The Tragedy of HS2

[openspaceman]

15 minutes ago, Khriss said:

My basic argument against this was "fvvking get out of bed 20 mins earlier ?"   k

I was against HS2 for a number of reasons, the sheer impact on the landscape from the overhead infrastructure being a lesser one not often commented on, but you of all people should know better than to think this 20 minute saving in journey time was the main rational. It was about increasing capacity on the local loops and to move transport toward electricity use rather than fossil fuels.

 

Also Keynesian economics suggest regrowing the economy and confidence after a crash can be done with publicly funded infrastructure projects.

[Khriss]

Very true.  However capacity is now a dirty word on Networks. Plus certain Multi Nationals and chain businesses are sweating under the midnight oil, working out how the hell their models are gonna work now. K

[Khriss]

.... I wont mention the fact a lot of developers threw in their hat, with brownfield de elopments located near stations to grab the buyers who work in Town..... ( who are now looking at properties well outside Town now.... ?)   k

[sime42]

I wont be reading much on this post as it just winds me up HOW us as tax payers in many ways do not get a say in how our money Yes our money is spent, HS2 i think is a total waste of our money for several reasons, 1) they cant manage the rail system we have now, 2) said it will cut journey time from the north to london by 20 mins BUT how many times will this be achieved ? 3) will it get used and will it be profitable ? will we as the public ever get to know the facts n figures on how our hard earned cash used to fund HS2 is actually doing, like is it making more money to be spent on other causes ? i very much dowt that we will be just fed a total load of Bullshit as per usual,,
About 12 months ago i read a independent report on HS2 and how it was to be funded, this made some very interesting and down to earth facts, the money that is to be spent on HS2 if it was divided up between all the local councils there would be enough funds to fund the NHS properly, all care homes could be brought up to standard, all schools could be brought up to date with sufficient teachers, all council run leisure centres could be funded properly , several parts of the country that have had sever flooding could be sorted out with long term flood defences, and the one that really affects me and many other people who drive, the cart tracks that we call roads which we drive on,  all could be sorted out and made good like they where 20 years ago, there was many other facts that where stated in this report where HS2 money could of been spent on more needed projects, We now have a government that is handing out money left right and centre due to Covid-19 so it looks like the roads will have to wait another week or 2 and its not that long since we finished paying back the debt to America for WW2, and here we go again spend spend spend borrow borrow borrow, when will we ever learn never i suspect, Just let me escape to a remote desert island with Kylie and sheryl crow and that will do me,

Oh Jesus, it's even worse than I thought then. To be wasting all this money whilst there are so many more deserving cases out there desperate for some is just outrageous. I think we could actually say it's criminal when you consider that people's lives are at stake with things like the NHS and social care. I very much doubt that anyone will die if HS2 doesn't get built. How many thousands will though as a result of an underfunded health service.

[Khriss]

Will not even think of the CrossRail hole in the ground they pissing money into like a diuretic dray horse ?  k

[sime42]

I was going they would scrap hs2 as it is probably no longer needed as more people are working from home these days which is likely to carry on no matter how the current situation changes, plus we could do with not spending the £100 billion or so squid.
 

Yep, when CV19 first started to become a serious issue for the UK I thought to myself at least there'll be one silver lining to the cloud; bloody HS2 will get canned as there's no way they'll be able to justify the spending, and it won't be needed anyway with many people working from home.
How sadly naive I was!

[sime42]

To be honest, (and this may be a controversial view point!), I'm more upset about the wanton destruction of the environment. The colossal waste of all our money is terrible in itself and is more than enough reason to cancel the stupid thing. But at the end of the day it's just money; a transient thing really. The environmental destruction is permanent, those fragile ecosystems such as ancient woodlands are not going to come back. That is the really sad and depressing thing about this. They can't even claim that they didn't know about the damage caused anymore. We are in the midst of an environmental catastrophe: every day we get scary facts about how we are ****************ing up our planet in such massive ways. And yet still they go ahead and **************** it up some more for no decent reason.
[emoji26][emoji26]

[Khriss]

29 minutes ago, sime42 said:

To be honest, (and this may be a controversial view point!), I'm more upset about the wanton destruction of the environment. The colossal waste of all our money is terrible in itself and is more than enough reason to cancel the stupid thing. But at the end of the day it's just money; a transient thing really. The environmental destruction is permanent, those fragile ecosystems such as ancient woodlands are not going to come back. That is the really sad and depressing thing about this. They can't even claim that they didn't know about the damage caused anymore. We are in the midst of an environmental catastrophe: every day we get scary facts about how we are ****************ing up our planet in such massive ways. And yet still they go ahead and **************** it up some more for no decent reason.

They havent even got the rail slab part of the project sorted yet,  god knows who getti g that. K

[trigger_andy]

1 hour ago, mattyboy said:

Boris has done a good job of well and truly conning vast swathes of the public into thinking he’s a good bloke.

Nope, just the lesser of two evils. Politics these days seems to be a race to the bottom and the only option we're left with is voting for the party one rung up.

[Stere]

Boris's  bridge from scotland to northern ireland the next big project?