Cutting off the North from HS2 is a national disgrace
Cutting off the North from HS2 is a national disgrace
Ripping up plans to extend HS2 north of Birmingham will mean a life sentence of travel misery for tens of millions of travellers
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They should have started building in the north. Starting building in the south now seems like a deliberate move to get extra lines around London under the guise of something that would benefit the whole country
California HSR did this technique and honestly it isn't going a whole ton better. Hopefully they connect Los Angeles and San Francisco with the central valley high speed line eventually, but it would have served a lot of people better to start in the cities and connect them through the valley later. Those lines in the cities could have been used for regional rail services while the valley line was completed. Specifically it would have been great to see a new SF to Sacramento line via San Jose and the LA to Lancaster line via Burbank.
I have no idea what you're talking about
Sorry I'm too used to transit communities where everyone is in the know about big international projects.
In California they are building the first phase of the high speed rail project through the middle of the state where there is relatively little demand for rail. So we will end up with a high speed line that won't get nearly as much use if they end up canceling the project. In California San Francisco and Los Angeles both are nearly equally as large and ridership will probably be dominated by trips to or between one of those cities.
I guess the difference in UK is the North has quite a few large cities that are each much smaller than London, so it doesn't have that same "bi-pole" setup. Building starting in the north would improve connectivity between those cities. But I guess my question is, would there be much demand for travel between the northern cities as compared to demand between the north and London?
That demand is already there - hundreds of thousands of people already attempt to commute by rail between cities in the North every day - but we're cramming 400 people onto a train with capacity for 200, and it's taking an hour to travel 50 miles, and most days there'll be random cancellations scattered about, so it... umm... could do with a bit of work :)
If you only ever invest in the southeast, then of course there will be more people and productivity there. That doesn't mean it's a good idea