UK government
Doesn't give a DAMN about its only railway line to France
Does give a damn about airport expansion
Doesn't give a DAMN about its only railway line to France
Does give a damn about airport expansion
Reposted from
New Economics Foundation
New analysis: If four UK airport expansions including Heathrow are allowed to go ahead, they will cancel out the carbon savings of this government’s clean power plan IN JUST FIVE YEARS. This government must cancel these planned expansions.
neweconomics.org/2025/01/airp...
neweconomics.org/2025/01/airp...
Comments
It's an extension of this: https://jonworth.eu/more-passengers-are-a-problem-for-the-railways/
And, of course, Heathrow has vocal shareholders. Rail does not.
But no one *is* working that out, systematically
"How many flights out of the sky, and to where, if through services through the Channel Tunnel were exploited to the max"
You can imagine Heathrow, BA, Easyjet lobbying for expansion
Who's lobbying to fix Channel Tunnel rail services? Probably no one... These are the reasons https://jonworth.eu/more-passengers-are-a-problem-for-the-railways/
But at first glance, it's something Reeves can do without having to find a few billion pounds in her own budget first.
Airport expansions have very large short- medium- and long term costs.
Airport operators and airlines have just successfully managed to cleverly externalise those costs to everyone else.
Let's instead ask: what would a coherent policy for long distance rail improvement for London and the South East look like. Towards rest of England & to Tunnel. There's a hell of a lot that'd be possible!
You have the line. It has capacity. There are a few niggles to fix. You need to *either* somehow mandate more trains from Eurostar with a different stopping pattern, or open up the market. Either can be cost neutral.