Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Money is an object for most people, we need to be more precise into who we are talking about. Yes for an entire family it will be hard to rival the cost of a car but I don't think they are the main demographic that will use the line. An entire family won't be making that trip on a daily or even weekly basis. Families also have other, practical, reasons for use a car when they have children.
I imagine the main demographic would be business travellers.
It can help our economy by encouraging growth, not least the benefits to various businesses and workers that will be building the line in the first place.
Also, as I said, the evidence of HS1 is that high speed tickets are about £5 more expensive.
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Damien - Forgive me but it's a hell of a lot of money to spend saving businesspeople 30 mins on a trip to Birmingham in the case of the first part of the network. Tourists would probably find hiring a car far more cost efficient given that when they get off their high speed train they have to take another form of transport to see the sights anyway.
Chris - Yes of course our railways are already subsidised but look at what the reality is despite that - fares going up by more than inflation year after year. IMHO and given that money will be short for years, this link will require far more subsidy at a time when politicians will be under public pressure to direct that money to other things like the NHS, schools etc. Guess what'll happen? It already has with the existing network. Fares won't start prohibitively high of course but there will be inexorable upwards pressure on them and the result will be that the link will become relatively underused because there isn't the funding (either through fares or subsidy). Sadly, I can't see it being anything other than a drain on the public purse, the only issue being how big a drain.
Guy, I don't think we're going to agree on this but I do think the concept is a good one. If the future was brighter and the money not an issue I'd be happy to see it built. Given where we are, however, I think there are going to be other priorities for the £billions and improving what we've got would be one of them because I think we can all agree that our transport infrastructure is in dire need of improvement.