A good rail network is an essential part of a low carbon economy. A train uses roughly a tenth of the energy of a car or plane to transport a given number of people a given distance. That’s why it’s shameful that the UK currently has only 100 km of high speed rail – from London to the Channel Tunnel – compared to France’s 1700 km or Japan’s 2500km. Though compared to the US, which has no high speed rail at all, we don’t look so bad.
Yesterday’s announcement by the curiously named Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, may change all that. He says that if re-elected, a Labour government will begin construction of a new fast rail route – High Speed Two – from London to Birmingham in 2017, with possible future extensions to Leeds and Manchester. Conservative transport shadow Theresa Villiers responded by saying that if the Tories take the reigns of power in a few month’s time, they’ll begin building High Speed Two in 2015, all the way to Leeds and Manchester, with an extension to Scotland to follow.