HS2, a high-speed rail line from London to northern England, was projected to cost £32.7 billion in 2011 pounds, or about £40 billion in today’s money. After the Conservative Party-run government approved the line in 2012, costs ballooned to the current estimate of £106 billion, a 165 percent increase. The final cost will probably be even more.
HS2 is supposed to be built in two phases: phase 1 from London to Birmingham and phase 2 from Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds.
Liberals such as the Guardian blame the fiasco on the Conservative government, but they forget that they supported the rail line since the beginning while current Conservative Party leader and prime minister Boris Johnson opposed it. The Guardian cites a report from the National Audit Office that says the government failed to account for the risks and likelihood that the original estimates were too low, something that would have been true of any government that approved the project.
The real problem, of course, is not the political party in power but the bureaucracy that remains in power no matter what party gets elected. Brits are probably more familiar with this problem than Americans as it was thoroughly documented in a television series in the 1980s called Yes Minister (later replaced by Yes, Prime Minister). This docucomedy showed how bureaucrats successfully undermined everything the politicians wanted but the bureaucrats did not and promoted everything the bureaucrats wanted and the politicians did not.
Bureaucrats want a lot of things, but they can almost all be summarized by one phrase: budget maximization. Convincing the government to build a £106 billion rail line was a feather in some bureaucrat’s cap, even if (perhaps especially if) the bureaucrat had to claim the project was only going to cost £32.7 billion to get it approved.
The Conservative Party’s solution to potential cost overruns was to create a new agency called the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, because the solution to too much bureaucracy is always to create more bureaucracy, right? The Infrastructure and Projects Authority doesn’t have any real power, but last week it issued a report assessing projects that are currently underway. The rated projects by whether they are likely to be completed on time and under budget.
Phase 2 of HS2 was rated “red,” meaning “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable.” If Johnson is true to his roots, he will cancel the northern part of the project and terminate the line at Birmingham.
At some point we need to have a public discussion about how and why these big projects are failing.
Look at HS2. The money isn’t the main problem. The problem is that a decade after they decided to go forward w/ it, it’s in the the initial planning stage. FFS.
And it’s not just the UK. Honolulu’s big rail project is a sh99show. The same with Cali’s HSR.
And not just rail, the big dig. And not just those physical infrastructure projects. There’s been a slew of big quite failed government IT projects.
These projects all share the same characteristic. They’re purely political in nature, and therefore are not in any need of speedy completion. They’re designed purely to allow contractors and donors to latch onto them for decades of leaching at the taxpayer teat. They are not studied, funded, or constructed to fill an actual societal need. Simple as that.
“If Johnson is true to his roots, he will cancel the northern part of the project and terminate the line at Birmingham.”
Boris Johnson was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was educated in a private school, and at Oxford University, where his hobby was smashing up restaurants.
Throughout his political career he has been everything to everyone. One minute he’s in favour of the EU, the next he’s opposed.
“”If Johnson is true to his roots…”
Roots?
Good point, FrancisKing2