Originally Posted by
Swiss Peter
Yes, and with that released capacity comes the opportunity to improve suburban and regional services, undertake much needed maintenance on old and decrepit existing infrastructure with less overall disruption, and create more rail freight options. This is often overlooked by those with a strong focus on the time savings on HS2 itself.
It seems to me that there has never been real clarity on the purpose of the project - or if there has, it has not been well communicated. Personally, I get the capacity arguments, but have never been totally convinced by the connectivity/time saving ones.
As for the £36bn to be invested instead, few of these transport projects will be new ideas. Many have been passed from wishlist to wishlist for decades now. I heard Sunak mention, for example, mass transit for Leeds. I worked on securing funding and powers for Leeds Supertram in the early 90s - and the project has been on and off ever since then!. Whether this will now provide the catalyst remains to be seen.