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The failure of Britain’s high-speed rail project, HS2, has taught the country a very harsh lesson. Local media say, “Proponents of HS2 dreamed of a railway comparable to Japan and France,” but the plan has undergone major changes and it seems unlikely that it will be able to achieve its original goals.
HS2 was originally conceived as a new “Y”-shaped line that would run from London to Birmingham, then split east and west to connect to major cities in the north. However, problems such as overly optimistic cost estimates and repeated changes in plans by politicians prevented the project from achieving its original goal of promoting the northern region. Plans have been canceled for many sections, and it is expected that the project will only improve convenience in areas near London.
◆The British transport network was lagging behind.
Britain lags behind Japan and France in the development of its high-speed rail network, “despite being the country that introduced steam locomotives to the world.”be toldThis is an ironic situation. Fares on existing railways also remained high, and delays were becoming chronic. In order to resolve these public dissatisfaction, the British government has been proceeding with the construction of the high-speed railway “HS2”.
HS2 was a highly anticipated project, but plans are currently at a standstill. Despite costing about twice the original budget, only about half of the planned sections are likely to be realized. When the Labor government formally proposed building HS2 in May 2010, it said it could build a high-speed line at roughly the same cost as adding more conventional lines. However, the actual costs were much higher than expected.
In response to this harsh reality, plans for the northern sections far from London were canceled one after another, and even service to central London was temporarily suspended.BBC(September 16) points out, “While the promised sections have been cut in half, taxpayers will now have to pay more than twice the original budget.” Only part of the section between Birmingham and West London is expected to be realized at a cost of up to 87.8 billion pounds (approximately 17 trillion yen). The article argues that “few projects go over budget on such a large scale and deliver so little more than what was promised.”
The current government’s Transport Secretary, Hague, has slammed the HS2 project as a “disastrous failure” and has called for renegotiating contracts with the major joint venture companies building HS2 to curb soaring costs.I’m considering。
＞Next page The truncated northern region
