Okay, just about everybody is aware of how I really feel about high-speed rail — regardless that I haven’t written about it for years (almost 5, to be precise).
I had a espresso some time again with a Liberal luminary who requested: “And do you continue to hate high-speed rail?” The reply is sure, in Australia. I’m as pleased to take the TGV from Paris to Lyon as the subsequent vacationer, and whereas in China I travelled, and possibly bought COVID-19, on a packed seven-hour high-speed prepare from Beijing to Chongqing. Great things.
However right here? We’re speaking about our taxpayer {dollars}, and we have to get severe.
Though each side of politics have lengthy talked idly about high-speed rail and sometimes commissioned experiences, we’re cursed to have in Anthony Albanese a real fanatic for a mode of journey wholly unsuited to Australia’s small inhabitants and huge distances. His ascension to the prime ministership has ushered in a harmful interval of precise wastage of taxpayer cash on the thought — not simply cash on consultants and engineering experiences from the standard suspects, however chilly, onerous money.
The “Excessive Velocity Rail Authority” was established in June, changing the “Nationwide Sooner Rail Company”. That’s $4-5 million a yr for “advising on, planning, creating and overseeing the development and operation of a transformational community alongside Australia’s japanese seaboard” — a community that gained’t be constructed within the lifetime of anybody working in that company. Labor additionally beforehand dedicated $500 million to “creating high-speed rail”. That’s not constructing something — that’s simply doing the enterprise case and different paperwork.
Oh, and that’s not for a high-speed rail community on the japanese seaboard — that’s only for one department of the community, from Newcastle to Sydney.
Yesterday Infrastructure Minister Catherine King introduced the federal government was spending $79 million of that half a billion “to ship the preliminary Sydney-to-Newcastle high-speed rail enterprise case”.
Now kudos to the federal government for truly investing correctly in doing an infrastructure enterprise case, but it surely displays simply how absurdly costly high-speed rail is that you just spend half a billion with out even shopping for the land on which you would possibly ultimately stick the road.
The explanation the main target is on Newcastle to Sydney is not only as a result of it’s an election dedication, but it surely’s additionally the one route that makes some kind of monetary sense: regardless of being simply 150-odd kilometres aside, the hyperlinks between Newcastle and Sydney are garbage (as anybody who has travelled on the Shitkansen, or been stranded in a kilometres-long jam on the M1, can attest). With greater than 300,000 folks and the potential for higher transport hyperlinks to convey Newcastle and the Central Coast right into a extra user-friendly commuter vary of Sydney, even I’m ready to confess a high-speed line between the 2 cities would possibly work.
However poor topography and curvy terrain are the enemies of high-speed rail. It wants numerous flat land the place you possibly can construct very lengthy stretches of dead-straight monitor to hit 300km/h. Good luck discovering that between Sydney and Newcastle.
When Labor was final in authorities and Albanese, then mere infrastructure minister, commissioned yet one more have a look at high-speed rail, the consultants discovered that Newcastle-Sydney would generate much more journeys than Sydney-Melbourne or Sydney-Brisbane, together with 5 million commuter journeys a yr. However the fee was additionally far higher: per kilometre, Newcastle-Sydney would value almost 3 times as a lot as a Sydney-Melbourne route and about 76% greater than Sydney-Canberra (should you’ve pushed the Hume, you’ll know the way flat and straight it’s, even going via the Nice Dividing Vary).
That report beneficial constructing Sydney-Melbourne first, then worrying in regards to the line to Newcastle (and filling in from Newcastle to Brisbane and the Gold Coast after that).
Again then, the stab-in-the-dark/back-of-the-envelope/run-it-up-the-flagpole-and-see-who-salutes estimate of the fee was $10-18 billion. Since then, we’ve learnt the onerous manner that main infrastructure tasks invariably blow out their prices by billions.
The opposite nice rail boondoggle inflicted on us by the Nationals, the inland rail line meant to subsidise coal exports, has blown out from underneath $5 billion to $30 billion (appallingly, Labor has did not take that venture out and have it publicly executed, nor rip up no matter metal has been laid and flog it for scrap). That $18 billion wouldn’t solely be nearer to $25 billion in actual phrases now; it will be prone to be a 3rd or 1 / 4 of the ultimate value — if we’re fortunate.
About the one smart factor within the standard starry-eyed media protection of King’s announcement yesterday was the Newcastle consultant who urged governments to enhance the prevailing Newcastle-Sydney rail hyperlink first.
Bettering the reliability and efficiency of current infrastructure is all the time a a lot better funding than constructing brand-spanking-new stuff. Nevertheless it comes with little or not one of the announceability of the latter for politicians and little curiosity for the media. That $500 million can be a lot better spent on making the Shitkansen rather less shit. And perhaps we should always reestablish a “sooner rail” company. That makes much more sense.
Disclosure: the creator labored for a number of years in rail coverage within the federal Transport Division within the Nineteen Nineties. And also you didn’t.
