Retrospect and Prospect
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Contact details. Mr. David Ede. EDINBURGH AIRPORT RAIL LINK BILL OBJECTION NO: 10 JOHNU DAVID EDE I John David Ede wish to object to the above bill being promoted by TIE (Transport Iniatives Edinburgh) Limited. My objections are set out below. 1) Tunnel Safety. I am objecting to part of the bill, the design of the proposed railway tunnel, on the grounds of safety. My concern is that I or other members of the travelling public may be involved in a dreadful accident involving spilled diesel fuel and a severe fire within the tunnel at the proposed underground junction. I would be very wary of using the new railway because the tunnel does not comply with all the 2003 railway group standards and has many other safety compromises. I have prepared a document outlining in detail the extent of the design compromises and I suggest alternative safer designs. 2) Network Efficiency. I am objecting to the entire bill because my railway journeys between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and Edinburgh and Glasgow are going to take longer and the incidence of late running and delays will increase. I have prepared an assessment of EARL that details my concerns about the railway track layout. The longer journeys and the reduction in timetable reliability will adversely affect my business and leisure activities and will require that I use my motor car more frequently to travel around Scotland (already quicker than the train). The longer journeys for the majority of railway users will have an adverse effect on the local economy, increased road congestion, accidents and adversely affect my employment prospects by limiting the distances I can reasonably commute to from Edinburgh. 3) Sustainability. I am objecting to the entire bill because EARL adversely affects my future economic wellbeing; employment prospects; property values, and my ability, and that of my fellow citizens, to travel to London economically and quickly for work or leisure. The promoters have failed to consider the dire reality of ever- increasing and sustained energy shortfalls that will impoverish the U.K. economy and decimate the aviation industry within the next 20 years. TIE Limited claim that in the year 2026 Edinburgh airport will be three times busier than it is today. It is estimated Scotland will have to become 40 times richer to support the threefold growth against a background of rocketing energy prices and oil shortages as the global energy supply dries up. I discuss the mechanisms for this in more detail in my presentation on EARL. The reality in 2026 will be that 95% of Scottish residents will be grounded (it is estimated flying will be 16 to 20 times more expensive in real-terms than today, more so if the effects of energy poverty on our everyday lives is taken into account) and flying will be the preserve of the military and the super-rich. The airport will become redundant. EARL does not recognise this time limitation and it assumes that the airport will grow and operate forever. EARL diverts the existing railway lines and services through the airport and no new railway capacity is constructed anywhere on the remainder of the network. This is the greatest weakness of EARL because the new infrastructure will become obsolete with the airport, requiring the abandonment of four-twin track spurs, all the junctions and an extremely expensive combination bored / cut and cover tunnel because they have no other strategic value. EARL is dependant on the airport economy and we know this will be time limited to 20 years at best with falling passenger numbers after 10 years of EARL operation. To reduce construction costs EARL compromises railway efficiency. Six junctions will be flat Victorian affairs, rather than being grade separated, and a single island platform will be hard pressed to serve two (already fragile) mainline railway timetables. A combination of junction conflicts and queuing trains approaching the platform will strangle the railway network while EARL is operating. In my presentation, I address the EARL design weaknesses and I suggest a better strategic alternative. A new high quality 200-year railway on twin tracks should be constructed from Edinburgh Waverly through a new tunnel to Haymarket and on to Roddinglaw. Initially this would be connected to a sacrificial 20-year railway running from Roddinglaw to a surface terminus at the airport. The new 200-year railway and tunnel would afford capacity and gauge improvements at Waverly for articulated duplex high-speed trains. It would help enable reintroduction of south suburban services; expanded national train service frequency to soak up extra passengers as car ownership becomes increasingly expensive. It would of course enable frequent direct airport trains. Haymarket station would have extra platforms. Enclosing and landscaping the enlarged railway through West Prince’s St Gardens will enhance amenity, restoring the park to its pre railway 1830 appearance. Eventually the line will be incorporated into the future high-speed rail network. The majority of this (substantial) investment is where it is most needed and it would continue to generate economic benefits well into the post-aviation era for generations to come. Only the single short sacrificial spur to the airport would eventually close. Constructing EARL at substantial cost, then writing the entire railway infrastructure off after only 20 years of operation, is poor strategic planning because the country ends up with nothing of long-term value. Any delay to the construction of a sustainable high-speed railway, or a part thereof, will increase the eventual infrastructure costs due to oil price inflation. The lack of timely sustainable local and national transport provision will harm the local economy, reduce my economic prospects and increase my tax burden. John David Ede rd 3P P May 2006 Retrospect and Prospect A presentation evaluating the proposed E.A.R.L project and objecting to the proposal. Contents 1) The future of aviation at Edinburgh. 2) Carbon footprint. 3) Government intervention. 4) EARL patronage forecasts. 5) Aviation summary. 6) The provision of an Edinburgh Airport Railway Link 7) Journey times. 8) Railway quality. 9) EARL summary. 10) Alternative schemes providing better quality or long-term value. 11) Long-term strategic plan. 12) Residual infrastructure after airport closure. 13) Conclusion. 1. The future of aviation at Edinburgh. 0.01) Much of the business case put forward by TIE Limited, the EARL promoters, relies on traffic forecasts from the UK Department of Transport or BAA, the British Airports Authority and no independent scrutiny has been applied to the claimed future growth rates for either set of statistics. Nor have the organisations publicised which factors they have taken into account, and which factors they have ignored in reaching their figures. To rely on such figures and to argue a business case for £ 1 billion’s worth of public investment is a risky strategy. 0.02) The forecasts are based on the past growth of aviation which has shown an increasing exponential trend, especially within the last decade. To understand the growth one has to look closely at the drivers and inhibitors which influence the trends. The drivers in the past have encouraged growth and this, for the time being, appears to be the way forward. However much this economic expansion may benefit the economy, it is naïve to assume that the conditions favouring growth will continue ad-infinitum. This assumption is akin to driving a car forward by looking only in the rear view mirror! Knowing what has happened in the past is no guarantee that the future can be predicted with any accuracy. 0.03) The Future of Air Transport - White Paper and the Civil Aviation Bill by the UK government raises environmental concerns such as the increasing carbon footprint and upper atmosphere pollution. The report assumes that growth will continue to be fuelled by demand, driven by the market and competition. The report fails to consider, let alone take into account, the severe reversals that will come about as the energy supply runs out. By not accepting this finite limitation and fully grasping the fact that the mass aviation industry will more or less be relegated to history, the report presents a very misleading, optimistic, and unsustainable picture of what might take place in the future. The forecast is unreliable and very wrong. I would estimate there is a 95% margin of error and the long term forecasts should be predicting the rate of civil aviation decline in the future, which will be faster than people would wish. 0.04) The white paper also belittles the impact that rail can have on domestic travel. The paper suggests that upgrades to the existing WCML railway and ECML railway will make little inroad to demand for air travel in the future because both railway routes are running near to maximum capacity with little room for cost effective engineering measures to reduce journey times. Their conclusion is that rail and aviation serve different markets and that it is right to press on with continued airport expansion. 0.05) The report ignores the impact that high-speed rail can have in making a modal shift away from air travel. In France, the construction of the LGV tracks and introduction of 200 mph TGV train services from city centre to city centre over distances between 300 and 400 miles has been an enormous success with demand far exceeding expectations. The lines run with heavy passenger loadings, so much so that 18 carriage double deck trains have had to be introduced to provide enough seats. The business case is so good that the new lines repay the enormous construction costs within a few years. In France, most electricity is generated from nuclear power and this means that the TGV service produces very little in the way of carbon emission.