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HS2

Dar said:
The trouble with expanding roads is that it doesn't reduce congestion, but instead more traffic just fills the extra headroom!
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If you drive through Birmingham on the M6 now vs a decade ago, it's night and day - it does help, but of course it will eventually fill up again and not be sufficient. It's prohibitively expensive to build a 19 lane motorway from the outset, you do what you can do with the budget and work to deliver for the medium term.

And if it does do what you suggested, more people are getting value from the investment, surely?
 
Regardless of the red tape. The British Government couldn't organise a drink in a brewery as has been show time and time and time again.

Even if we didn't waffle and the Asian countrys do nuckle down, they have built more railway line to go from London to New York, back again, then back again, then back again and even some more than that. That's forgeting the mega airports and worlds longest sea bridge they have built in the same time. Yes we are a much smaller country. But, we cant even build a few hundred miles of railway line in the same time. Even with all the red tape, alarms bells should start ringing that something isn't fundamentally right with our system. You only need to see the walking talking joke that is Brexit to get a glimpse of what's wrong.
 
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Call me selfish, but I'm quite happy that some of the money taken from the vehicle excise duty that I have to pay every year and also the tax that I pay on petrol that I have to buy every time I want to use my car is actually used for keeping the roads slightly less hellish than they could be. I'm really really very sorry that more of this money is not ploughed into an infrastructure that I've probably used about 3 times in over 30 years (the railways).
 
Dar said:
The trouble with expanding roads is that it doesn't reduce congestion, but instead more traffic just fills the extra headroom!
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This is what I'm trying to say. In response to @BarryZola I'm not talking about cutting maintenance. I'm talking about stopping £bns going on road enhancements. Roads come from council tax and general taxation, not vehicle or fuel duty. I get that you all think we should enhance roads because most people use them, but we shouldn't be encouraging road use at all. The government needs to push sustainable transport, so buses, trams, electrifying existing railways, reopening closed ones and high speed lines. We could go round in circles here, as clearly you disagree with me on that point. But that sums up my feelings here: we already have an extensive road network. It does not need expanding and I feel that spending such large amounts on road improvements is simply not compatible with the so called "climate emergency" the government has declared.
 
speedy said:
This is what I'm trying to say. In response to @BarryZolaRoads come from council tax and general taxation, not vehicle or fuel duty.
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So, none of that money paid into the pot from vehicle excise and fuel duty eventually makes its way back through the system into paying for the road infrastructure? Are you absolutely sure about this?
 
BarryZola said:
So, none of that money paid into the pot from vehicle excise and fuel duty eventually makes its way back through the system into paying for the road infrastructure? Are you absolutely sure about this?
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Of course it does. But an equal amount of everyone's tax goes to roads, there's no correlation between how much you use them. Anyway I'm not against my tax going towards road maintenance I'm against anyone's taxes going towards bypasses, extra lanes, new motorways etc.
 
Thanks. I'm glad that you were gracious enough to admit that roads do indeed in at least part come from vehicle excise and fuel duty.
 
@speedy I still think you're on a crusade and not pragmatic about the way our transport system works, is utilised, funded and how it has to be managed. Roads are the backbone of our economy, whether that be for people or goods and the "no enhancements, just fill the pot holes" approach is unworkable.

That said, I have enjoyed the debate.
 
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Rick said:
@speedy I still think you're on a crusade and not pragmatic about the way our transport system works, is utilised, funded and how it has to be managed. Roads are the backbone of our economy, whether that be for people or goods and the "no enhancements, just fill the pot holes" approach is unworkable.

That said, I have enjoyed the debate.
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We'll have to agree to disagree then, but thanks for taking the time to discuss! :)
 
@speedy whilst I think you are correct that the government should be looking at alternatives (railway, trams, etc) I also think our road network needs an upgrade.

Take smart motorways for instance - this project seems to be taking an age to complete. And now it’s almost obsolete and needs reviewing as they failed to address the Extra capacity requirements.

The transport system as a whole has been suffering since the early 80’s - it’s now time to invest in it quickly and prepare us for the future.

I personally would consider:
1) HS2
2) M1,5,6,40,42 widening
3) new dual carriage ways (Milton Keynes to Cambridge is one) - a46 widening another
4) a tram network to cover greater Manchester Yorkshire and Liverpool
5) underground networks for our bigger cities Birmingham Manchester Leeds maybe?
6) reopening old railway routes - one example is where I live Stratford upon Avon - connect it back to the Cotswolds - also run it towards Redditch- make it accessible again
7) buses - electrify them and make more / larger buses. Greater capacity and reduce running costs = cheaper routes
8) airport - cut the red tape - Heathrow needs to happen now (although ideally scrap Heathrow and build a new hub somewhere)

We need billions - the £28bn declared won’t touch this
 
@Jb85 One thing HS2 may do is reduce the need for airport expansion in London as it'll improve links to Birmingham, Manchester and East Midlands airports. Though I believe the rapid increase in demand means even with better links to northern airports the Heathrow third runway is still viable/required

I can't see new underground networks being built in the UK, ever, sadly.
 
speedy said:
@Jb85 One thing HS2 may do is reduce the need for airport expansion in London as it'll improve links to Birmingham, Manchester and East Midlands airports. Though I believe the rapid increase in demand means even with better links to northern airports the Heathrow third runway is still viable/required


I can't see new underground networks being built in the UK, ever, sadly.
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@speedy I totally agree with you - but we need more than London airports to be expanded. Glasgow, Birmingham, and Manchester realistically need expanding

I read somewhere recently Manchester were considering and underground
 
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