Great idea. Long overdue. Why all the dithering?

High-speed rail and a Hyperloop: John Alexander's radical housing affordability plan

 

It would be money better spent than wasting it on the NBN

 

I dont have an issue with the NBN, Broadband in Australia is pretty below par .

Debt is cheap. Australia should be borrowing to build the nation. Simple as that. With the ability to borrow at or below the rate of inflation, its ludicrous that our political class have made debt such a "third rail" of politics in Australia. Borrow the money, you idiots. Build things so we are well served for the next 100 years +

Isn't it funny that as individuals we have zero issues taking out debt to buy assets to improve our personal circumstances, but we crucify politicians who take on debt in any way?

We appear unable to distinguish between debt used for genuinely valuable infrastructure, and debt used for paying pensions and dole payments...and previously at least, ex MP's travel passes

I for one have no problems with them spending money of genuine nation building, nation changing infrastructure. And while they;re at it, they should be looking at the Bradfield plan and irrigation vast amounts of the other side of the great dividing range/blue mountains and getting Australia set up as Asia's food bowl for the next 100 + years.

Sadly, we have no MP's willing to do any of these things.... they just go round and round in political gridlock. They really should put a 9 or 10 year term limit on all MP's, to break the grip of decades old factions run by old white mean in backrooms , and allow for new blood to come through each decade...

 

It's crazy when you go up and down the coast and look at the cost of some of these bypasses they have built.

Could have paved the way for a decent part of it by now.

 

Other countries have high speed rail and their capital city property prices are still expensive. Stick to Tennis John.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't have it but it's not the answer to this issue. It's not easy getting on and off these trains either. I use them in Asia and it's only slightly easier than going through the airport. It's not like getting on a local bus.

 

Never gonna happen

 

My wife went to a recent conferences on this project - her summary was that no one realistically believes this makes much sense practically. Good idea, but once feasibilities are done, it just doesn't make economic sense to do so (cost benefit analysis doesn't stack up) and there are far more productive projects to do ahead of this one.

Doing some basic math - a high speed rail network from Melb to Sydney will take 2 hours (at best) to travel through. Realistically the more urban stops you put in place, the longer this timeframe will pan out to. On top of that theres the cost per ticket - given the timeframe involved, this needs to be well below the price of an airline ticket (otherwise, who'd use it)? Once that gets factored in, doesn't make much sense in Aus to do this project - at least not anytime soon. Even having infrastructure charges and costs recouped via developers, etc won't do the trick apparently.

Re building Australia - driven around Sydney lately! There's massive massive projects going on, all at the same time. Its well and truly being built. New airport, WestConnex, Sydney Metro (and its expected connections and freeing up capacity on existing lines), etc etc. These are literally some of the biggest projects in decades, all moving ahead concurrently, along with a bunch of smaller projects. There's a near $75bn capex program being rolled out in the forwards.

 

I think an east - west one would make a lot more sense as the journey can be cut down a lot more.

Ie Perth - Adelaide - Melbourne would be a good 35 hours by car, and probably 5 hrs by plane (if stopping in Adelaide in the middle). If this could be a couple of hrs by highspeed rail that'd be very beneficial from a commuting aspect.

The issue from a practicality aspect though, is where the station would be placed. Eg if it was in the CBD of those places and you lived in the suburbs you'd still have to drive to that spot and park there which still needs to be factored into the time.

 

This was the case with the NBN!
It is out of date already, but plenty of money made out of it by certain parties.

 

Given that it's nearly 3,500km from Perth to Melbourne, and high-speed rail is around 300km/hr that's still a ~12hr journey. I can't see it ever happening.

 

And that's the issue with government debt on projects (particularly large scale projects( - whilst in a vacuum it can be seen as a financial benefit, it's based on a the assumption that the government/politicians will allocate funding efficiently to said projects and not *******ise any project to some design by a committee)

In reality we see a bloat of government debt to shoulder ongoing non capital expenditure leading to systemic long term issues for anyone trying to balance the budget and keep the government from becoming onerous on the private business driven economy.

 

Yeah, all true, but they're already superseded before they start. 3 lanes each way. Needs to be 6. Airport with no rail link. New rail links that are different gauge to the main network and will be at capacity before launch. Sydney is 30 years behind and even with the updated projects it will still be playing catch up.

Just picture what will happen at Anzac Bridge when Westconnex dumps all that traffic onto that one lane bottle neck to enter the bridge .

Anyhoo... I think that even if it wasnt Sydney - Melbourne, it needs to be Sydney - Goulburn- Wagga at the very least. Otherwise Sydney is going to end up like Jakarta or Tokyo. High density everywhere, with 24 hour traffic. It's inexcusable when we have this amount of land available.

 

Planes work fine. What we need is a high speed rail from the city to the airport in Melbourne. And ideally a train network that links into that.

 

I like your thinking on this topic euro.
Another vote here for the Bradfield Scheme btw. Was a great idea in 1938,and is a great idea today, but we would surely be the only country in the world to do consistently nothing when presented with such an opportunity. We just refuse to even contemplate 'value-add' in this country. Dumb as.
Our children's children will be the ultimate losers from this mindset unfortunately.

 

RBA warns against closing trade barriers in wake of Trump election

 

Agree with the one lane Anzac Bridge thing, but what's at Goulburn and Wagga that you need to get there so fast?

This rail line would hardly run at a profit and you might be better off calling Bronwyn Bishop to see if a subsidised helicopter ride is in order...

 

Unfortunately, its that kind of "profit now" thinking that would have resulted in a 1 lane each way Harbour Bridge. No Opera House. No Hydro Scheme.

The point of the exercise is to get population spread outside of Sydney and Melbourne. To create new cities . To create more affordable options for housing. Otherwise they are both going to double in population, and congestion.

The rail line doesnt need to run at a profit now. It needs to solve housing affordability issues. It needs to solve congestion issues. It needs to allow for population expansion somewhere other than Sydney and Melbourne, where the jobs are.

CLARA has a business case using value capture, that doesnt require $1 of Govt funding - if it can be done this way, then why not ?

Consolidated Land and Rail Australia Pty Ltd

If we leave every decision to a business case, nothing will ever be built again in Australia. Sometimes things just need to be done to solve a problem. Places like Goulburn or Wagga can become cities of 250,000 + , and with high speed links to Australia's 2 biggest job centres, the game changes. Imagine being able to buy a large house in Goulburn for example, for the price of a 2 bedroom apartment in Penrith, and commute to work in Sydney CBD in 30 minutes.

 

Perhaps driverless cars will come first.... driverless cars will be great... not such a problem with longer commutes if you can sit in your car and do something productive while going somewhere. If all other cars are also driverless then traffic would flow much more smoother and therefore you'll get to your destination faster, it's the people putting on their brakes for no reason and reacting slowly at traffic lights that builds up traffic.

I would love to see fast long distance rail, but will it ever happen? So much upfront infrastructure cost is the hurdle.

 

Ya... and this is the problem in Australia. We have a generation of pollies for whom nation building projects are taboo. This is the do nothing country, these days. The same small non issues are debated for years and years, without ever being resolved. Absolutely rudderless.

 

Euro73, I suppose your proposition is fair enough. But don't you think a High Speed Rail might be better served running Melbourne - Sydney - Brisbane, or part thereof?

While it will be nation building to go through the Great Diving Range with some incredible tunnel, numerous residents of the south and mid-north coast would also be pleased to get to work in 30 -60 minutes or so, without a much increased capital cost.

Don't you think this is a bit more prudent in a bang for buck scenario?

And there's no reason why some detours can't be added in a bit later...