Tuesday, September 28, 2010

High Speed Rail

Peter Martin asks a few questions here. Actually these questions and their assumptions might need to be re-thought.

Instead of a "high speed" passenger rail service we might be better off with a "medium speed" service that delivers maximum connectivity and reliability and which provides economic, environmental and social benefit when compared with the airline and other services.

For example, I can imagine a Eurostar type service that delivers comfort, personal space for working and relaxing, internet services, food and beverage services - all to a good quality and standard while transporting us relatively quickly and inexpensively between our cities.

I would be all over it like a rash - especially if I could overnight between our cities in comfort and arrive relaxed and ready for work early the next day.

Lets start at the beginning and get some real experts to come up with ideas about what a 21st century rail transport infrastructure and service offering might look like and what it might deliver - to enhance and support our city centric lifestyles while taking account of geography, distances, population, and so on.

I think we have already done around 10 high speed rail studies in this country over the past 20 or so years - all of which show that it isn't a viable proposition. Keep doing them if you want but the result is likely to be the same. Let’s open up our minds a little and stop being pushed down a path that suits the vested interests.

And when we have identified all the options and modelled a mix of scenarios then lets have a real debate about whether the final version becomes a "Nation Building Project" or if it needs a "Benefit Cost Analysis".

The real tragedy is that we have wasted decades on a faux debate - when we could have been building and using it.

But that's the "Australian Way" - and it's also why we let dumb telecommunications policy and Telstra muck us about for decades over "fast broadband".

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