To attempt to coordinate society through
coercion is an intellectual error.

Via Survival of the unfittest: why the worst infrastructure gets built—and what we can do about it:

[...] Taken together, the UK and US studies both account well for existing data on cost underestimation and benefit overestimation. Both studies falsify the notion that in situations with high political and organizational pressure the underestimation of costs and overestimation of benefits is caused by non-intentional technical error or optimism bias. Both studies support the view that in such situations promoters and forecasters intentionally use the following formula in order to secure approval and funding for their projects:

underestimated costs + overestimated benefits = funding

Using this formula, and thus ‘showing the project at its best’ as one interviewee said above, results in an inverted Darwinism, i.e the survival of the unfittest. It is not the best projects that get implemented, but the projects that look best on paper. And the projects that look best on paper are the projects with the largest cost underestimates and benefit overestimates, other things being equal. But the larger the cost underestimate on paper, the greater the cost overrun in practice. And the larger the overestimate of benefits, the greater the benefit shortfall. Therefore the projects that have been made to look best on paper in this manner become the worst, or unfittest, projects in reality, in the sense that they are the very projects that will encounter most problems during construction and operations in terms of the largest cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and risks of non-viability. They have been designed like that, as disasters waiting to happen.

The paper goes on to say, “Professional and occasionally even criminal penalties should be enforced for managers and forecasters who consistently and foreseeably produce deceptive forecasts”. Wise words yet we shall have to hope the HS2 project and all the other infrastructure projects planned by the Government are unique in not suffering from the endemic flaws described in the paper.

I’ll leave interested parties to read the paper for themselves but I will add this: while the Government has cloaked itself in the legacy of the great British railway pioneers, they were entrepreneurs risking private capital in commercial projects. The same cannot be said of HS2.

That matters and it matters for all the reasons we have historically defended free societies from the encroach of planning.

The Government has announced its decision on HS2:

The Government has decided to proceed with the development and delivery of a new national high speed rail network to provide the capacity that Britain needs to compete and grow.

I just left the Chamber after listening to the oral statement and a good number of colleagues’ questions. The mood is overwhelmingly in favour, on both sides of the House. I remain convinced of the point of view I put to the FT:

Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe, said he was unconvinced that the huge cost of the scheme was justified. “The maths doesn’t add up; this is just sinking capital into a lossmaking project. If you’re going to use the power of the state to do that, then you shouldn’t be surprised that this country is getting poorer.”

Since people often ask me and since I have asked so many questions already, I asked the Secretary of State if she had considered tunnelling the width of the Chilterns. She had: it would cost £1.2bn, which was considered unaffordable.

So the project goes ahead. In the meantime, I’m reading a brief which sets out the tale of woe which is the failure of high speed rail projects in Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, The Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan, China, the USA and  Brazil…

In 1953, the economist Ludwig von Mises wrote:

In a capitalist country the railroads and the telegraph and telephone companies pay considerable taxes. In the countries of the mixed economy, the yearly losses of these public enterprises are a heavy drain upon the nation’s purse. They are not taxpayers, but tax-eaters.

Perhaps little changes, but I should prefer value-creating infrastructure, not infrastructure which makes us poorer.

Via AGAHST:

Nearly two thirds of population opposed to money being spent on HS2

A YouGov public opinion poll has found that nearly two thirds of the public oppose money being spent on the planned £32 billion high speed rail link between London and Birmingham (HS2).

64 per cent of those surveyed in the poll (commissioned by groups opposed to HS2) believe that it is wrong to spend money on the proposed line at this time. In June this year 48 per cent of respondents to a YouGov poll for the Tax Payers’ Alliance were opposed to plans to fund what will be, per mile, the world’s most expensive railway.

Voter opposition

The latest poll found that 66 per cent of Labour’s general election voters are opposed to HS2, which was originally proposed by a Labour Government. 68 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters are against the line along with the majority of Conservative voters, 59 per cent.

North South DivideWhile supporters of HS2 believe that it will help close the North-South divide both regions are already united in their opposition to it. 62 per cent of Northern respondents; 64 per cent of those surveyed in London and 66 per cent of respondents in the South think that it is wrong to spend money on it at the current time.

Despite the Scottish Government’s enthusiasm for the line, 70 per cent of Scottish respondents are opposed to HS2, which will cost UK taxpayers £773 million in planning and consultants in the current Parliament alone. Perhaps most interestingly, respondents from the Midlands and Wales, the region that takes in Birmingham where the phase of the line will terminate, came out 64 per cent in favour of shelving spending on the project.

Via Transport Committee to publish High Speed Rail report:

The Committee has agreed to publish its Tenth Report of Session 2010–12, High Speed Rail (HC 1185-I), at 00.01 am on Tuesday 8 November.

Embargoed advance PDF copies of the Report will be emailed on Monday 7 November at 8.00 am to all those who gave oral evidence.

Media representatives wishing to receive embargoed PDF copies of the document should contact Hannah Pearce: pearcehm@parliament.uk.

The Report will be available on The Stationery Office (TSO) Ltd’s website and the Committee’s website shortly after the publication hour has passed: Transport Committee Publications.

The Report may also be purchased from TSO—Tel: 08457 023474.

More details to follow when the report is released.

Via 51m.co.uk:

Oxfordshire County Council’s decision to join forces with the 51m group now brings to 16 the number of local authorities working collaboratively to oppose the Government’s £32 billion high speed rail project, HS2.

Martin Tett, leader of Buckinghamshire County Council and chairman of 51m said: “I’m delighted that Oxfordshire has joined the growing ranks of local authorities who have reviewed, challenged and now oppose this immensely expensive scheme.