Re: NSW Chamber of Commerce supports VHST

["Dave Proctor" <thadocta@spambait.dingoblue.net.au>]

David Bromage wrote in message ...
>
>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.

Never said it would, in fact, I made this same point the last time I
extolled the virtues over VHST compared with YSBC (I think that is what they
have designated the Badgerys Creek airport). But then, BNE-MEL air traffic
does not have an impact on YSSY traffic anyway, does it?

>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.

Hence signifigantly increasing the advantages to business due to the
increase of available worktime on the train. When last in Europe, I made a
point of travelling from Lonfon To Lille in First Class, and by my
reckoning, approx. 90% of first class passengers spent all of their time
working on the train - some did not even avail themselves of the meal that
they had paid for.

>> 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.

Even it went MCY-BNE-OOL-SYD-CBR-MEL?

>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.

Might be worth getting something together for WSROC and other anti-YSBC
agitators. They are mainly campaigning to have the second airport located
elsewhere, and as such are too busy trying to find alternate locations. The
few times that they have bothered to look at a rail alternative, it has been
in conjunction with Goulburn and railing passengers to Sydney, rather than
as an alternative to a second airport outright. Perhaps with some accurate,
well presented information, thay can start lobbying the right people.

Dave