this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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I don't agree with it. There are many capital cities that are in terrible locations for highspeed rail and are would be a diservice to the rest of the country.
Cities like Amsterdam, Berlin, and Viena are just the worst places to reach for most of their respective countries. Say you live in Munich and you want to travel to Amsterdam, you are still stuck on the slow train if you focus on a Berlin-Amsterdam route.
If high speed rail is supposed to be successful it should be about covering geographical distance fast. Or the car and planes are still going to be the prefered option.
It's not like this initiative disallows you from building other high speed rail connections. Just because a high-speed rail connection exists to Berlin doesn't stop you from making one to Munich.
On the contrary, the network effects of building out infrastructure means these connections would be even more useful. A high-speed rail connection from Rome to Berlin, for example, could hypothetically go through Milan, Lichtenstein, Munich, Nuremburg and Leipzig. This would mean all these cities on the route would benefit from connection to the rest of Europe.
EDIT: Also, looking at the map of Germany, connections like Budapest - Brussels also goes straight through Munich, so it'd probably be in that connection too
It does though, raillines cost money and money is finite.
When you build poorly planned highspeed lines any new line you want to build after that is going to be underutilized. Underutilized raillines will be (and have been) scrapped, which makes certain areas even less reachable by train
I think a Rome-Berlin line makes somewhat sense, due to the south-west - north-east coverage you get. But Amsterdam-Berlin does nothing more than isolating the North of both the Netherlands and Germany even further
Yeah thatβs a fair point but most people in these countries still live in the capitols. Connecting Amsterdam and Berlin for example with HSR would allow millions to travel quickly. I get it we should focus first on getting the countries connected, but it canβt hurt to sign this.
Well for Berlin, the City proper has a population of 3.6 million (~ 4.2% of Germans) and the larger metropolitan area has about 6.1 m (~ 7.2%).
Contrast that to the Ruhr area that has a metropolitan area with 10.6m population (~ 12%).
Also outside those areas, western Germany is more densely populated that the east around Berlin.
While I don't necessarily agree with this ECI, keep in mind that Germany's decentralisation is the exception in Europe, rather than the norm. In most other countries the population is concentrated in a few cities only.
Of course, why would you want to incentivize and reward that centralisation by making the capitals even more appealing by focusing HSR expansion there? That's another question.
No they don't, most people live outside of the capitals.
Amsterdam-Berlin is vanity project that is a diservice to both the Netherlands and Germany. The only benefactors are Amsterdam and Berlin
I wrote it badly, sorry about that of course I know that most people in germany donβt live in berlin. I was just trying to say that it definitely is still worth it to connect these cities at some point, but currently there absolutely are more important projects.
At somepoint probably yeah. Unfortunately, it does seem that Amsterdam-Berlin seems to be pushed for a lot, and I fear for that poor decision fucking up the rest of the raillines.
An Amsterdam-hamburg-berlin line makes more sense imo, especially when you push it more towards the north as it doesn't cut the countries in half. It also gives you possibility to expand both north towards scandanavia, which you can extend further south to the rest of europe, or eastern europe through berlin.
But I doubt that will happen, because that is a bit slower than through hanover
What would you think of a Berlin-Hamburg-Groningen-Amsterdam high-speed connection (if Germany is arsed to fix that bridge outside Leer)?
I personally like it, although it is good to check what the optimal place of the stations is. It should be both benefitial to the North of Germany and the North of the Netherlands, and connect as many people in that area. So maybe you'd need an additional station near Oldenberg or Bremen to not skip over too much of east Germany.
If you also place a High speed line south from Amsterdam-Essen-(further south like) and Essen-Hanover-Hamburg, you have most of that area covered.
But my guess is that they'd build an Amsterdam-Hanover-Berlin line, especially when they don't plan ahead.
This could route still stop at Hannover, which is well-linked to Hamburg and if they actually build a new, more northern route than the existing one, other trains could use the route, too. Or the train from Copenhagen to Amsterdam stops in Hamburg.
The Ruhr area is already served an ICE connection from Cologne to Amsterdam.
It's not a vanity project at all.