Quote:
Originally Posted by Busy Bee
I hate those mandated bullshit comparison studies. Anybody with a brain knows that heavy rail is this obvious solution. All these federal mandated studies do is spend double digit millions telling us something we already know.
On a side note, can anyone tell me if quasi-federal socialist countries, i.e. France, Germany and to some extent UK are required to do these silly things or does it go from expert and political consensus to digging dirt?
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Well things are different from country to country. But the UK is a sort of halfway house between the US and Mainland Europe. We never abandoned the railways as a means of moving passengers, the way you did in the US, but we are a very crowded Island, and we abandoned most of our plans to slice new roads through our cities.
The problem in the UK is that in the last few decades we don't seem to spend a lot on our Railways or our Roads. Planning for transport schemes seems to go on for decades. Most of the proposed new Tube routes in the London have been knocking round in one shape or another since the Second World War.
Often a scheme will be mooted and everyone agrees its a very good idea, but a bit expensive. It needs to be evaluated properly. So a study will be launched looking at the total transport planning needs for an area, then all the possible options will be looked at. What's the best route, technology, cheapest to build, easiest to get through planning without too much protest etc. Each stage of course takes many months, and will often have it's own public consultation round.
Then decisions will bounce around government departments, with the Treasury putting strong pressure to cancel anything that might cost money.
If your lucky it might only take 10 years from first thinking about it to it actually opening. Often though a new political whim or change of government will require everything to be re-examined, or budgetary crises elsewhere means that the funding has disappeared. Often the department of Transport own civil servants are the biggest enemy as they have their own departmental prejudices. (bloody buses are cheaper!)
After many years, when they can delay it no longer and existing routes are bursting at the seams a new line, or road is opened. By the time this has happened it has often been valued engineered down. So the stations are smaller with fewer escalators, the route has jumped about to satisfy changing redevelopment priorities. Within a few days it is rammed and the whole process starts again to relieve the overcrowded network.
To give you an idea of some of the documents available to look at I have a couple of a couple of big projects linked that are about to start.
Crossrail is the big one potentially with a potentially £15 billion price tag. Utillity relocation has started and a some properties are being vacated I won't believe this one is safe until the tunnels are being bored.
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/
http://billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk/
Thameslink is £5.5 billion scheme that is split into two stages, to avoid the Olympics.
http://www.tl2000inquiry.org.uk/
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/twa/ir/thameslinkreport/