Has the black swan left us with a huge white elephant?

[Squire Haggard]

An interesting and well written article. Do we really need HS2 less than we did before because of the current crisis?

''I do, though, think that HS2 needs a serious rethink, if it’s not to look like the UK fighting the last war. Patterns and methods of work were already changing before coronavirus. Shortening train journeys was posited on the notion that time spent on a train was ‘dead’ time: unproductive and out of contact. That’s simply not true now. WiFi is a given (though of varying reliability), and business people can be in constant contact with their clients, customers and colleagues as they travel between one city and another. You might be out of the office, but you’re never really away from your desk.


Much more significantly, though, the very notion of an office, and of face-to-face meetings, is being challenged by force majeure. Told that we can’t connect physically with people to do business, we’ve discovered that, in fact, we don’t need to. When the crisis ends, and it will, only a fool would expect things to go back to the way they were. The whole construct around which we’ve built our working lives has changed, and some of that is for good.

Which brings us back to the £100 billion. As a yardstick, that’s not far off the NHS’s annual budget. Of course, the Government’s selling it as an investment in our future, building infrastructure so that we’re competitive, but, really, is that true? The more I think about it, the more I think it’s an investment in a way of work that just doesn’t exist any more. The beat of the black swan’s wings has created a huge white elephant.''

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[King Nuts]

The answer isn't an absolutely definitive one. Yes, we need it in the opinions of some people. No we don't, in others. Passenger numbers will go down but then they'll go up again, and HS2 is all about capacity. My own view is that we need it.

Railway infrastucture has a similarity to cars and houses, in that when stuff gets old and less efficient, yes, you can keep patching it up, but if it isn't that sound to begin with, you're better off scrapping it or knocking it down and starting again.

As regards the notion that business can work very well without face-to-face meetings, I don't agree. It CAN work without them, but it works much better with them. When you're on a 7am flight on a Tuesday morning out of LHR up to Glasgow, or Budapest, or wherever, look around. These people aren't doing this for fun. It's work or business of one kind or another. I'd rather not have to get up at 4.30am to be on that plane, but I have a client who's worth the effort (and they all are of course) then I have deemed it necessary to be there.

And as regards the cost, 100 billion is just over two-thirds of the annual NHS budget, but seven times the annual foreign aid budget. Or it's about seven weeks' worth of taxation income to the Treasury. You can make figures mean whatever you want them to mean, of course.

[southcoastpunter]

i think you are partly right KT - things will go back to normal once this is over - or rather towards normal.

However, I think there will we some corporate questioning about certain practices such as "face2face" meeting and the view that staff can only effectively work in the office and can't be trusted /efficent working from home etc. I don't think we will go from A to Z in big hit but maybe see some shifts in working practices that will have an affect on travel/commuting, But there also has been an increase over the years of non business train travel to so maybe we do need HS2.

However its interesting to note that all the major political figures "up north" seem to prefer the money be spent on "east to west" connection rather than "north to London".

[tobyk1]

Surely HS2 construction is so far along now that it would make no sense financially whatsoever to ‘pull-out’?

[King Nuts]

Surely HS2 construction is so far along now that it would make no sense financially whatsoever to ‘pull-out’?

There are certain times in life where you're fucked if you go on, and fucked if you don't go on.

[tobyk1]

There are certain times in life where you're fucked if you go on, and fucked if you don't go on.

Ah, much like the lockdown then!!

 

[petermisc]

Whether or not HS2 is needed as a mode of transport (and as a fairly frequent traveller on the WCML I happen to think that it is desperately needed - even Sunday services were chock-full) the government will need to be investing in infrastructure projects purely as job-creation measures, in the same kind of way as was done after the great depression.  In retrospect, all the money spent on improving the Grand Union canal in the 1930s may have had little long-term benefit, but it provided employment at a time when it was desperately needed.  However, a lot of money was also spent on improving the railways, with very many capacity improvements on the London suburban networks that have been invaluable.

To shut down HS2 now, and throw yet thousands more people onto the dole, would be lunacy.  I think we need it more now than ever.  The government will soon be looking for infrastructure projects that it can roll out fast as employment measures, so I wouldn't be surprised if HS2 North doesn't even get accelerated.

[badsin]

As an aside, my family live in the south west, and I live in the midland. I'd love to use the train to travel down, it's a beautiful journey and must be a more sustainable way to travel.
However with a return ticket costing £160+, and fuel for my car costing in the region of £60, it's a fairly obvious choice for myself currently

[tynetunnel]

As an aside, my family live in the south west, and I live in the midland. I'd love to use the train to travel down, it's a beautiful journey and must be a more sustainable way to travel.
However with a return ticket costing £160+, and fuel for my car costing in the region of £60, it's a fairly obvious choice for myself currently

So for a solo journey a bumper saving of £100 makes your car journey a no-brainer. Add a second person into the mix and even assuming a rail card discount of a third, the disparity is even greater - £133 by rail

[King Nuts]

As an aside, my family live in the south west, and I live in the midland. I'd love to use the train to travel down, it's a beautiful journey and must be a more sustainable way to travel.
However with a return ticket costing £160+, and fuel for my car costing in the region of £60, it's a fairly obvious choice for myself currently

I appreciate that train ticket pricing policy is utterly bonkers. Has been for a long time, but didn't used to be.

But driving has costs beyond fuel. I don't drive a great deal (ca. 5k miles per annum) but factor in the road tax, insurance, depreciation and so on, it stacks up. My car drinks petrol, so that's 25p per mile. That's 1,250 a year in petrol. Tax and insurance is around 800 quid a year. Depreciation we can call 300 quid (my car's an ancient Volvo) and bits of misc maintenance we can call 400 quid.

So this damn car costs me 2750 quid a year. 55p a mile. And I get off lightly. Bet it's between a quid and two quid a mile for a great many people.

[petermisc]

As an aside, my family live in the south west, and I live in the midland. I'd love to use the train to travel down, it's a beautiful journey and must be a more sustainable way to travel.
However with a return ticket costing £160+, and fuel for my car costing in the region of £60, it's a fairly obvious choice for myself currently

Not sure where in the SW your family live, but an off-peak return from Birmingham to Plymouth costs just over £130, which can be reduced to under £90 with split tickets.