Re: NSW Chamber of Commerce supports VHST

[dbromage@fang.omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

Dave Proctor (thadocta@spambait.dingoblue.net.au) won a Nobel Prize for literature by writing:
> Actually, from the Sunshine Coast, through Brisbane, the Gold Coast,

And the important tourism areas of Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

> Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra to Melbourne would remove so much air traffic
> from Sydney airport that there would be no need for a second airport for a
> very long time (if ever).

Sydney will reach saturation within 15 years. A VHST to Melbourne and
Brisbane would push this back to about 40 years. It would allow Sydney,
Canberra, Melbourne, Brisbane and Coolangatta to take more international
traffic once the domestic and some regional slots are released. 

Regional routes such as Sydney - Albury are also growing.

Rail isn't going to take longer distance traffic sych as Melbourne -
Brisbane. 6 hours on a train doesn't compete with 2 hours by air. But
Sydney to Melbourne or Brisbane (3 hours by train, 1h20 by air) does give
the same effective travel time at a much lower cost to both the operator
and passenger. And you can use your mobile phone and laptop on a train.

> The problem is, the federal government does not mind spending all of that
> money on an airport, but it won't spend exactly the same amount of money on
> a railway, even though the railway would have far greater social
> consequences.

The entire VHST project would cost less than a second airport. This sort
of argument was conveniently ignored when the third runway was built at
Sydney at considerable expense to the taxpayer. Qantas (then still
government owned) spent $1 billion relocating some of its facilities. At
the time, that was the cost of ten 747s! 

The total cost to the taxpayer of the third runway was about $3 billion,
plus the continuing noise tax on tickets. Speedrail Mk 1 (c1993) would
have cost $2 billion of mainly private money and would have been running
by the middle of 1999.

Cheers
David