The Department for Transport proposes to build a high speed rail link from London to the Birmingham, the first stage of a new rail system that should eventually link to Manchester, Leeds and on to Scotland.
The project – known as HS2 – was put out for consultation from 28 February until 29 July 2011. During this period, the proposals have been scrutinised by economists, environmentalists, residents in relevant cities and towns along the route, transport and taxpayer associations among others.
The broad consensus
There is a remarkable degree of consensus among the majority of parties consulted that the HS2 plans are deeply flawed and that they should not go ahead in their present form.
In this paper, we will outline the main objections to HS2 along with the evidence that has been collected to support these objections. We will also present alternative proposals to HS2, in order to address the underlying issues which the project seeks to remedy.
The stated need
The Department for Transport argues that the existing West Coast Main Line will reach full capacity by 2025. It proposes to build HS2 in order to provide sufficient capacity for the anticipated growth of passenger numbers beyond this date.
The Coalition Government argues that HS2 will help to address the perceived ‘north-south divide’, in which the north of England suffers economic hardship while the southeast of England enjoys greater prosperity.
The Government believes that HS2 will in addition provide a series of social and economic benefits, through shorter journey times, leading to higher productivity and a reduction of pressure on other rail, air and road routes.
The economic argument
HS2 has released projected figures to show that the economic benefits from shorter journey times to Birmingham will add up to more than £16 billion between the projected launch of the line in 2026 and 2092. For the extended ‘Y’ line up to Manchester and Leeds, this will be £37 billion.
Yet the majority of these benefits come from time savings for business travellers, whose time is valued at £70,000 per year (current value), rising to £225,000 per year by 2085. This level of salary growth is questionable. But even if it were true, it means that the billions proposed for the construction of HS2 will serve as a subsidy to already wealthy people. Far from the solution to the ‘north-south divide’ that the Government claims.
Regarding productivity gains, many businesspeople work on their laptops during train journeys. Shorter journeys no longer mean increased productivity, because time is not wasted.
In order to recoup its investment in HS2 – estimated at £53.9 billion at current prices for the entire Y system – passenger fares will need to be higher than the current fares for West Coast Main Line. Today, businesses are scaling back their premium fare spending and investing instead in teleconferencing and home working.
Projections for future working patterns place more emphasis the use of IT and home working and less on presenteeism and expensive, time consuming business travel for unsure rewards.
At least £750 million has been earmarked for HS2 in the life of this parliament alone, with many billions to follow before a single train has touched the tracks. All of this investment is based on unverifiable future projections, at a time when the national, European and global economy is in a period of crisis and flux.
The ‘overcrowding’ argument
HS2 has projected that for every two passengers currently travelling on the West Coast Main Line, there will be five making the same journey in 2026. This increase in numbers is unprecedented and almost certainly false: overcrowding forces passengers to adopt alternative travel arrangements.
Rail travel has increased in popularity over the past decade as the price of fuel (specifically petrol) has risen sharply. There is no guarantee that this upwards curve will continue, either because fuel becomes cheaper or because cheaper alternatives such as electric powered vehicles become widespread. Rail passenger numbers would then fall, obviating the need for increased capacity.
Road travel, especially up the M1 and M6, is overcrowded, but HS2 will do very little to change this – the government’s own figures suggest a reduction in M1 traffic of 3 per cent.
There are no current flights between Birmingham and London, so there would be no reduction in air travel along this route, while air passengers from Manchester, Leeds or (far into the future) Scotland are unlikely to change their choices because the train is marginally quicker than before.
When the plans for HS2 were originally announced, 2033 was given as the date when demand would support the viability of the new line. This has now been shifted back to 2043 – an entire decade later – and analysis shows that the vast majority (88 per cent) of benefits from the project do not apply until the after 2043.
By any measure, 32 years is a very long time to wait for the major benefits to emerge, from any scheme. Especially one where the benefits themselves are so open to question.
Rail experts fear that although the existing network will experience a reduction in overcrowding as some passengers migrate onto HS2, it will be deprived of investment. As much as £5.8 billion per year could be lost to the conventional network to pay for HS2. There could then be a wholesale network reduction programme, along the lines of the Beeching reforms of the 1960s, where thousands of miles of railway lines closed.
As we will argue later in this paper, improvements to the existing rail network would be a far cheaper and more effective solution to the problems of overcrowding, saving taxpayers’ money in the short and medium term and passengers’ money in the longer term.
The environmental argument
While environmentalists have long preferred rail travel to road, since it is less energy intensive, high speed rail has fewer advantages. Just as driving a car at high speed uses proportionately more petrol, high speed trains use more energy than slower ones.
The Department of Transport’s own 2007 study into the subject, Estimated Carbon Impact of a New North South Line concluded that there were no carbon benefits in a high speed line from London to Manchester. In 2010, the High Speed Rail Command paper estimated that there could be an increase of 440,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year from HS2.
A further government study, Delivering a Sustainable Railway, calculated that a high speed rail journey from London to Edinburgh would result in carbon emissions of 14kg per passenger, against 7kg per passenger at conventional speeds.
Many environmental organisations have added their objections to HS2, including The Wildlife Trust, Friends of the Earth, The Green Party, the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England and the National Trust.
Engineering firm Arup, which carried out the engineering work to identify routes for HS2, opposes the chosen route because, the company argues, its construction costs are too high, it does not follow existing motorway routes and has destructive impact on the countryside.
Very many local groups along the proposed route oppose the plans for environmental reasons, arguing that it cuts through a designated area of outstanding natural beauty and through areas of green belt.
These groups include 14 local authorities which line the route and have gathered significant levels of support, including eminent local residents who have been generous funders of the Conservative Party, but now threaten to withdraw their financial support. The Government’s own Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, is fiercely opposed to the plans and has said she will vote against them.
The Taxpayers Alliance, representing millions of British people, is adamant that HS2 is a wasteful and irrelevant scheme, calling it a ‘White Elephant’.
The logistical argument
The supporters of HS2 point to similar high speed rail systems in mainland Europe and argue that we need to press ahead in order to ‘compete’ with our continental neighbours. But the situation in the UK is very different. Unlike France, our cities are far closer together and are already linked by an efficient rail network. France is double the area of the UK.
In France, the government wrote off the cost of high speed rail construction, allowing the operators to charge low fares. The UK Government shows no signs of doing this, as can be seen from HS1 (the Channel Tunnel link), which charges high fares and is under-used as a result.
The proposed HS2 route does not integrate with existing rail routes, making it logistically inefficient: passengers from many areas of the UK will have to make inconvenient and lengthy journeys to join the route, making a nonsense of its shorter journey times between cities.
Equally, HS2’s route deliberately avoids population centres such as Milton Keynes and Luton, in order to shave further minutes off the London-Birmingham time, when serving these cities could have major benefits and improve profitability.
Following existing motorway routes, such as the M40, would minimise disruption to the environment, make it easier to integrate the route with other rail systems and be cheaper to construct.
HS2 does not address the north-south divide, according to experts who have studied the scheme’s logistics: “It simply makes it easier to ferry people to London,” says Dr John Savin.
The Grand Projet argument
Some proponents of the scheme argue that developed countries need Grand Projets like the Channel Tunnel or the Olympic Games to provide employment, to retain skills and to stimulate the economy. This theme has recurred in 20th and 21st century history from Hitler’s Public Works schemes to the present day.
Yet as the transport writer Christian Wolmar points out, such schemes still need to have a strong raison d’etre: “I don’t think it will change the nature of things; the Channel Tunnel was clearly useful.” He feels strongly that incremental improvements to the UK’s existing rail system would be far more beneficial and less expensive.
Some alternatives
Many rail transport experts and other interested parties would prefer to see increased investment in the existing rail network, rather than the unproven, hugely expensive gamble of HS2.
They would like to see:
• An expansion to Euston station, to help it cater for increased demand. This could be achieved within a few years, rather than the decades needed for HS2
• High speed trains and tracks incorporated into existing lines
• Longer, modernised, more frequent trains that can accommodate more passengers
• An investment in local rail services in the north of England, which would do more to address the north-south divide than HS2 would accomplish
• Specific improvements to areas of the UK where investment is needed, such as Northampton commuter traffic, the bottleneck in traffic north of Nottingham, or the London to Brighton line
• Light rail construction programmes to bring more commuters into cities
• Investment to electrify the UK’s car fleet to reduce carbon emissions and make car travel affordable once more
This entry was posted in Sample Copy. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.
HS2 Briefing Paper – David Nicholson
Introduction
The Department for Transport proposes to build a high speed rail link from London to the Birmingham, the first stage of a new rail system that should eventually link to Manchester, Leeds and on to Scotland.
The project – known as HS2 – was put out for consultation from 28 February until 29 July 2011. During this period, the proposals have been scrutinised by economists, environmentalists, residents in relevant cities and towns along the route, transport and taxpayer associations among others.
The broad consensus
There is a remarkable degree of consensus among the majority of parties consulted that the HS2 plans are deeply flawed and that they should not go ahead in their present form.
In this paper, we will outline the main objections to HS2 along with the evidence that has been collected to support these objections. We will also present alternative proposals to HS2, in order to address the underlying issues which the project seeks to remedy.
The stated need
The Department for Transport argues that the existing West Coast Main Line will reach full capacity by 2025. It proposes to build HS2 in order to provide sufficient capacity for the anticipated growth of passenger numbers beyond this date.
The Coalition Government argues that HS2 will help to address the perceived ‘north-south divide’, in which the north of England suffers economic hardship while the southeast of England enjoys greater prosperity.
The Government believes that HS2 will in addition provide a series of social and economic benefits, through shorter journey times, leading to higher productivity and a reduction of pressure on other rail, air and road routes.
The economic argument
HS2 has released projected figures to show that the economic benefits from shorter journey times to Birmingham will add up to more than £16 billion between the projected launch of the line in 2026 and 2092. For the extended ‘Y’ line up to Manchester and Leeds, this will be £37 billion.
Yet the majority of these benefits come from time savings for business travellers, whose time is valued at £70,000 per year (current value), rising to £225,000 per year by 2085. This level of salary growth is questionable. But even if it were true, it means that the billions proposed for the construction of HS2 will serve as a subsidy to already wealthy people. Far from the solution to the ‘north-south divide’ that the Government claims.
Regarding productivity gains, many businesspeople work on their laptops during train journeys. Shorter journeys no longer mean increased productivity, because time is not wasted.
In order to recoup its investment in HS2 – estimated at £53.9 billion at current prices for the entire Y system – passenger fares will need to be higher than the current fares for West Coast Main Line. Today, businesses are scaling back their premium fare spending and investing instead in teleconferencing and home working.
Projections for future working patterns place more emphasis the use of IT and home working and less on presenteeism and expensive, time consuming business travel for unsure rewards.
At least £750 million has been earmarked for HS2 in the life of this parliament alone, with many billions to follow before a single train has touched the tracks. All of this investment is based on unverifiable future projections, at a time when the national, European and global economy is in a period of crisis and flux.
The ‘overcrowding’ argument
HS2 has projected that for every two passengers currently travelling on the West Coast Main Line, there will be five making the same journey in 2026. This increase in numbers is unprecedented and almost certainly false: overcrowding forces passengers to adopt alternative travel arrangements.
Rail travel has increased in popularity over the past decade as the price of fuel (specifically petrol) has risen sharply. There is no guarantee that this upwards curve will continue, either because fuel becomes cheaper or because cheaper alternatives such as electric powered vehicles become widespread. Rail passenger numbers would then fall, obviating the need for increased capacity.
Road travel, especially up the M1 and M6, is overcrowded, but HS2 will do very little to change this – the government’s own figures suggest a reduction in M1 traffic of 3 per cent.
There are no current flights between Birmingham and London, so there would be no reduction in air travel along this route, while air passengers from Manchester, Leeds or (far into the future) Scotland are unlikely to change their choices because the train is marginally quicker than before.
When the plans for HS2 were originally announced, 2033 was given as the date when demand would support the viability of the new line. This has now been shifted back to 2043 – an entire decade later – and analysis shows that the vast majority (88 per cent) of benefits from the project do not apply until the after 2043.
By any measure, 32 years is a very long time to wait for the major benefits to emerge, from any scheme. Especially one where the benefits themselves are so open to question.
Rail experts fear that although the existing network will experience a reduction in overcrowding as some passengers migrate onto HS2, it will be deprived of investment. As much as £5.8 billion per year could be lost to the conventional network to pay for HS2. There could then be a wholesale network reduction programme, along the lines of the Beeching reforms of the 1960s, where thousands of miles of railway lines closed.
As we will argue later in this paper, improvements to the existing rail network would be a far cheaper and more effective solution to the problems of overcrowding, saving taxpayers’ money in the short and medium term and passengers’ money in the longer term.
The environmental argument
While environmentalists have long preferred rail travel to road, since it is less energy intensive, high speed rail has fewer advantages. Just as driving a car at high speed uses proportionately more petrol, high speed trains use more energy than slower ones.
The Department of Transport’s own 2007 study into the subject, Estimated Carbon Impact of a New North South Line concluded that there were no carbon benefits in a high speed line from London to Manchester. In 2010, the High Speed Rail Command paper estimated that there could be an increase of 440,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year from HS2.
A further government study, Delivering a Sustainable Railway, calculated that a high speed rail journey from London to Edinburgh would result in carbon emissions of 14kg per passenger, against 7kg per passenger at conventional speeds.
Many environmental organisations have added their objections to HS2, including The Wildlife Trust, Friends of the Earth, The Green Party, the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England and the National Trust.
Engineering firm Arup, which carried out the engineering work to identify routes for HS2, opposes the chosen route because, the company argues, its construction costs are too high, it does not follow existing motorway routes and has destructive impact on the countryside.
Very many local groups along the proposed route oppose the plans for environmental reasons, arguing that it cuts through a designated area of outstanding natural beauty and through areas of green belt.
These groups include 14 local authorities which line the route and have gathered significant levels of support, including eminent local residents who have been generous funders of the Conservative Party, but now threaten to withdraw their financial support. The Government’s own Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, is fiercely opposed to the plans and has said she will vote against them.
The Taxpayers Alliance, representing millions of British people, is adamant that HS2 is a wasteful and irrelevant scheme, calling it a ‘White Elephant’.
The logistical argument
The supporters of HS2 point to similar high speed rail systems in mainland Europe and argue that we need to press ahead in order to ‘compete’ with our continental neighbours. But the situation in the UK is very different. Unlike France, our cities are far closer together and are already linked by an efficient rail network. France is double the area of the UK.
In France, the government wrote off the cost of high speed rail construction, allowing the operators to charge low fares. The UK Government shows no signs of doing this, as can be seen from HS1 (the Channel Tunnel link), which charges high fares and is under-used as a result.
The proposed HS2 route does not integrate with existing rail routes, making it logistically inefficient: passengers from many areas of the UK will have to make inconvenient and lengthy journeys to join the route, making a nonsense of its shorter journey times between cities.
Equally, HS2’s route deliberately avoids population centres such as Milton Keynes and Luton, in order to shave further minutes off the London-Birmingham time, when serving these cities could have major benefits and improve profitability.
Following existing motorway routes, such as the M40, would minimise disruption to the environment, make it easier to integrate the route with other rail systems and be cheaper to construct.
HS2 does not address the north-south divide, according to experts who have studied the scheme’s logistics: “It simply makes it easier to ferry people to London,” says Dr John Savin.
The Grand Projet argument
Some proponents of the scheme argue that developed countries need Grand Projets like the Channel Tunnel or the Olympic Games to provide employment, to retain skills and to stimulate the economy. This theme has recurred in 20th and 21st century history from Hitler’s Public Works schemes to the present day.
Yet as the transport writer Christian Wolmar points out, such schemes still need to have a strong raison d’etre: “I don’t think it will change the nature of things; the Channel Tunnel was clearly useful.” He feels strongly that incremental improvements to the UK’s existing rail system would be far more beneficial and less expensive.
Some alternatives
Many rail transport experts and other interested parties would prefer to see increased investment in the existing rail network, rather than the unproven, hugely expensive gamble of HS2.
They would like to see:
• An expansion to Euston station, to help it cater for increased demand. This could be achieved within a few years, rather than the decades needed for HS2
• High speed trains and tracks incorporated into existing lines
• Longer, modernised, more frequent trains that can accommodate more passengers
• An investment in local rail services in the north of England, which would do more to address the north-south divide than HS2 would accomplish
• Specific improvements to areas of the UK where investment is needed, such as Northampton commuter traffic, the bottleneck in traffic north of Nottingham, or the London to Brighton line
• Light rail construction programmes to bring more commuters into cities
• Investment to electrify the UK’s car fleet to reduce carbon emissions and make car travel affordable once more