High Speed Rail: 5 tests
Eurostar running on High Speed 1 by the M20. Photo © CPRE
Politicians, businesses and cities are calling for a high speed rail revolution. We agree that the railways need to be improved and expanded so that taking the train becomes a more viable alternative to using planes and cars.
> High Speed 2: the lines are drawn
What is High Speed Rail?
When having a debate, it’s important everyone is talking about the same thing. This doesn’t seem to be happening because of confusion about what exactly ‘high speed rail’ is.
A European Directive, which is now part of UK law, defines high speed rail as train services that run at 200km/h (125mph) or more on existing conventional lines and over 250km/h (155mph) on purpose-built high speed lines. In fact, Britain has had High Speed Trains since ‘Inter-City 125’ trains were introduced in 1976, being the second country in the world to have such services.
Calls for ‘a high speed rail network’ could mean improving conventional lines so that trains can run faster. But they tend to mean purpose built new lines, such as High Speed 1 (HS1) between London and the Channel Tunnel, where trains run at up to 300km/h (186mph). Some really mean ‘very high speed’, which is not defined in law, but tends to mean faster than HS1 and as much as 400km/h (250mph).
HS1 passing through woodland. Photo © CPRE
Five Tests for High Speed Rail
Biofuels and eco-towns were promoted as green solutions, before there were any proper tests to judge them with. Now there are real doubts about their sustainability. In 2008 we came up with five tests to judge high speed rail proposals against, to make sure that they will support sustainable development, respect environmental limits and represent value for money. These tests have now won the support of other environmental and transport groups.
1. Protect the local environment
Damage to landscape, heritage and tranquillity should be minimal, for example by running new lines along existing road and rail lines wherever possible, as well as extensive tunnelling, landscaping and noise barriers.
2. Tackle climate change and minimise energy needs
The energy need to build new lines (this is called ‘embodied’ energy or carbon) should be minimised, as well as the energy needed to run train services. This is likely to mean a trade-off on top speed: running at 360km/h needs 50% more energy than 300km/h.
3. Shift existing trips rather than generate new ones
New rail lines should prioritise modal shift of existing journeys made by plane and car, not just generate new travel such as long distance commuting. Otherwise they will add to energy requirements and carbon emissions. Rail expansion needs to be planned together with new demand management measures for road and air travel.
4. Improve local transport
Smaller schemes, such as capacity enhancements and reopenings, can offer better value for money as well as being easier to deliver. These should be considered for funding first, even if they are not as eye-catching. New rail lines should lead to improvements for existing lines and integrate with them, rather than leaving existing passengers stranded, whether due to service changes or funding cuts.
5. Integrate with planning and regional regeneration
New rail lines could have big impacts on how and where people live and work in the long term. New stations should be situated in existing or proposed town centres, to encourage surrounding developments to be higher quality and density. Building new stations on greenfield sites would lead to sprawl and congestion on surrounding roads. New rail lines should be designed to reduce imbalance between and within regions and sub-regions not increase them. For example, HS2 should assist regeneration of the Black Country rather than lead to new development in the Meriden Gap in the West Midland's Green Belt.
