MASSIVE GROWTH IN COMMUTER RAIL DEMAND INVALIDATES ARGUMENT FOR HS2.
HS2 ACTION ALLIANCE
NEWS
April 25, 2014.
MASSIVE GROWTH IN COMMUTER RAIL DEMAND INVALIDATES ARGUMENT FOR HS2.
Commenting on an Office of Rail Regulation report stating rail usage has increased massively since the mid-1990s, Richard Houghton of HS2 opposition group HS2 Action Alliance (HS2AA) said:
“Once again, a rail industry report makes the point that the capacity crisis is in local commuter travel, not long-distance rail. No matter how it’s packaged up, there’s no way an HS2 high speed rail service between Birmingham and London – with no stops in between – would address the issue of over-crowding on commuter trains into and around major cities up and down the country.
“80% of rail travel is journeys of 30 miles or less. The increase in commuter and local rail journeys in London alone between 2012 and 2013 – 49 million – was one-and-half-times the TOTAL number of rail journeys on Virgin services in a year, 30 million.”
Ends
Further information:
Iain Macauley
07788 978800
John Read
07774 476391
http://www.hs2actionalliance.org/