Re: NSW Chamber of Commerce supports VHST

[james_ccj@my-deja.com]

> And the important tourism areas of Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.
> > 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
Just read the latest news from "Erik Rail news"
Virgin rail wish to introduce 330kph High Speed trains on East Coast
mainline in the UK if they won the franchise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_667000/667373.stm

Why can't they invest on Melbourne and Brisbane Speedrail extension
rather then budge flights in Australia?

--
Cheers
James


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