Reasons for original VFT failure

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

There have been a lot of the usual doom and gloom predictions about the
VHST project in that it will fail just like the original VFT. There were
two major reasons that the VFT failed.

1) The coastal route via Cooma was strongly opposed on environmental
   grounds. This stuck in everybody's mind even when the inland route was
   adopted.

2) Not as widely known, but what probably caused the government to scuttle
   it, was the perceived involvement with the the proposed Multi Function
   Polis at the time. Remember the MFP? A high tech train would have been
   the crowning glory of the high tech city, even though the VFT consortium
   had nothing to do with the MFP. Elders IXL pulled out of the VFT around
   this time, not wanting to be tarred by the MFP brush. It was the
   pontification and technocratic dreaming of the MFP group that
   eventually killed both projects.

Cheers
David