HS2 is Socially Regressive, Environmentally Damaging and Bafflingly Irrational
The government has finally announced its decision to proceed with a
new high speed railway line between London and Birmingham known as HS2.
This is a brand new railway line that is designed to run at
250mph (400kph) and because of the high speed which means the need for
straight sections and avoidance of curves, it is especially destructive
of the countryside through which it passes. This remains the case in
spite of additional tunnelling.
the weakest justification and business case
The whole project is characterised
by overblown rhetoric about economic growth, reducing the north south
divide and making the nation more prosperous. It is of course nothing
like this at all. It is a very expensive, very environmentally damaging,
very badly thought through transport project. It is one of the most
expensive transport projects supported by any government over the last
three to four decades and has the weakest justification, business case
and rationale.
The project relies on the incredible notion that
the time savings for high income passengers translate into huge economic
gains and in some mysterious way propagate prosperity and happiness
along the viaducts, through the tunnels and along the 75 metres swathe
of concrete, overhead wires, access roads and electrical gear that race
though Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.
Credibility levels are under
more pressure still when it becomes clear that the monetary value of
time savings amounts to such a big number because of the assumption that
the time spent on these trains is non-productive time. In the parallel
universe of high speed rail no one uses laptops, mobile phones and
other technology to get on with work. The forecasts of future demand
levels for business travel take no account of the rapid spread of
video-conferencing and other technologies that substitute electronic
communication for physical travel.
no consultation on alternatives
The deeply offensive
consultation on HS2 gives the game away. The most important things were
not consulted on at all. The massive scale of the environmental damage
caused by HS2 is the result of a design that specifies 250mph/400kph
running. Faster running requires more engineering and straight lines
than a lower design speed. We were not consulted on the route when there
are other options that could be used e.g. following motorways. We were
not consulted on more fundamental options e.g. if we want to create jobs
and reduce greenhouse gas emissions then how does a complete
electrification of the UK railways system stack up by comparison?
HS2 means more travel, more emissions
Supporters
of HS2 have linked the project to a low carbon transport future and
then revealed the true nature of the project which is simply about
encouraging more long distance travel and more carbon emissions. HS2 sits
alongside an assumption that long distance car travel will increase 44%
by 2033 and air travel by 178% by the same year. The new line will
produce an 8% shift away from air and the same away from car. This is
just not good enough for such an expensive project and does not deliver
climate change or sustainable development objectives.
a Green alternative vision
The starting
point for any large transport investment is how it sits within a vision
of what kind of society and economy we are trying to shape. The Green
Party is very clear on this and we want strong city regions with highly
integrated transport systems as good as Zurich or Basle or Frankfurt
stretching for at least 50kms around all our major cities. We want
excellent inter-city linkages between places like Liverpool,Manchester
and Leeds, Liverpool and Glasgow and Exeter, Bristol and Birmingham.
HS2 a socially regressive project
We
want excellent rural public transport so that there is a real choice
between the car and its alternatives. We want a transport system driven
by social justice and fairness and providing high quality choices to all
income groups and all localities. HS2 is a rich person's railway and
the government knows that spending public money on something that simply
will not be used by the bottom 50% of income bands is a reverse Robin
Hood strategy. It is a socially regressive project.
At a time of
massive cuts in public expenditure and a desperate need to upgrade our
big city public transport systems so that they can stand comparison with
Frankfurt, Zurich and Vienna the support given by Labour, Conservative
and Lib Dem politicians to this large scale vanity project is obscene. I
challenge all those politicians who support HS2 to go out onto the
streets and ask real people to choose between spending £17 billion on
reducing the journey time for wealthy rail passengers between London and
Birmingham by 23 minutes - and all the other things we could do for that
pot of money.
Greens are committed to justice in society and for the environment. The
huge cuts the Con-Dem coalition have imposed are a major threat to
social justice and unnecessary. We're fighting the cuts across the
country but the threats to the environment continue.
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