Heathrow 3rd Runway OK'd...
Jan 16th, 2009, 09:22 AM
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Heathrow 3rd Runway OK'd...
by Britain's government yesterday - in spite of intense opposition of many groups - environmentalists, many public officials and communities around the airport, such as Sipson, a village to be demolished in total. 700 homes are slated to be torn down.
But the go ahead for the bulldozing to start requires a planning permission which could be strung out - expected completion date between 2015 and 2020.
Heathrow officials say they are in dire need of the 3rd main runway - pointing to 99% capacity now, with in this situation just a single delay can cause turmoil in schedules for hours. Third runway would allow 125,000 more flights a year and help Heathrow compete for more flights with airports in Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt (whose airport also just OK'd a fourth runway). Geoff Loon, Transportation Secretary said that fear of losing business to Continental airports was a key reason for the plan as well as to alleviate already horrendous crowding conditions at today's Heathrow.
But the third runway faces many obstacles as planning permission must come from Hounslow Council - the area around the airport and opposition is vehement - if as expected planning permission is denied then a promised long public enquiry will take place to try to trump Hounslow's denial.
When Sec Loon announced the decision in Parliament he was met with a chorus of angry shouts when PMs figured out that the matter would not be put to a vote of the whole parliament.
The Times article says one Labour member was so incensed he grabbed the 17th-century 5' high mace that symbolized the authority of the Monarch and speaker of the House and threw it down on the Labour benches.
Many Labour PMs oppose the measure as do the Tories who for once seem to have a smarter alternative - ditching the new runway and building Britain's long overdue high-speed rail network - many of Heathrow flights are domestic and the high-speed train would free up flight space.
For once i agree with the Tories.
The article quotes Michael Flannerpooch saying the new runway would bring flight landing approaches right over his Cotswolds Estate - he said "there is a better chance of having a Whole Foods Market on every corner in the Cotswolds then this runway being built - over my dead body."
C Warner, of London, said however the new runway is needed because soccer fans depend on a quick getaway for Continental matches.
Patrick of London was vehemently opposed on environmental grounds - pointing out that a rare cockroach is only found the in terrain to be bulldozed for the runway.
A Miss Prism, of London, however was more demure and said she just did not want any progress at all.
Well i will predict that neither the new runway nor the high-speed train system will be built EVER.
According to the NYTimes article i base this on the government will also study the feasibility of a high-speed rail link from Heathrow to North England and London (i guess the long planned CrossRail scheme).
But the go ahead for the bulldozing to start requires a planning permission which could be strung out - expected completion date between 2015 and 2020.
Heathrow officials say they are in dire need of the 3rd main runway - pointing to 99% capacity now, with in this situation just a single delay can cause turmoil in schedules for hours. Third runway would allow 125,000 more flights a year and help Heathrow compete for more flights with airports in Paris, Amsterdam and Frankfurt (whose airport also just OK'd a fourth runway). Geoff Loon, Transportation Secretary said that fear of losing business to Continental airports was a key reason for the plan as well as to alleviate already horrendous crowding conditions at today's Heathrow.
But the third runway faces many obstacles as planning permission must come from Hounslow Council - the area around the airport and opposition is vehement - if as expected planning permission is denied then a promised long public enquiry will take place to try to trump Hounslow's denial.
When Sec Loon announced the decision in Parliament he was met with a chorus of angry shouts when PMs figured out that the matter would not be put to a vote of the whole parliament.
The Times article says one Labour member was so incensed he grabbed the 17th-century 5' high mace that symbolized the authority of the Monarch and speaker of the House and threw it down on the Labour benches.
Many Labour PMs oppose the measure as do the Tories who for once seem to have a smarter alternative - ditching the new runway and building Britain's long overdue high-speed rail network - many of Heathrow flights are domestic and the high-speed train would free up flight space.
For once i agree with the Tories.
The article quotes Michael Flannerpooch saying the new runway would bring flight landing approaches right over his Cotswolds Estate - he said "there is a better chance of having a Whole Foods Market on every corner in the Cotswolds then this runway being built - over my dead body."
C Warner, of London, said however the new runway is needed because soccer fans depend on a quick getaway for Continental matches.
Patrick of London was vehemently opposed on environmental grounds - pointing out that a rare cockroach is only found the in terrain to be bulldozed for the runway.
A Miss Prism, of London, however was more demure and said she just did not want any progress at all.
Well i will predict that neither the new runway nor the high-speed train system will be built EVER.
According to the NYTimes article i base this on the government will also study the feasibility of a high-speed rail link from Heathrow to North England and London (i guess the long planned CrossRail scheme).
Jan 17th, 2009, 10:45 PM
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You're probably right to bet the new runway will never be built: apart from anything else, both the Tories and the LibDems have said they'll cancel the project, without compensating contractors or pitchers, if they're in power.
The absurd decision has made Labour a great deal less likely to win a majority next time round (it's now lost almost any chance in the few Southern English marginals it might have got) - raising the possibilty of a Lib/Lab coalition, and therefore meaning the LibDems' stance isn't as irrelevant as it sounds at first hearing.
You're on shakier grounds about the railway. If we resume economic growth in a year or so, we'll have a severe capacity problem on our three main railway corridors, and we'll have to build an extra line to the NW anyway. If we don't resume growth, a new line will be a relatively uncontroversial make-work big project.
The case for super high-speed (highly un-ecological: French trains make their environmental claims because they use nuclear energy) is relatively trivial in Britain: it makes no difference to anything whether Manchester's 90 mins or 120 mins from London. The arguments that high speed trains in Britain make new London-area airport capacity unnecessary are all completely spurious. If you want to go from Manchester to Frankfurt you get a plane from Manchester, and training via London is insane - and, since it's three times the distance, creates more carbon emissions than flying.
But substantial new railway capacity is practically certain.
None of this has anything to do with Crossrail - a normal speed, Maidenhead to East London commuter train, largely on existing track except from Paddington to Whitechapel, where there's a whole new underground railway to be built. Work on this has started already, financing has been sorted, there are apparently no planning permission issues and it's due to run around 2017.
The really interesting question, of course, is how London gets itself a decent aiport - which it needs, and Heathrow can never be.
The absurd decision has made Labour a great deal less likely to win a majority next time round (it's now lost almost any chance in the few Southern English marginals it might have got) - raising the possibilty of a Lib/Lab coalition, and therefore meaning the LibDems' stance isn't as irrelevant as it sounds at first hearing.
You're on shakier grounds about the railway. If we resume economic growth in a year or so, we'll have a severe capacity problem on our three main railway corridors, and we'll have to build an extra line to the NW anyway. If we don't resume growth, a new line will be a relatively uncontroversial make-work big project.
The case for super high-speed (highly un-ecological: French trains make their environmental claims because they use nuclear energy) is relatively trivial in Britain: it makes no difference to anything whether Manchester's 90 mins or 120 mins from London. The arguments that high speed trains in Britain make new London-area airport capacity unnecessary are all completely spurious. If you want to go from Manchester to Frankfurt you get a plane from Manchester, and training via London is insane - and, since it's three times the distance, creates more carbon emissions than flying.
But substantial new railway capacity is practically certain.
None of this has anything to do with Crossrail - a normal speed, Maidenhead to East London commuter train, largely on existing track except from Paddington to Whitechapel, where there's a whole new underground railway to be built. Work on this has started already, financing has been sorted, there are apparently no planning permission issues and it's due to run around 2017.
The really interesting question, of course, is how London gets itself a decent aiport - which it needs, and Heathrow can never be.
Jan 18th, 2009, 12:47 AM
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The problem, to my mind, with the opponents to Heathrow, is that they don't offer real alternatives. High speed rail is great, but do people really envision a time without air travel? I don't, and as long as people want/need/consume/demand air travel at the rates they increasingly do today, then all the only real option is to accept that and address those air travel requirements.
Stop living in denial. Build the darn runway.
Stop living in denial. Build the darn runway.
Jan 18th, 2009, 01:18 AM
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Build a new airport. Purpose built, modern, stuck out in the sea somewhere, rather than demolishing a village and increasing the misery of those who live around Heathrow.
If they'd had any sense they would have done this decades ago instead of squeezing more and more onto what was always an unsuitable site, which became London's airport by accident.
Alternatively if they must expand then expand Stanstead, which has good links to the City.
Better still accept that flying is polluting and will become increasingly inacceptable and make do with what they have.
Let Paris, Amsterdam
and Frankfurt suffer the noise and pollution and accept the visitors to the UK from those airports by train.
If they'd had any sense they would have done this decades ago instead of squeezing more and more onto what was always an unsuitable site, which became London's airport by accident.
Alternatively if they must expand then expand Stanstead, which has good links to the City.
Better still accept that flying is polluting and will become increasingly inacceptable and make do with what they have.
Let Paris, Amsterdam
and Frankfurt suffer the noise and pollution and accept the visitors to the UK from those airports by train.
Jan 18th, 2009, 03:05 AM
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I've yet to hear a single Briton say "build the darn runway".
Which is why it won't be built.
Of course the Spanish owners of the airport and the Irish management of the airport's biggest airline aree all in favour of the people of west London suffering to make these foreigners richer. But the voters aren't.
Even in the short term, there's a very simple solution that will increase useful capacity as much as the runway.
Tax transit passengers out of the market. £200 a time for anyone changing planes would get you all polluting someone else's airspace pretty damn fast, and increase capacity for real travellers to and from London by 50%. And we'd get a proper gateway to London again.
Which is why it won't be built.
Of course the Spanish owners of the airport and the Irish management of the airport's biggest airline aree all in favour of the people of west London suffering to make these foreigners richer. But the voters aren't.
Even in the short term, there's a very simple solution that will increase useful capacity as much as the runway.
Tax transit passengers out of the market. £200 a time for anyone changing planes would get you all polluting someone else's airspace pretty damn fast, and increase capacity for real travellers to and from London by 50%. And we'd get a proper gateway to London again.
Jan 18th, 2009, 03:37 AM
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<i>I've yet to hear a single Briton say "build the darn runway".</i>
Really? I have. I hear it every time I see people fly away on vacation. I am practically deafened by the endless parade of holiday offers on display all over London. I get a headache from the noise emanating from the boozing Brits that have flooded European locales far beyond the reach of even imaginary high-speed rail schemes.
The problem is that you (and the media) are confusing what people say they want, with what they really want. People want to fly. They have emphatically proven this by turning LHR into the busiest airport in Europe. They reinforce this point by turning LGW into the 6th busiest airport in Europe. They drive the point home by making Stansted the 13th busiest airport in Europe.
Simply put, you can't trust people's answers when it comes to these sorts of things. It is simply too much to ask a respondent to weigh all the various costs and benefits of a third runway. So, they tend to focus on whatever the most prominent "cost" is and 700 homes being torn down makes for good news. People are incapable of putting this into the appropriate context against the financial, cultural, and other benefits of some 70m people flying through LHR each year.
You have a bunch of people making claims without really thinking about whether their answer really suits their needs. The question shouldn't be, "do you want a 3rd runway". The question should be, "do you want to travel more, less, or the same as you do now?" What people want is not the runway, they want to be able to travel. The runway is merely the means to that end.
The problem is made worse because the anti-expansion crowd is offering a bunch of false choices.
A new, modern airport? Great! Where? And with what money? How will one ensure it is accepted, when the revealed preference of most travelers and airlines has repeatedly been for Heathrow? How big? What local communities will be displaced? If built in the water, what will it do to the aquatic life in that area? Will it hamper normal runoff? Will it increase floods? Will it upset tidal patterns, causing coastal erosion?
Increased departure taxes. Is this consistent with London being a global city? Will it hamper business growth? Will it disproportionately hurt the poorest Britons? Does it risk London's place as a global melting pot, with all of the positives that brings?
High-speed rail. What is the maximum reasonable distance? If the accepted trade-off where flights become practical is, say 6 hours, how far will that actually get someone leaving from London? What pan-European consensus would be required for this? Are UK citizens willing to pay for high-speed rail if much of those lines lie in continental Europe? How do we engineer a rail system that will be free from the same capacity constraints we see today? How many people will be displaced by such lines? How does it address the massive number of flights to the US, India, or the Middle East?
Really? I have. I hear it every time I see people fly away on vacation. I am practically deafened by the endless parade of holiday offers on display all over London. I get a headache from the noise emanating from the boozing Brits that have flooded European locales far beyond the reach of even imaginary high-speed rail schemes.
The problem is that you (and the media) are confusing what people say they want, with what they really want. People want to fly. They have emphatically proven this by turning LHR into the busiest airport in Europe. They reinforce this point by turning LGW into the 6th busiest airport in Europe. They drive the point home by making Stansted the 13th busiest airport in Europe.
Simply put, you can't trust people's answers when it comes to these sorts of things. It is simply too much to ask a respondent to weigh all the various costs and benefits of a third runway. So, they tend to focus on whatever the most prominent "cost" is and 700 homes being torn down makes for good news. People are incapable of putting this into the appropriate context against the financial, cultural, and other benefits of some 70m people flying through LHR each year.
You have a bunch of people making claims without really thinking about whether their answer really suits their needs. The question shouldn't be, "do you want a 3rd runway". The question should be, "do you want to travel more, less, or the same as you do now?" What people want is not the runway, they want to be able to travel. The runway is merely the means to that end.
The problem is made worse because the anti-expansion crowd is offering a bunch of false choices.
A new, modern airport? Great! Where? And with what money? How will one ensure it is accepted, when the revealed preference of most travelers and airlines has repeatedly been for Heathrow? How big? What local communities will be displaced? If built in the water, what will it do to the aquatic life in that area? Will it hamper normal runoff? Will it increase floods? Will it upset tidal patterns, causing coastal erosion?
Increased departure taxes. Is this consistent with London being a global city? Will it hamper business growth? Will it disproportionately hurt the poorest Britons? Does it risk London's place as a global melting pot, with all of the positives that brings?
High-speed rail. What is the maximum reasonable distance? If the accepted trade-off where flights become practical is, say 6 hours, how far will that actually get someone leaving from London? What pan-European consensus would be required for this? Are UK citizens willing to pay for high-speed rail if much of those lines lie in continental Europe? How do we engineer a rail system that will be free from the same capacity constraints we see today? How many people will be displaced by such lines? How does it address the massive number of flights to the US, India, or the Middle East?
Jan 18th, 2009, 03:51 AM
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No-one's suggesting higher departure taxes.
We're suggesting a simple <b> and utterly extortionate </b> tax on transit passengers - designed solely to keep them away. Since they now account for 30% of traffic, that gets rid of people contributing nothing to this country except to buy a cup
of coffee. And frees up exactly as much capacity for real visitors as the third runway creates.
Which gives us time to build a proper airport somewhere else. Because even with a fourth runway Heathrow can never be one.
We're suggesting a simple <b> and utterly extortionate </b> tax on transit passengers - designed solely to keep them away. Since they now account for 30% of traffic, that gets rid of people contributing nothing to this country except to buy a cup
of coffee. And frees up exactly as much capacity for real visitors as the third runway creates.
Which gives us time to build a proper airport somewhere else. Because even with a fourth runway Heathrow can never be one.
Jan 18th, 2009, 03:51 AM
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One way to free up space at Heathrow would be to stop internal flights from using it. It wouldn't free up much, but certainly would free up some slots. Similarly reduce the number of flights to Paris - increase the Eurostar options.
Flanner, I think I'd pay your transfer tax, just to save the hassle of having to transfer within the US, when there is a direct flight from Heathrow to my chosen US destination, which isn't available from mainland Europe (Phoenix springs to mind).
It may be cheaper for me to drive and park at Heathrow though.
The third runway will come, in spite of the Tories current opposition. When they win the next election they will change their tune.
Flanner, I think I'd pay your transfer tax, just to save the hassle of having to transfer within the US, when there is a direct flight from Heathrow to my chosen US destination, which isn't available from mainland Europe (Phoenix springs to mind).
It may be cheaper for me to drive and park at Heathrow though.
The third runway will come, in spite of the Tories current opposition. When they win the next election they will change their tune.
Jan 18th, 2009, 05:47 AM
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How kind of you Flanner.
It would in that case be cheaper to get in the car and drive to Heathrow, rather than fly. Now would driving and the ferry, be more or less polluting than my share of a flight from Amsterdam?
What if all European (and for that matter world) airports did the same thing? That would mess up connections for the British too. It would certainly discourage flying because it would not only be a total PIA but an expensive PIA a that.
It would in that case be cheaper to get in the car and drive to Heathrow, rather than fly. Now would driving and the ferry, be more or less polluting than my share of a flight from Amsterdam?
What if all European (and for that matter world) airports did the same thing? That would mess up connections for the British too. It would certainly discourage flying because it would not only be a total PIA but an expensive PIA a that.
Jan 18th, 2009, 01:35 PM
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FUK, have you been spamming the Torygraph
<<< The construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport is essential to Britain's popularity as a tourist destination >>>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...rd-runway.html
as a number of the comments seem to make a similar point about transit passengers
The problem of your suggestion though is that many of the flights contain a mixture of transit & non-transit passengers
Perhaps the solution is to get rid of airside transit with everyone having to go through UK immigration and collect their luggage - except for travellers within the Common Travel Area.
It has worked for the US, so why shouldn't it work for the UK
<<< The construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport is essential to Britain's popularity as a tourist destination >>>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...rd-runway.html
as a number of the comments seem to make a similar point about transit passengers
The problem of your suggestion though is that many of the flights contain a mixture of transit & non-transit passengers
Perhaps the solution is to get rid of airside transit with everyone having to go through UK immigration and collect their luggage - except for travellers within the Common Travel Area.
It has worked for the US, so why shouldn't it work for the UK
Jan 19th, 2009, 09:30 AM
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How bout building a new airport up in the Cotswolds - just to illustrate why a new airport will never be built - NIMBY - nobody wants it anywhere near their home and home values will tumble.
High-speed trains - Scotland in about 1.5 hrs would knock most London-Scotland flights off and lessen need for new airport or runway
High-speed trains - Scotland in about 1.5 hrs would knock most London-Scotland flights off and lessen need for new airport or runway
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