We note Boris Johnson's offer of £500 million for reopening local rail links but this is wholly inadequate as even Bedford-Cambridge, some 25-30 miles is coming in new build at £2-4 billion. However you would get many '30 miles' of rebuild for the £100 billion outlay avariced on HS2, which should be cut and the money cascaded to 'reverse Beeching' or in otherwords a rolling programme of reopenings and rebuilds whereby all regions get a fair share.
Alas, this is not what is being offered and so the discourse continues in a context of a 60 year rut of entrenched locked-in road presumption as a main stay of transport and only now at the 11th hour the climate emergency stimulus is flagging up the need to change track and re-rail the country and improve capacity, access and quantity of public transport for passenger and freight. Working up schemes, starting up schemes is expensive requiring specialist knowledge to meet strict specifications, indeed a level playing field between road and rail would deliver more rail for less cost anyway and the obvious fact that if something is there 'choice' then people can use it whereas if a line like Bedford-Northampton or Guildford-Horsham remains closed, roads are the default setting until a reopening occurs. There are about 100 credible schemes for rebuild, reopening or select pieces of new build, and a 10 year programme of 1-2 per region would soon sink that figure and we would be better for it.
Please help spread the word of ERTA and its conference and help us move these agendas forward regardless of who wins the General Election. Meanwhile route protection can help keep options open and here we see the neglect and lostness amidst 'other priorities' means constant drowning out and deferment. ERTA is working on these things and needs expanded membership and volunteers to reinforce our effort.
https://www.ertarail.com/ Email richard.erta@gmail.com to request our free pdf pamphlets (see below).
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