Michael Bell wrote:
wrote:
Michael Bell wrote:
In article , Michael Bell wrote:
wrote:
Michael Bell:
But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like
Crossrail and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much,
far less than the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink
can never be viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they
can only be justified in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast
number of NEW travellers into London.
Crossrail and Thameslink could benefit London orders of magnitude more
than a few extra stations and travelators.
I proposed a bit more than "a few escalators".
Indeed you did: as I said, you proposed "a few extra stations and
travelators".
I proposed a progamme of creating interchanges at several dozen places, I
only gave a few examples.
So trains would be slowed down slightly for the sake of a few
interchanging passengers, even though in many cases the journey could
easily be made just by interchanging somewhere else. There may or may
not be a net improvement, but there certainly won't be the enormous
benefits of Crossrail.
And what do you mean by "benefittting London"?
Shortening journey times, providing a lot of extra capacity to relieve
the overcrowded Tube, and providing an easier way to get across London.
What more do you want?
My plan would benefit the current residents much more,
Your plan would benefit very few of the current residents much more, and
of those who do benefit, most would only benefit slightly. If 5% of
passengers saved 10 minutes and the rest took 1 minute longer, would you
consider it worthwhile?
and it wouldn't subject them more competition for space.
Not directly (except maybe on the NLL), but indirectly it would because
it would not provide the capacity to meet demand.
Your scheme would Crossrail and Thameslink would bring more jobs
and people to fill them to central London, and benefit "The City".
And the West End. And Croydon (and quite a lot more of Greater London).
And Sussex (and indeed many of the Home Counties).
So, who has the votes? Or who has the political pull?
The answer appears to be "nobody"!
A decision to build them at government expense is a decision to
abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all development in
the South - East. As a Northerner, I am against that.
[snip]
There have been many attempts to encourage development in other parts of
the country, not all of them successful. What does "Humberside" mean to
you???
Humberside has failed, but it was conceived at a time when the population of
this country was foreseen as 90 million by 2000. Now our problem is falling
population - and London wants to grab as much of it as possible. (Birth rate
dropped to 1.7children/woman in the early 70s,
Yet they still built the Humber bridge!
and something that has been so
for 30 years is not going to change quickly.
ITYF it already has changed.
Serious population decline is the unspoken fear of government, that's why
the Tories agreed to Labour's plans for childcare, not a very traditional
Tory policy, but what choise is there. They want to go the way of
Scandinavia, with it's slight population increase rather than Italy with
1.1children/woman.)
And fortunately it is going the way of Scandanavia AIUI. Not that
serious population decline's that much of a threat, considering the
number of people who want to migrate to Britain.
Think hard!
But London has received _enormous_ underinvestment for decades
It's been the same everywhere. London has done a little better than the rest
of us.
It's actually been very different everywhere. There was a deliberate
attempt to boost the fortunes of regional areas, and it resulted in the
London population declining until the policy was abolished (IIRC by the
Thatcher government who considered it too expensive). And the growth of
London has brought great benefits, but the infrastructure has not kept
up.
But major infrastructure projects like Thameslink and Crossrail are
needed in London, and I'm not sure I like the implication that they
should be abandoned because the rest of the country doesn't like to
see money spent on the capital. London _needs_ it - and if London
were to lose its position as a worldcity, it isn't just those inside
the M25 that are going to be affected when the economy suffers.
If a business is doing well, it ought to be able to finance its own
expansion. So should a city be able to. But evidently for all London's
wonderfulness, it can't. It has to ask for subsidy. Rather odd.
Rather odd until you consider that the government hold the purse strings
and other cities and rural areas also require subsidy.
[snip]
I read once a statement that "the further you get away from London, the
more irrational the spelling of place names become", Ah, yes the home
counties, that hotbed of phonetic spelling, with Slough, Reading,
Greenwich, Islington and of course London itself - rhymes with "cotton"!
I doubt that rhyme would be acceptable even in doggeral!
I don't think you've got the point. The writer was over-familiar with the
spelling of "London" and just couldn't see that it didn't fit even the flimsy
"rules" for spelling in English.
Is this like the thing where they try use the precedent of tough women's
emotions to prove "ghoti" should be prounounced "fish", until it's
pointed out to them that by that logic using other precendents the
entire word should be silent?
(snip)
(Before the war, the LNER built up commuter services from the West Riding
to the sea-side at Scarborough,
Are you sure they were commuter services?
As I understood it at the time, yes.
You were there at the time???