camden

April 22, 2014

Guest Post: Why HS2 is the wrong scheme.

Christian Wolmar picture

Christian Wolmar “HS2 is driven by a flawed methodology”

In a guest post  on the eve of the second reading of the bill Christian Wolmar tells us why MPs should  not be impressed with high speed 2

It often surprises people when they find out that I oppose HS2. I am obviously a great supporter of the railways and therefore it is assumed that I support the biggest railway investment project this country has ever seen.

But as I show in my London Review of Books article, the entire scheme is misguided.

HS2 fails to address Britain’s infrastructure needs, is based on a flawed methodology, and is being driven by a group of politicians with little understanding of transport and the role of the railway in a transport system. For example, HS2 has been mistakenly designed to be separate from the rest of the railway network – with a lack of connections, and a focus on parkway and terminus stations.

In London, Camden will suffer disproportionately. The borough will lose hundreds of homes and faces a decade of major and difficult construction. Moreover, more than 200 homes in Camden will be lost – and many owners will not receive sufficient compensation to re-buy locally. This risks pushing a generation of Londoners away from the city. A further 250 homes in the borough are at risk. This loss will also reduce the amount of private-rental accommodation available in the area.

My article also highlights the miserable fate of the businesses in and around Drummond Street, which has flourished as an enclave of restaurants and shops for more than a generation. They are very unlikely to survive the destructive development of HS2. Unfortunately, the misery is compounded by uncertainty.

The government recently scrapped a damaging and hugely-expensive link between HS1 and HS2, and is revisiting the plans for Euston station. Those who live and work in, and enjoy Camden, have many years of uncertainty ahead of them.

 

 

April 12, 2014

Inteview: Christian Wolmar on HS2 “I don’t think the people of the Chilterns have a strong case against it.”

 

christianwolmar

He thinks Camden has a better case against HS2 than the Chilterns, that Boris Johnson is car obsessed and that a London modelled on Copenhagen would be a bettter place to live. In an extended interview with the man who would be Mayor of London, Patrick Edwards speaks to Christian Wolmar

What’s at the heart of your campaign to be the next Mayor for London?

Well the big vision is that cities have to change for the 21st century. There’s been recognition of this in New York, Paris, Rome and recently Hamburg have set to meet that vision which has at the centre of it less reliance on the car. I share that vision and my aim is to make the centre of London a much more liveable, pleasant place.That in great part can be achieved by placing less emphasis on the car and opening up streets to pedestrians and cyclists making it a much more liveable city.

“I would do this by some emblematic schemes. My favourite idea is to pedestrianise Oxford Street, once Crossrail arrives it’s an absolute no brainer. I’d give the north bound lane of Park Lane back to  Hyde Park from which it was filched 50 years ago. Through these and more emblematic schemes you would create a different city. Ken (Livingstone) started this with the congestion charge which I thought that was a great coup. But he lost his way because he didn’t actually think through what the implications were for a city like London. Of course there are lot of policies asides from transport to introduce but I think you need a central strategy that is aimed at getting to the same place that Copenhagen is moving to over  twenty to thirty years, to open up the city in a different way and create a much better environment.

A place for people rather than cars, does that mean increased taxes for car users and an increase or expansion of the congestion charge?

I start with the ideas of  cutting off some spaces from cars, and not just the couple I mentioned. There are a few others. You set yourself a target for reducing car use in central London, and yes that might involve a higher congestion charge but maybe a more sophisticated approach,  one that doesn’t allow cameras at entry points but can be tailored to time of day. This kind of technology is widely available. But by setting ourself a target and saying “look out aim is actually to have fewer cars in the central area,” other policies will flow from that. So you might have parking policies, planning policies in relation into new developments and public transport policies to improve access, all of which would flow from the central vision.

Every Mayoral candidate will say they want to make the city more amenable to people. Boris Johnson, the current Mayor, has developed the most fantastic brand of being a cyclist to cement that message. Hasn’t he been doing this?

I think that the vision has been very muddled. Simon Jenkins wrote a brilliant piece in the Evening Standard saying there are contradictory policies here. Boris wants more cyclists but he doesn’t want traffic flow to be limited. He doesn’t want to take space away from cars. And you can’t get away with this contradiction. You need a long term idea of what sort of city you want in 20 years time. Ken commissioned a report from the famous Copenhagen architect and planner Jan Gehl called Towards a Fine City for People and then said we are going to implement it. But somehow he didn’t implement it. Jan Gehl came to London a couple of weeks ago to present a film that he featured in and he attracted an audience of 1200 people at the Hackney Empire.

“There is a real thirst and recognition that we need a different sort of city, a gentler and healthier one. The reason for it is not environmental, its economics and health. It would, be good for business to have better spaces, and a lot more better spaces in the centre of London, other wise a lot of people are going to shop at Westfields and Bluewater.

A thirst amongst who though? Jan Gehl’s name is not tripping off the lips of every Londoner. Isn’t this thirst more amongst the commentariat, opinion formers and the glitterati?

No. Look I think you can argue very strongly that this is not some fanciful idea of transport but that its linked to the economy and the good health of people. One of the things that has come up strongly at meetings that I have been to is clean air. People actually care about the fact that air is very polluted in central London and its smog is not spoken about because Boris Johnson is trying to hide the fact. Clean air is a very important issue. The economy is very important.

“Successful cities are not those where you have traffic whizzing off through it at 30 miles an hour. Look what’s happening in Shoreditch where an area which was really just a great big roundabout has turned into a much more pleasant part of the city due to the fact that they got rid of the gyratory and its fantastic. It’s not just the restaurants and the bars that have benefited but business too. Shoreditch is now the hub of the technological revolution that is Tech City, although they’ll have to think of another name to describe it as Silicon Roundabout is now pretty redundant. So it’s not just about the environment.

So there are signs of life within Transport for London (TfL) on this score, but why isn’t this thinking blossoming across London? Is the Mayor to blame?

I think the mayor has this contradiction. Yes he likes cycling and I think he is genuine, but the cycle Super Highway he devised is absolutely in contradiction with the idea of encouraging cyclists because of the compromises that they were forced into. They were not allowed to reduce or slow the traffic flow and weren’t then able to give sufficient space to cyclists.  We’ve had the tragedies on the super highway out at Mile End as a result. I think that they are learning that now. Andrew Gilligan has done a good job in sorting out the cycling visions but it needs a mayor who is really committed to the idea, as much as Gilligan himself is, to push it through as Boris remains stuck fast in this contradiction

What do you think of Boris Johnson, would you have a drink with him?

I think he’s actually a very clever politician. He’s a politician through and through but ultimately I think his instincts are all wrong. They are all right wing and they favour the more affluent people against poorer people. There is something of an agenda for clearing poorer people out of central London and leaving it for the middle class and more importantly the rich. It’s difficult to not think that when he calls in big planning schemes and reduces the amount of even affordable housing, let alone social housing. There is at the core to him a very nasty right wing agenda that risk changing the face of the city.

You are a very cerebral and thoughtful candidate, do you not worry that the London Mayoral elections seem to appeal more to the maverick candidate and that your cerebral, cool and reasoned approach will be easily overlooked?

I think that Londoners would actually welcome somebody who has some ideas that are worked through. The reason I threw my hat into the ring was precisely because I thought that the previous contest was so narrow. It was all about Ken’s tax affairs and Boris’s character and bendy busses for Christ sake! I think that there are wider concerns. I found that in the speeches that I have given to various Labour Party meetings there is a real thirst for this new thinking, which incidentally also includes the suburbs as well, to make them more liveable. There is a real desire for change and this is part of a world-wide zeitgeist that cities are changing. They have to be  different – they are going to get bigger and more crowded as populations become increasingly more centred there and they can no longer be based on cars. Even China is discovering that.

Back to the Cycle Super Higher and the contradictions of Mayor Johnson’s strategy, do you then hold the Mayor responsible for the  tragedies of cycle deaths on London roads?

I don’t think you can link them directly on him, but I think you can blame the overall strategy on him which led to these accidents. I think the cycle super highways should have been designed with the cyclist really at the centre of them rather than  pretending they were.  I’ve cycled down them.The  one at Embankment is ok, there’s plenty of space. But the one at Mile End to Stratford is actually dangerous. I think TfL has changed and they recognise the failings.

“I don’t want to lay the deaths directly at Mayor Johnson that would be unfair, but I think that the philosophy that the cycle super highways were built was his responsibility.

It may not be fair but the Mayor has not been slow to blame the deaths on the cyclists themselves. That doesn’t seem particularly fair?

I think that was daft. Privately Tfl people have said that lots of these people were wearing head phones and not wearing helmets. And of course some of these accidents may be in part due to cyclists fault, but its failing to create a culture where the most vulnerable road uses are those that are most protected that has led to these accidents. That’s the problems – there’s the wrong culture out there. There is still ample encouragement for cars to go at thirty miles an hour. The wrong culture.

You have been a commentator and an observer on transport since Independent and written some fantastic books abut transport, in your experience does anything compare to the kind of reception that HS2 has got from the public?

Heathrow Third Runway bares comparison.

“Certainly there been a lot of hostility towards HS2 although oddly enough the hostility has been in the wrong place. I don’ t think the people of the Chilterns have that strong a case against it because I don’t think it will do much damage, while the people of Camden have a very strong case against it and a really good case to try to amend or scrap the scheme.It’s doing nothing for the people of Camden. It’s destroying 600 of their homes, and ploughing a furrow through a chunk of the borough.

“Instinctively I want to support HS2 because I love the railways. They are the best form of transport and I make my living from writing about how wonderful they are. But HS2 is a very misconceived scheme. I think if it had been designed in a different way I would have bought it. Its separate from the rest of the railway and it will absorb a lot of money out of the railway that will only serve the interest of a relatively narrow sort of people, those travelling between London, to the detriment of the other towns.

“What was needed was a much more interconnected system that they have in Germany ( Deutsche Bahn) where you might have bit of High Speed rail and bits of improved conventional rail but where everything is better interconnected. HS2 is a very odd scheme in that there are two stations in London, two in Birmingham, one in the middle of nowhere between Nottingham and Derby and one in the middle of nowhere in Sheffield and two terminus station in Leeds and Manchester. There are no links or through connections and it’s also designed to travel  at 400 km/h. Why do we need this in a very small country? The need for speed has limited the design of it. Overall it’s ill thought out.

 

February 25, 2014 Quote

Christian Wolmar interview on HS2

Christian Woolmar speaks to HS2 and You on High Speed 2

In the first of a two part interview Christian Wolmar, former Independent  transport correspondent,writer, broadaster and Mayor of London hopeful, gives his assessment of High Speed2, why the Chilterns have nothing to moan about and media coverage of fhe controversial scheme.

 

 

You’ve been an expert commentator and  observer on transport since being  The Independent’s transport correspondent so in your experience does anything compare to the kind of reception that HS2 has got from the public?

Certainly there been a lot of hostility towards HS2 although oddly enough the hostility has been in the wrong place. I don’ t think the people of the Chilterns have that strong a case against it because I don’t think it will do much damage, while the people  of Camden have a very strong  case to try to amend or scrap the scheme. It’s destroying 600 of their homes, and ploughing a furrow through a chunk of the borough.

Instinctively I want to support HS2 because I love the railways. They are the best form of transport and I make my living from writing about how wonderful they are. But HS2 is a very misconceived scheme. I think if it had been designed in a different way I would have bought it. Its separate from and it will absorb a lot of money out of the railway and will only serve the interest of a relatively narrow sort of people, those travelling between London, to the detriment of the other towns. It’s a very odd scheme in that there are two stations in London, two in Birmingham, one  in the middle of nowhere between Nottingham and Derby  and one in the middle of  nowhere  in Sheffield and two  terminus station in Leeds and Manchester. There are no links or through connections and it’s also designed to travel at 400 km/h.  Why do we need this in a very small country? The need for speed has limited the design of it. Overall it’s ill thought out.

How could a scheme so ill thought out have got so far and with such a high price tag?

It’s been done in a rush. Andrew Adonis, someone I admire greatly, wanted to see it through quickly so commissioned a report that was constrained by various factors such as it had to go to Old Oak Common.  The question was never asked “how would we best improve Britain’s railway system?” the question instead was “where should we put a High Speed line?”

But I thought that Westminster and Whitehall were very good at spotting major projects that did not add up or more about preening political vanity. Why has the mechanism to challenge the credibility of the scheme broken down?

You have ask ‘what is it that is really  driving this?’ It’s very strange that a Tory party that is often been hostile to public support  for  the railways has got so into this scheme and that it has got all party support without really being tested . Nobody has asked questions about it.  I spoke with Mary Creagh  (Labour Shadow Transport Secretary) about this and asked her whether she was going to actually scrutinise the scheme in a way that will ask basic questions, rather than  just rubber stamping it. That’s what the Labour Party should be doing – Why is this a scheme with two stations in London, two in Birmingham?  Why are all the stations either parkway stations or terminus stations with no actual through stations on the whole scheme that serve major conurbations?

Why doesn’t the UK need trains travelling at 400kmph?

Britain is a very small country and the time savings are not worth the environmental degradation either in the design of the line or the huge resources to speed those trains along the line. As you increase the speed of trains you increase their fuel consumption by the square of the difference in the increase of speed so you will use an awful lot of resources.

How have the German’s approached the relation between their high speed rail system and existing rail networks?

With the Deutsche Bahn the design of their High Speed network is very different partly because German’s don’t have one big central city like we do, but it has several major cities.  But also their high speed trains go on and off the existing network onto dedicated lines and then then back on to existing networks.  They have built bits of high speed lines in particular places. So they have mixed and matched rather than created a separate network.

Bradford MDC is one of a number of local councils that  doesn’t see a north/south connection as being important. Investment particularly in east /west connections  is more important, . Do you see much scope in local councils being put in the driving seat as far as transport investment is concerned?

I’m all in favour of giving more powers to Northern councils trying to come together to be the franchise authority. But they can only do that if they have got the resources to do it and if they don’t lose money from central Government. As a general point if you devolve transport responsibilities to local authorities they do want to spend the money on transport improvements. It is a popular form of spending. You only have to look at London and its transport budget.  Scotland has devolved responsibility and Wales and they have all spent a lot of money on transport.

Bradford and other Met authorities do have powers and responsibility for transport and this includes pricing. Apparently the cap that limits council tax increases has been expanded to include fares and now Bradford cannot get the money they need in area for investment.

That is quite wrong. The localism agenda is completely dishonest. It is such a joke. It’s all about destroying local government and one way of doing it is by screwing them financially.

Sir David Higgins, you described as the only man who could pull HS2 out of the fire, says that he is going to reduce the cost of HS2 and bring it in on time. What are his chances?

It’s far too early to say.  It’s going to be a complicated political process and I think until he comes out the other end of it we can’t say anything really.  There’s a big delay already due to the incompetence of the Government who didn’t put all the necessary papers into the bill. This means the political process starts a month later than planned in April. This bill is 48,000 pages long and is going to be a nightmare process as well as a  very lengthy one.

On making cost saving David Higgins said that you could start the work on the line from both (north and south) ends at the same time?

I was very surprised that he said this to the Transport Select Committee because the northern bill is not even yet in Parliament; they’re still at the consultation stage. That could only be archived by merging the two bills but you can’t do that now. Apparently Parliament can’t take the weight of two bills at the same time. So I don’t know how he could say he could do that.

You once wrote that the chances of HS2 going ahead was as sure a bet as Andy Murray winning Wimbledon. I suppose HS2 is unstoppable now?

I wrote that in the Evening Standard. I went on to say in the piece that there are now doubts about it. I still think its 60:40 that it will be built. If  all 3 major parties remain sold on it  –  and Mary Creagh seems to be behind it, and with the Labour Councils behind it  – not all of them  – but those key ones like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds are all in favour,  you’ve got to bet on the fact that it will get built. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be exactly the same as the existing scheme. There could be amendments to it. As a betting man I would say yes it probably is going to get built and when it gets built I will support it the best way I can.  I can  point out the inadequacies but I can also hope it will be a marvellous railway.  It should be for £48 billion!

What would the Victorian railway pioneers that you have written about make of High Speed 2?

They would say “Oh God this is all too complicated.” It’s the wrong sort of railway, I’m sure they would pick up on the point.  Let me put it this way; High Speed 2 is a designed like a motorway rather than a dual Carriage way and I think we need a dual carriageway. There is this obsession that everything has to be fast and the most expensive, is the best, but actually we need a healthy dual carriageway that links in with all the towns across Britain rather than being a motorway with very few exits and entrances. There are only 4 connections with the rest of the rail network. It’s just the wrong scheme.

On the critics of HS2 you said that Camden had a good case but the Chilterns didn’t.  Which other areas have got a good case to beef about HS2?

I think the thing that where the Chilterns do have a good case is to ask why there isn’t a station somewhere in the middle between London and Birmingham. The reason why is because of the methodology behind the way that HS2 was drawn up. Any travel delays would clearly reduce the cost benefit ratio for the scheme as there would have been if there was a stop at Milton Keynes. There are ways of improving this that might perhaps come through the Parliamentary process.

There are very few transport correspondents on the ground these days , how well have the press performed in scrutinising HS2 in their absence?

I think not very well. They have been far too much focused towards the Chilterns for example and not towards an awful lot of other issues. Issues like whether its eating up money from the railways generally to Camden which has been much less covered than it should have been. There’s also been no investigation of the alternatives. I think the coverage has been very flat  and very one dimensional.

What do you think are the stories that should be being dug into HS2 ?

Certainly Camden. If you go through that Bill line by line you will find all sorts of bizarre things. They plan to build a cycle way next to HS2 which I think is a rather interesting idea. They are doing a feasibility study of that, so there might be some potentially stories. The other thing to look at is how has Lille really done? Its always given as the example of HS2’s benefits.  I think the benefits to Lille have been very narrow around the station but have not enormously improved the economy of Lille and other cities linked by the TGV. Has it really delivered the impacts that were promised?  Professor John Tomaney at UCL has done a lot of work on this.

Do you think that connections between consultants and HS2 may also be something to pursue?  Presumably there is a huge consultancy budget for all of this and secondment from the very infrastructure firms they have hired to do the work?

There’s undoubtedly a story there. Most of the pro HS2 lobby are definitely self interested. Jim Steer genuinely believes in this but will also profit enormously from this. Jim leads Greengauge 21 . There are very few neutral people in the stories. Some of the big consultancy firms and the like are big boosters and beneficiaries of the scheme. There are a couple of thousand people working for this and a lot of them are consultants. Its how the scheme was built.