest waste of money and bad for the environment, it’s now starting to affect the road network with roads sometimes trunk roads and motorways being shut , causing economic damage ,inconvenience, diversions and danger with unsuitable roads being overused ..
Cunch of bunts Labour and that Bellend Adonis and then Tory cretins continuing with it oh well onward and upward…

So. You're saying a more right wing tory government than we already have (the mind boggles), would have a better solution?

[towser44]

It is a fair point, the M42 has been closed for over a week with a 17 mile diversion in place. Pretty cool video though about how they moved an entire new bridge in to place!

[Electro1980]

TDK-C60 said:

When did you start to care about economic damage?

Or the environment.

[andygo]

Chrisgr31 said:

Bad for the environment? As a mode of travel it will produce significantly less emissions than the cars on the road, and of course it’s construction is creating significantly less emissions than the construction of any road

Are you sure about that or have you just made that up? Where I live- Bucks- there are some seriously big holes and tunnels being put in place, because as you might know, trains are particularly poor at going up or down hills. Or keeping on time. Or getting you just where you want to be. Or even reasonably priced.

HS2 is a monumental waste of money. Convince me otherwise, I'm all ears.

[Chrisgr31]

Here is a link to HS2's own page on carbon https://www.hs2.org.uk/why/carbon/

https://mediacentre.hs2.org.uk/news/hs2-completes-...

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/hs2-comple...

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/sustainability/...

Have a look at an aerial view of the M2 bridge over the River Medway at Rochester. COmpare the size of the motorway bridge with the adjacent HS1 bridge.

And this one on roads v HS2 https://hs2.green/the-carbon-numbers-what-is-the-f...

[LukeBrown66]

Let us also face the fact that this is being done on a massive scale all over the country, not just for big developments.

I routinely sit in traffic light controlled zones where no work will g on for days on end, yet for some reason the lights are there before everything else, as is the gormless moron sitting in a car being paid to supervise, this is all costing you and I money.

I have said for a long time now, the default for councils and HA is "give me one good reason why we do NOT close the road" Blame insurance, as that is the backbone of most health and safety.

[skwdenyer]

andygo said:

Are you sure about that or have you just made that up? Where I live- Bucks- there are some seriously big holes and tunnels being put in place, because as you might know, trains are particularly poor at going up or down hills. Or keeping on time. Or getting you just where you want to be. Or even reasonably priced.

HS2 is a monumental waste of money. Convince me otherwise, I'm all ears.

It depends on where you want to get to, where you are right now, etc.

Don’t forget that, had the Thatcher govt not been so monumentally stupid, APT would have given us very good fairly-high-speed rail back in the 80s.

Further back, had Beeching been reigned-in a bit, we would have retained a world-beating rail network able to deliver the sort of integrated transport system we now need.

HS2 in fact is using a part of the Beeching-closed Great Central Main Line…

But given where we are now, North-South rail capacity is at a premium. Services work well - I regularly travel Skipton-London and back; the East Coast Main Line delivers a decent, mostly-affordable service. But where we struggle is in capacity (not enough trains per hour) and, to a slightly lesser degree, speed.

Speed point-point tends to be driven more by timetables right now than by train speed. Capacity-building is important. And it is hard to do that without building new permanent way.

Where we have a real problem is in rail around the regions. Take the North; all those Beeching-axed lines used to join up very well. Now Skipton-Manchester (say) takes well over 2.5 hours compared to a 45 minute drive by road. There used to be a line via Colne - long-gone.

We also need to put much more parcel freight back on the railways. Back in the 80s, I could - and did - take a parcel to the Red Star counter in (say) Manchester and have somebody collect it from the counter in Euston the same day. The capability we’ve lost is staggering.

Going back to HS2, anything that helps to unify the Midlands with London is a good thing. But more importantly, increasing capacity (not just for inter-city travel, but for intermediate stations on the existing routes) is a significant win IMHO.

Long term, of course, there might be a place for autonomous road vehicles in this mix - I’d love to be able to work on my laptop on the motorway! But realistically how far are we away from that? And those are never going to be as fast city-city as a decent rail service.

[Condi]

andygo said:

HS2 is a monumental waste of money. Convince me otherwise, I'm all ears.

I doubt you are "all ears", but if you really want to learn then this video with a railway engineer is very good at explaining what HS2 bring and why we need it... Jump to about 4 mins in to hear what the benefits are.

Edited by Condi on Sunday 1st January 23:30

[voyds9]

TDK-C60 said:

Ivan stewart said:

Great so as well as HS2 being the biggest waste of money and bad for the environment, it’s now starting to affect the road network with roads sometimes trunk roads and motorways being shut , causing economic damage ,inconvenience, diversions and danger with unsuitable roads being overused ..
Cunch of bunts Labour and that Bellend Adonis and then Tory cretins continuing with it oh well onward and upward…

When did you start to care about economic damage?

As the government trumpets the economic advatage of the seconds save by a faster train, shirley having a longer journeyis just as important. Unless the end justifies the means

[dvs_dave]

HS2…..gammon grrrr!

[greygoose]

voyds9 said:

As the government trumpets the economic advatage of the seconds save by a faster train, shirley having a longer journeyis just as important. Unless the end justifies the means

What do you mean?

[Biggy Stardust]

voyds9 said:

As the government trumpets the economic advatage of the seconds save by a faster train, shirley having a longer journeyis just as important. Unless the end justifies the means

It's actually more about capacity than speed.

Learn.

[voyds9]

greygoose said:

voyds9 said:

As the government trumpets the economic advatage of the seconds save by a faster train, shirley having a longer journeyis just as important. Unless the end justifies the means

What do you mean?

One of the previous governments selling points for HS2 was the time shortened by travelling would gnerate income.
iirc they said the shortening of travelling time would generate £XXBn in income.

What I think they failed to take in to account was a shortening time of travel would generate more Facebook time.
Using their logic taking a detour or sat in a traffic jam generates a loss at the same rate??
You start work at 9:00am. getting in at 8:35 or 8:32 make no difference.

[bigothunter]

Biggy Stardust said:

voyds9 said:

As the government trumpets the economic advatage of the seconds save by a faster train, shirley having a longer journeyis just as important. Unless the end justifies the means

It's actually more about capacity than speed.

Learn.

Speed and capacity are relevant to rail travel.

But speed and capacity are no longer relevant to road travel. Improving either would not be fashionable.

Think.

[GranpaB]

Condi said:

andygo said:

HS2 is a monumental waste of money. Convince me otherwise, I'm all ears.

I doubt you are "all ears", but if you really want to learn then this video with a railway engineer is very good at explaining what HS2 bring and why we need it...

Learnt a lot and really enjoyed that.

Thanks!

[Biggy Stardust]

bigothunter said:

Speed and capacity are relevant to rail travel.

But speed and capacity are no longer relevant to road travel. Improving either would not be fashionable.

Think.

I suspect I've built more road & rail infrastructure than you but I support your freedom of speech.

Edited by Biggy Stardust on Monday 2nd January 00:25