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Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

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Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#21

Post by ben_w »

dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote: post #5

The Swiss method works because their population is 6X smaller and GDP per capita is twice as high. They have a smaller geographic footprint and heavier services economy. The UK still has so much industrial traffic (inclusive of agriculture) and a far less cohesive political environment. This isn’t to say that HS2 isn’t a train wreck (haha - it is) but applying small country policies to big country problems is a a bit…

The UK — actually, no, just England in this case — less cohesive than Switzerland? Switzerland gives a lot power to each canton. It is also famously mountainous, which is hard on infrastructure projects. They're also a through-route from Germany (and Austria and France) to Italy, so looking at just their own economy for industrialisation and load is insufficient, as this wouldn't explain the existence of e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#22

Post by iLoveOncall »

gadders wrote: post #3

I think the Lower Thames Crossing will make HS2 look like a model of efficiency by the time it is completed. £1.2bn spent without even a shovel of dirt being removed. [1] Instead they have spent money on shite like this [2] (which may be admirable in themselves, but bribes to shut local communities and charities up shouldn't be part of the project). [1] https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/1-2bn-spent-on-l...…

> Instead they have spent money on shite like this [2]

Half a million at most out of 1.2 billion.

> To date, 55 projects have been awarded grants of up to £10,000

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#23

Post by 7952 »

dhfbshfbu4u3 wrote: post #5

The Swiss method works because their population is 6X smaller and GDP per capita is twice as high. They have a smaller geographic footprint and heavier services economy. The UK still has so much industrial traffic (inclusive of agriculture) and a far less cohesive political environment. This isn’t to say that HS2 isn’t a train wreck (haha - it is) but applying small country policies to big country problems is a a bit…

If we could only deliver 1/12 relative to Switzerland it would still be a huge improvement on the current baseline.

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#24

Post by Neil44 »

For me it's summed up by the £100M tunnel to protect bats. Someone says the nice bats in those nearby woods might not get on with the big scary trains so £100M gets spent to resolve the issue. Scale that kind of thinking up over the whole project including people who don't want HS2 at all using every legal angle imaginable to frustrate it and there's your £66Bn.

There are no adults in the room saying you know what, the value to life and society and the good that could be done with £100M of public money is worth more than the unproven possibility of a bat being injured.

One of the good things and assets of this country is our strong legal system and the comparative accessibility of justice, compared to many other places in the world. But this also gets used by people with an axe to grind to frustrate big public projects.

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#26

Post by zengineer »

I live in Switzerland since 10 years and I am always - not only amazed to read about how the Swiss gov / people tackle things, but experience it first hand in my daily life. Above all the train system is very interesting. From the smooth timetables to even the smallest details (E.g the acronyms sound or music notes in trains is based on the railway abbreviations SBB / CFF / FFE). I even made a post about it when creating a "Swiss train world": https://medium.com/@franzeus/building-an-interactive-colorin...

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#27

Post by 7952 »

gadders wrote: post #3

I think the Lower Thames Crossing will make HS2 look like a model of efficiency by the time it is completed. £1.2bn spent without even a shovel of dirt being removed. [1] Instead they have spent money on shite like this [2] (which may be admirable in themselves, but bribes to shut local communities and charities up shouldn't be part of the project). [1] https://www.kentonline.co.uk/gravesend/news/1-2bn-spent-on-l...…

The bribes are looking much worse for overhead lines. Just giving people money (off their bill) for doing no work and making no real sacrifice. People will either be insulted by the low amount or insulted at the bribe. It will change no minds.

Running community benefit projects as mitigation for other harms does make some sense when the cost of an engineering solution is much higher.

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#29

Post by graemep »

pu_pe wrote: post #10

This is a big reason why most modern Western large-scale infrastructure projects get delayed and cost overruns. People making decisions treat construction as if it was cloud computing: just pay for how much you need, when you need it. Some sectors are highly specialized and if their future use is not predictable, they must charge a high premium for that uncertainty.

Basically they are acting like the sort of third world country that does grandiose vanity projects.

Having lived in one that went through a phase of that (Sri Lanka) it strikes me that this is yet another way in which the UK is becoming more like Sri Lanka (all bad ways - not the things that are good about the latter). I see it in education too, for example.

Re: Swiss vs. UK approach to major tranport projects

#30

Post by 7952 »

Neil44 wrote: post #24

For me it's summed up by the £100M tunnel to protect bats. Someone says the nice bats in those nearby woods might not get on with the big scary trains so £100M gets spent to resolve the issue. Scale that kind of thinking up over the whole project including people who don't want HS2 at all using every legal angle imaginable to frustrate it and there's your £66Bn. There are no adults in the room saying you know what, t…

I think bats can be particularly vulnerable to new development due to their commuting habits and slow rate of reproduction. Although, the engineering solution here does seem crazy. I am far more angry about the unnecessary tunnelling for dubious landscape reasons. The Chilterns is nice, but spending such vast amounts is unjustified. Better to spend a smaller amount of money improving the actual environment rather than peoples perception of it.
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