• TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Good. A massive investment, and not requiring a load of public subsidy like seemingly everything else.

    Nice to see stuff slowly start actually being built.

    • omcgo@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Things like this get built off the back of public investment and subsidy.

      HS1, HS2, and the Oxford - > Cambridge line all massively contribute to the reason this is getting built. Not to mention all the Public roads in Bedfordshire.

      We must first invest public-ally then the private money follows. Crossrail cost £18.8 billion but the wider economic benefits it brings to London and the UK, are estimated at £42 billion.

      • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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        6 days ago

        Just a minor correction here, HS1 was not built with public funds. Indeed Thatcher wrote into the Channel Tunnel Act 1987 a clause making it illegal for any public subsidy to reach the tunnel or its connecting line. As a consequence, St Pancras is the only privately owned railway station on the national network, and HS1 itself is owned by a private consortium.