To think that spending billions on UK transport infrastructure is crazy?

[YarkYark]

God, my AIBU sounds like I'm a journalist (I'm not) but this drives me crazy.

During and after the pandemic this country proved pretty adequately that business can carry on pretty much as usual without endess face to face meetings. I used to go to many of these, both in the UK and abroad, inevitably it meant hours or days of travel and associated costs, often all for the sake of a few hours where little would be decided - except the date of the next jolly. Actual decisons would likely be done over the phone the next day.

So why, why, why does this country need to be investing is super high cost projects like HS2 and a third runway for Heathrow. Why will there continue to be a need for people to travel to do business when we shoud be investing in a world leading internet infrastructure and cut out all the travel nonsense and associated issues?

What am I missing?

YABU: Of course UK needs to improve its transport links, otherwise we'll never grow as a country.

YANBU: You're right, we're thinking like its the 1990s, get with the future, Britain.

The estimated time saved over existing faster trains to Birmingham is 15 minutes. 37 was to Manchester.

Other railways via the Chiltern? That protected AONB? The Chiltern Line. If you have never heard of it, you know nothing about railways coming out of London. Therefore a lot of what you say is very dubious and other arguments totally wrong. Of course the existing line could be improved and that should have been done first. Especially as a section of it goes very close to Heathrow. It’s totally wrong to destroy the countryside to this extent.

Who wanted to pay for anything starting in Edinburgh ? The Westminster hating Scot Nats? Do not think that’s a starter. With the political uncertainty if I was at Westminster I’d not be spending £ in Scotland.

@DdraigGoch

You’re deliberating misinterpreting passenger numbers. Of course the number travelling between the extremes of the trans pennine route is relatively small. But what of the millions travelling between the cities and big towns using that route, ie between Leeds and Manchester, Preston and Manchester, Sheffield to Leeds, York to Leeds, Newcastle to Manchester, Liverpool to Manchester, and all other places such as Bolton, Huddersfield, Oldham, Rochdale. All points north to/from Manchester airport inc Glasgow and Edinburgh. Millions use the route, but not the entire route!

York 9 million passengers
Leeds 23 million passengers
Manchester Victoria 8 million passengers

do you think that the public transport network is there to serve businesses? What a bizarre view. What about routine travel? Tourism? The North is a public transport desert - it's a disgrace.

The estimated time saved over existing faster trains to Birmingham is 15 minutes. 37 was to Manchester.
@TizerorFizz The Pope is Anglican and bears have indoor plumbing. Yes, I could argue that black is white too. My figures were published in Department for Transport reports and are consistent with comparable journey times on the continent.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/259487/NTS_for_web_ES_3.0.0.pdf
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/628526/CS866AHS2Phase2aEconomic_case.pdf

Your sources are?

If you want to count intermediate flows I'll happily add in Birmingham-London, Birmingham-Manchester, Liverpool-London, Glasgow/Edinburgh-London... all of which will use the HS2 infrastructure.

Even taken individually most of those flows are each larger than the sum total of transpennine traffic.

@YarkYark
"During and after the pandemic this country proved pretty adequately that business can carry on pretty much as usual without endess face to face meetings."

What a load of cobblers.
Many people struggled with the isolation associated with remote working, especially the younger generations as they are missing out on crucial personal relationships that help pave their way in the professional environment.
If you want to work from home, go ahead and do it but do not impose it on the rest of us.

We need to improve our transport links. Our transport infrastructure is embarassing.

If Manchester Victoria is 8 million, I would imagine Manchester Piccadilly is a lot more.

I don't drive, I live in London, I've got to the age of 47 using public transport alone. But there's a reason I can't go on a lot of holidays north of Brum: getting around is a nightmare.

It's not just airports and rail that needs investment, it's bus services too. The Tories cut services to the absolute bone and beyond but even before they got to power in 2010 getting around much of the UK without a car was a total PITA.

People don't JUST use transport infrastructure (I include road traffic in this) to go to work but for all kinds of other reasons. I think if the Government invested more money in transport infrastructure over much if the nonsense they spend taxpayers money on, then more people will be able to get out of the cuties and enjoy what our country has to offer far more easily, and surely the money they spend doing so is reason enough to pursue the idea? Maybe I'm too idealistic.

And no, I can't pass my driving test for reasons that are none of anyone's business.

And why do you think public transport infrastructure is just for workers? Tourists and non drivers also like to travel around.

I wouldn't mind so much money being spent on trains if we didn't have to pay so much to use them. Most of the time, it's still cheaper and more convenient to travel by car. If they want to get me out of my car, they need to start bribing me with cheaper train fares. See also the Silvertown tunnel: great if it means it's now quicker than it was to cross the river there, but they are asking for a high fee for this privilege, which will probably still be charged long after the cost of the project has been met.

And now that the precedent of months-long lockdowns has been set, it makes spending vast amounts of money on trains less justifiable, since who knows when we might all be forbidden again to travel for an extended time?

Yes!

During and after the pandemic this country proved pretty adequately that business can carry on pretty much as usual without endess face to face meetings.

Apart form the fact that this wasn't the case. We coped because we had to, but in many cases it wasn't optimal.

As people have pointed out, in many parts of the UK public transport is shocking.

Thank god the victoriana didn't think your way and heavily invested in our infrastructure, with tubes, roads, sewers, railway etc

We need to keep building on this.

We especially need to link the North and South up properly, we are massively letting down the North of this country.

Busiest flow from both Leeds and York is London (which would have benefitted from HS2 East if the Tories hadn't cancelled it).

Man Vic to Leeds passengers will benefit from TRU but that's still barely a fraction of WCML passengers. Significant improvements to the service between Liverpool and Manchester are contingent upon the HS2 tunnel under South Manchester being built.

I know what you mean, but it's a tiny bit ironic that when they talk about burst water mains, they keep saying "it's because of old Victorian pipes". Mind you, perhaps they lasted better than current ones might, with the built-in obsolescence that seems to be the norm nowadays.

Meanwhile the main London-Edinburgh road north of Newcastle remains single carriageway for large stretches, with funding for dualling just pulled by the Labour government. So much for 'levelling up' deprived areas in the north.

The time saving won’t be what the government says. They are always wrong! Levelling up should have focussed on rail projects in the North. London sucks people in. If we wanted a strong northern economy, money should have been spent there.

The problem is it's always for London. London has world class public transport, it's shit everywhere else.

Rail infrastructure yes - free capacity for local services with a separate fast line (not going to happen now though)
Extra runways - no - will break all our carbon commitments
New motorways - no - see above plus pollution, EVs still create particulates from tires and lead to asthma etc
More investment in public transport/cycling/walking and less in roads!!

I think if UK rail travel was cheaper, more people would use it. I agree HS2 is a waste of time. The reason that more people aren't going to Birmingham from London isn't because they can't get their quick enough. HS2 will only take about 20 minutes off the journey time. I think a lot of people would rather the money was spent on making sure all trains on the existing lines were cheaper, had WiFi, comfy seats and snack carts than a brand new line that was more expensive and 20 minutes quicker.

That said, I saw a thing in the paper saying they were looking to extend the number of destinations the eurostar can reach and were hoping to run trains from St Pancras to Germany and Switzerland. I think there would be a lot of people would be very interested in this.

While I agree that the right to travel should be heavily restricted and that non-essential business travel should be illegal I don't believe ignoring the problem and not investing in infrastructure is a good idea. Our population is increasing by a million a year and is likely to continue to do so. Even if people's movement is heavily restricted, the expanding population will still push transport infrastructure beyond breaking point.

When it comes to transport, Britain has long had a policy of solving yesterday's problem today. We were the leaders when it came to introducing canals but have been behind the rest of the world ever since, and we are particularly bad with road policy. It takes so long to get things done that the solution is always a few decades behind. We introduced dual carriageways when we needed motorways, three lane motorways when we needed five lane ones.

Short of radical measures like enforced lockdowns and the elmination of over half the country's population, the only way to solve the transport crisis is to spend money. Clearly it needs to be spent in the right way. Personally I'd widen all motorways to ten lanes in each direction, add an outer M25 ring, and build a Reunion-style motorway over the sea round most of the country.

I was just talking about the major stations on TP line North of Manchester, yes, Piccadilly is indeed a lot more, some of which also travel to/from the TP line North of Manchester.

@InvisibilityCloakActivated

I think if UK rail travel was cheaper, more people would use it.

Trouble is lots of services/routes are already beyond full capacity, so the last thing they need is more people using them. Especially on services in the North on the transpennine route, and also the West Coast Main Line and the Cross Country services. They're already mostly full to capacity, standing room only. Prices are being held very high to DIScourage passengers to help ease the overcrowding. So on those routes, no hope at all with cheaper fares.

But there are also lots of routes/services that are pretty quiet, but still have to run to maintain the service, and are already cheaper, but still not popular because they're not the routes people need to take and not at the times they want to travel. You can't make them even cheaper because no one wants to use those services anyway - you could make them free and they still wouldn't be full!

Loads of trains carrying little but fresh air on less popular routes and at less popular times, but those same trains are sardine specials in the morning and evening rush hour with commuters etc.