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Old January 15th 09, 10:40 AM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway
Roland Perry Roland Perry is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Aug 2003
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Default Heathrow third runway to get the go ahead

In message
, at
02:23:51 on Thu, 15 Jan 2009, remarked:

Especially given that passenger numbers at heathrow are dropping
according to this report. The whole thing stinks.


We are in a "bust", so of course short-term passenger numbers are likely
to fall. The new runway is (one possible) solution for the capacity
required in the next "boom". If there's not going to be another "boom",
we don't need a lot of things, including Crossrail.


When you're in a bust you don't start spending billions on vanity
projects.


So you'd recommend suspending Crossrail until we are well into the next
boom (and suffering from the fact it doesn't exist yet)?

Even in the boom years heathrow could cope with the
passenger numbers


fsvo "cope".

so why build a new runway now when they're dropping??


because it's predicted to rise, later.

Of course, there might be other solutions, such as closing Heathrow and
running 4tph Eurostar to CDG - but have you modelled the consequences
for the UK economy?

Its like saying "oh , theres less traffic on the roads -
lets build some bypasses!"


The road building programme (such as it is) hasn't been suspended
because of the bust.
--
Roland Perry