HS2 and the infrastructure problem

[WashYourHands]

Gideon time



everything’s fine



everything’s grrrreat



everything’s amazing



everything’s something about women



everything’s inclusive chewing up land for lines which won’t even get to south Lancs



long shift

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

What a shitty project. Should have been axed years ago. It might have been a good idea in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Now they need to axe the leg to Birmingham and make good the damage to the Chilterns.

Marginally faster, better trains with decent internet, suave upholstery, and amazing onboard food and drink would do the job better than this bodged shinkansen through some of the most densely populated land in Europe , plus a trans-Pennine East-West route, electrified and powered by nuclear reactors. That's what I would do if I were transport tyrant.

 

[Slothrop]

Canning HS2 means that the trans-Pennine link is fucked too because it was meant to link in to a load of HS2 infrastructure. Also any future infrastructure projects are now going to cost even more as risk gets factored in because we've proved that our governments can't be trusted to actually stick to a plan. We're fucked. Joke country. Can't build a fucking railway.

 

[Mr. Tea]

We're fucked. Joke country. Can't build a fucking railway.

This is the long and short of it.

The tragedy, apart from all the money that's already been spent, is all the houses and pubs and whatnot that have already been compulsory-purchased and demolished, the ancient woodland and meadows that have been torn up, and so on. What a fucking shit-show.

 

[vimothy]

Good article about infrastructure costs in the UK: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too-expensive

 

[Slothrop]

I keep wondering whether part of the solution would be to essentially de-politicise infrastructure by handing off the specifics of the decision making to an independent public organization, kind of like the Bank of England. That way you at least remove a lot of the tendency to fuck around with long-term strategic projects to satisfy the contingencies of electoral politics.

 

[sufi]

george moonbat did an extended rant on this topic in the Guardian newspaper

hard to find much to disagree with

 

[sufi]

I keep wondering whether part of the solution would be to essentially de-politicise infrastructure by handing off the specifics of the decision making to an independent public organization, kind of like the Bank of England. That way you at least remove a lot of the tendency to fuck around with long-term strategic projects to satisfy the contingencies of electoral politics.

there's another set of questions about what counts as infrastructure and who decides

 

[Mr. Tea]

Good article about infrastructure costs in the UK: https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/britains-infrastructure-is-too-expensive

More than £250m has been spent on the Lower Thames Crossing’s 63,000 page planning application. In effect a quarter of a billion spent so one branch of government can ask another branch of government for permission with no guarantee of success.

Right, that's it. Consider me a born-again ultra-libertarian. Time to abolish all governments.

 

[vimothy]

Right, that's it. Consider me a born-again ultra-libertarian. Time to abolish all governments.

This additional bit of detail is mind-boggling:

To put that figure into perspective, that’s more than double the cost of building Norway’s Laerdal tunnel, the longest road tunnel in the world.

In fact, Norway built the world’s longest road tunnel and the world’s deepest subsea tunnel for less than the LTC’s planning application.

 

[Mr. Tea]

This additional bit of detail is mind-boggling:

Yeah, I saw that bit. It feels like a comparison of the average monthly protein intake of someone in India to what the winner of the world hotdog eating contest can put away in ten minutes.

 

[shakahislop]

been trying to think of something interesting to say about this today. the uk doesn't look particularly conducive to high-speed rail coz of the population geography. i don't know about anywhere else but france and spain are spread out, all the population at the edges of the countries and a massive load of nothing in between.

there's a way of looking at infrastucture in general in the UK as being part of the general feeling that it hasn't kept up with modernity. anything related to the state feels like its stuck in a perpetual 1995 (in england at least). but then the only transfomative government since then was the austerity government, so that seems like a logical outcome.

nyc infrastructure wise makes more sense if you think about it as everlasting 1950. places get stuck like that i think. i'm not sure exactly if its the 80s or the 90s that is the equivelent point for england.

 

[sufi]

been trying to think of something interesting to say about this today. the uk doesn't look particularly conducive to high-speed rail coz of the population geography. i don't know about anywhere else but france and spain are spread out, all the population at the edges of the countries and a massive load of nothing in between.

there's a way of looking at infrastucture in general in the UK as being part of the general feeling that it hasn't kept up with modernity. anything related to the state feels like its stuck in a perpetual 1995 (in england at least). but then the only transfomative government since then was the austerity government, so that seems like a logical outcome.

nyc infrastructure wise makes more sense if you think about it as everlasting 1950. places get stuck like that i think. i'm not sure exactly if its the 80s or the 90s that is the equivelent point for england.

i was impressed that the tube improved noticeably under new labour, during my tory era upbringing (and having visited new york) i had assumed such positive developments were not even possible

 

[mixed_biscuits]

It's staggering to think that 100 years ago we'd just built Africa.

 

[version]

This is the long and short of it.

The tragedy, apart from all the money that's already been spent, is all the houses and pubs and whatnot that have already been compulsory-purchased and demolished, the ancient woodland and meadows that have been torn up, and so on. What a fucking shit-show.

Something like this happened with my grandad's timber yard back in the day. He was basically forced out and made to sell because a road was supposed to be built through it then they never built the road and ended up selling it to someone else.

 

[version]

This additional bit of detail is mind-boggling

This is also ludicrous;

'The TransPennine Route Upgrade was designed to electrify the 76 miles of railway connecting York and Leeds to Manchester. When it was first envisioned 12 years ago, it was budgeted to cost £289m and finish in 2019. Yet, a chaotic process means that costs have ballooned to between £9bn-£11bn and the North West is still waiting for the upgrade.'

 

[Mr. Tea]

It's staggering to think that 100 years ago we'd just built Africa.

 

[chava]

It's probably the case that UK is currently the worst place to be in the world for NIMBYism. It's not just infrastructure, also housing is a major issue. The privatization of public assets has also been a disaster compared to other countries. It's hard to fathom what's going on (and what is NOT going on) in the UK sometimes..

Mind you, here in Denmark out national rail doesn't perform that well either

 

[Mr. Tea]

It's probably the case that UK is currently the worst place to be in the world for NIMBYism.

Yeah man, fuck those selfish dickheads not wanting their homes to be demolished for rail projects that may never be built.

 

[chava]

Yeah man, fuck those selfish dickheads not wanting their homes to be demolished for rail projects that may never be built.

Oh just scrap the connection and tell people to move south, oh wait, what the sq ft price around London again?