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| Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail (488556) | |
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Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail |
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Posted by Fytton on Mon Sep 10 04:38:19 2007, in response to Re: Phila Inquirer: Gas prices, global warming renewing interest in high-speed rail, posted by WillD on Sat Sep 8 19:05:20 2007. 'That's very true, but that one line is also fairly usless for intranational travel, and the UK's draconian immigration policies on that line limit its utility for that role. IMHO if the first British HSR line had been say London to Birmingham/Manchester then there would be a bigger push for other lines. Instead it can be written off by the conservative MoT folks as an invasion of French thinking which won't be allowed to expand.'There arer several misconceptions in that statement. First, I don't think there is much positive opposition to HSR in the UK; it's more negative, an unwillingness to give it priority for public expenditure over other things like schools and hospitals (and fighting stupid wars at George W. Bush's insistence). Public opposition to new highway and airport proposals tends to be greater, in fact, than to rail proposals. Secondly, the new line will be some, not no, use for internal travel, though obviously not as much use as one going northwards from London would be. Thirdly, UK immigration rules have little to do with the amount of passenger traffic between the UK and the continent; the vast majority of travellers are not immigrants, but UK or other EU citizens on legitimate business or vacation trips, returning to their homeland after a few days or weeks, and the overall number of travellers between the UK and continental Europe continues to grow. The security precautions are a pain, to be sure, but they are actually a worse pain for air travel than for rail travel, so relatively speaking that should benefit HSR over airlines. Finally, the problem with the Department of Transport bureaucrats is not that they are anti-French, but that they are pro-road. |
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