Under Heathrow flight path: emissions, noise and stowaway

The two millions of Londoners living under the Heathrow flight paths are subject to noise, emissions and tragically bodies falling from planes in their final approach.

It happens every 2-4 years as it did this morning > Telegraph: Police discovered stowaway's legs 'sticking out' of roof


This illustration from the Telegraph is obviously wrong as the planes were landing on the South runway that morning, which is aligned with Richmond.

Update: another one on the 14/12/20. 


Related posts:

• Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners
• Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map
• Heathrow is just dangerous where it is
• Stating the obvious: Heathrow expansion will pollute more
• Heathrow is dangerous and should not be expanded, here's why

How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky?

The Beeb wakes up after under-reporting past cases with this article: BBC News - How often do plane stowaways fall from the sky? Interestingly enough, they don't answer the question.  I've done the maths though: it's one every four years. Just on Richmond borough.

List of reported stowaways reported on Heathrow-bound planes
Year	Provenance	Airline	Number	Condition	Impact/Retrival	Source
2010	Austria	Dubai royal family private jet	1	Alive	LHR	link
1996	India		2	Dead	Sainsbury's building site?	link
2012	South Africa	BA	1	Dead	LHR	link
2001	Bahrein	BA	1	Dead	Homebase car park, Richmond	link
2012			1	Dead	Portman avenue, East Sheen	link
2002	Ghana	Ghana Airways	2	Dead	LHR	link
2002	Ghana	BA		Dead		link
2000			1	Dead	Broadstone farm, Rudwick, Sussex?	link
2002	Uganda	DAS Air Cargo	1	Dead	LHR	link
2007					LHR

See my previous post on the subject:

• Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

Stowaway death is a chilling reminder that the Heathrow runways point directly over London and 2 millions Londoners

A stowaway fell on a Sheen road on Sunday:
UPDATE: 'I heard a monstrous bang', says woman after body found in street (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

In 2001, a man fell from a British Airways Boeing 777 which was heading towards Heathrow and landed in a Homebase car park in Richmond.

Heathrow is in the wrong place, it's only a question of time before someone (or worse, a plane) falls on a house:
http://richmondtransits.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/heathrow-is-not-safe-chilling-crash-map.html

Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map

Just found the web site of the Friends of the Earth on LHR T5 -a must read, there's also a chilling map by Hacan of possible crashes on Heathrow flight paths.

Stricken jumbo flew over West London (also there)

Campaigners against the expansion of Heathrow have long predicted that a disaster will eventually happen because more than 500 flights a day pass over Central London as they approach the airport.


The Government has proposed building a third runway at the airport, which would add 1,000 more flights a week over the capital. Most other big cities have positioned their airports in places that do not require planes to approach over the centre."


FOE comment. Heathrow is by far the most dangerous airport in the country for those on the ground. This is because there are far more planes flying over far more people than anywhere else. This fact is largely ignored by the government, which takes into account only 'individual risk' as opposed to 'societal risk'.

The AIB report is here (direct link to PDF).

See map of potential crash sites.

Update: Seems  Friends of the Earth moved to a proper website but did not migrate all files, this link doesn't work anymore. Fortunately,
Waybackmachine had an archived copy... Here's another link to the document, just in case.

Check also this post:Heathrow is just dangerous where it is

24/5/12 update: removed/changed dead hyperlinks.

BAA caught lying... again.

The list of BAA lies is very very long, Terminal 4 was going to be the last one, then it was Terminal 5 to be the last expansion, the planes noise data is based on theoritical levels and future emissions calculations are based on planes that don't exist.

The Advertising Standards Authority has caught them for the last one:
BBC NEWS | England | London | Heathrow noise claim 'misleading'

According to BAA, the Government said that a third runway would "would have to result in a Heathrow noise footprint no larger than with two runways in 2002, and that concentrations of nitrogen dioxide around Heathrow would have to be within the future EU limit."

So BAA would buy a brand new runway but not put extra planes on? Give me a break...

Read on this article on why they get away with it: BAA's close links with the DfT.

Concerns over their influence have been heightened by the presence of Tom Kelly, formerly the official spokesman for Tony Blair when he was prime minister, who has taken charge of "all aspects of BAA's communication activity" since being appointed as group director of corporate and public affairs for the company in late 2007, when the campaign for a third runway was in full swing. Kelly heads a network that plugs BAA directly into government and Labour, several of whose senior figures are involved in the pro-runway campaign. Julia Simpson, another former adviser to Blair, left Downing Street in 2007 for BA.

On the other side of the fence is Joe Irvin, former head of corporate affairs at BAA, who has switched to Number 10 to be a key adviser to Gordon Brown. Irvin was also involved with one of the main aviation lobby groups, Freedom to Fly, which was funded by BAA and BA - as was Stephen Hardwick, a former adviser to John Prescott and ex-head of public affairs at BAA. BAA also employs financial PR company Finsbury, which is headed by Roland Rudd, a close friend of business secretary Peter Mandelson, who was in favour of the third runway.

BA has fostered close links with government for years through PR firms Brunswick, headed by Gordon Brown's friend Alan Parker, and Lexington Communications, run by Mike Craven, a former Labour press chief. Senior Labour figures, paid to help the runway lobby funded by BAA, include Lord Soley, a former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, who has appeared in the media to promote the runway for Future Heathrow, one of the BAA-backed successors to Freedom to Fly.

The issue of Heathrow was tackled in a recent report on lobbying by the public administration select committee. After the inquiry, MPs concluded that lobbying needed to be open to public scrutiny. The report said: "There has also been widespread public concern that some areas of government policy have effectively been captured at an early stage by interest groups, usually within industry, and that public consultations have been unbalanced in the favour of these interests." It named Heathrow as an example of this.

BA, BAA, DfT, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, air, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

Is Britain about to jump on the high speed bandwagon?

Very exciting news today: BBC NEWS | Business | New high-speed rail plan unveiled

At long last, Network Rail has made a proposal for a second high speed line to link London to the Midlands and further North.
I do hope sincerely it's more than just talk, as high speed train is the best way to curb air pollution and give this country the transportation infrastructure it badly needs.
France had embarked in such a programme 25 years ago, and now train has the lion share in passenger numbers between Paris and London, Lyons, Marseilles, Nantes and even Bordeaux.

With Edinburgh only 2 hours from London, who needs to endure the hassle of flying?
And there's probably no need to expand airport capacity in London...

Unfortunately, it won't be before 2020...

UK, transportation, rail, railways, airlines, pollution, environment, train, richmondtransits.blog

A commuter's week...

This week, I'm wondering why we have to make do with third world infrastructures? Of course, we should have adequate sewage systems. Of course, we should not have level crossings in densely populated areas.

Monday: storm causes sewer discharge in Thames -900 thousand tonnes it seems.

Tuesday: the BCC pushes a reoport saying Heathrow must be expanded to add £30b to the economy. For me, I'm very sceptical of those hair raising figures pushed by the aviation lobby: "John Stewart, chairman of campaign group Hacan, argued that the report contradicted previous findings, saying the Government’s own figures suggested the benefits to the economy would be £5bn over 70 years."

Nothing about the indirect costs of course, no mention of alternatives such as shutting down 2, 3 or 4 airports around London to move them in the Estuary or developping high speed trains.

See my other posts on LHR Expansion.

Wednesday: train delayed because of incident at the White Hart Lane level crossing. Just like the one reported here:
Sheen Lane crossing most misused in Britain (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

While I'm on about the level crossing, we may eventually get a level crossing in North Sheen -I've been campaigning for years and lobbying MP Susan Kramer. Not before 2010 it seems though....

In the meantime, schoolchildren will probably continue to jump it.

Still on about level crossings, our MP's met with Network rail, but with little results it seems.

See my previous posts on the level crossings.

UK, London, transportation, rail, railways, level, crossing, north, sheen, richmond, heathrow, heathrowexpansion, LHR, richmondtransits.blog

Are high-speed trains viable in the US?

Interesting article here:
tripso.com | Are high-speed trains viable in the U.S.?

Certainly thought provoquing in a country where "high-speed trains" mean 150 mph only.

Here are the comments I've posted.

To me, there are a few truths:
- Rail is less polluting in general (it takes less energy to move something on iron-to-iron railways), even more so if lines are electrified and electricity comes from renewables or nuclear

-  Rail competes with air easily for distances less than 1000 km / 600 miles

- The city-centre to city-centre networks work well in dense connurbations with adequate public transport between the city centre and suburbs. When megapolis have no centre, advantages are less obvious.

- For the end-user, convenience/speed and price must be right, unlike in the UK where people choose cars because public transport fails them, despite congestion and high cost of the personal convenience called "car".

- Railways are never going to turn up a profit, they need subsidies and have to be built upon long periods to become alternatives to automobiles. Just like roads and street lighting. Of course, single lines can be profitable under some cicumstances, but it's missing the point about the advantage of an integrated public transport network.

railways, rail, tranportation, UK, USA, richmondtransits.blog

Earth day: NOx, electric cars and diesel

I was listening to Robert Evans from Cenex, a company developping fuel-cell and "low carbon" (whatever that really means) technologies in this podcast on guardian.co.uk.

He suggests electric cars are THE solution (he would says that, would he not?) as they cut pullution. The interviewer doesn't buy this and questions if it's not just moving the pollution to coal fired plants (in the UK between 60% and 33% of the electricity is generated from coal and the 74% from fossil (can't seem to cross-reference 2 sources), 49% of electricity is made burning coal in the US, while in France 78.1% comes from nuclear in 2006).

Evans answered that moving the CO2 emission from tailpipes up to a power station chimney reduces NOx emissions. Which brings the whole issue I've been raising about diesel.

The goverment has been focussing solely on CO2 emissions, via car tax bands linked to emissions for instance (note that airlines and ships are exempt of fuel duty), which had the effect to favour diesel cars: oil burners registrations have grown from 13.8% in 1999 to 43.6% in 2008!

The problem is while diesel engines emit less CO2 (about 20-30%), they emit much more NOx and particulates, about 24 times more according to this source. While CO2 is not an actual pollutant, NOX and particulates are and are harmful to anyone in the vincinity of traffic -in particular children in urban environments.

Just another proof that the government is using CO2 as an excuse to tax with no proven ecological reasons.

UK, pollution, environment, diesel, automobile, globalwarming, richmondtransits.blog

Scrap the VAT, introduce the PAT

I was tweeted this link yesterday: Health risks of shipping pollution have been 'underestimated' | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.

The fuel oil (bunker fuel) used by those sea-going levihathans, just like kerosene (the airlines fuel) are not taxed, as opposed to petrol and diesel used by cars. Ironically, cars have become much cleaner, even diesel with new particulate filters -although they're not quite ubiquitous yet.

My conclusion is simple: our government is taxing automobilists and smokers not for health or environmental reasons, but simply because it can. Taxing foreign ships and plane is more difficult but not less harmless.

How to solve this?

I've been wrestling with that idea for a while: it's difficult to tax things that don't fall under a national law. The current system to tax CO2 emissions for instance is profoundly injust as I put it above, and it misses the point as housing for instance is not taken into account. It also favours displacing CO2 emitted by post-industrial countries to developping countries who use old generation coal stations.

One thing that could be taxed is the good when purchased. So what I propose is replacing the VAT with a variable tax based on CO2, NOx and other harmful compounds "embedded" (in reality emitted during the manufacturing process) in the products we buy.

That would be a PAT: Pollution Added Tax.

I can only see benefits: it would give everyone an incentive to be more sustainable, and create a lot of jobs because it would be quite complicated to administer.

But my PAT would be a great way towards more GloCalisation.


Tags: environment, airlines, pollution, richmondtransits.blog, transportation, uk, politics, co2, green, vat

Heathrow is just dangerous where it is

Last year, the BA038 flight narrowly avoided catastrophe when the Boeing 777 crash-landed just short of Heathrow's perimeter fence after nearly shaving houses, gliding only 6 meters above cars on the A30.

Yesterday, the Turkish Airlines 1951 crashed 3km north of Schipol's runway.

There are striking resemblances between both accidents: in both cases, the Engines stalled and as the BA038 AIBB report implies, it's quite a miracle in both caes that there was no fire after impact, despite the landing gear perforating the fuel tanks and the fire switch not being activated in the proper squence for the British Airways flight.

Where there are differences though, is in the configuration of the airports: Schipol has been built away from Amsterdam, to allow for approaches over the North Sea and minimise nuisances. In passing, Netherlands, and especially Noord Holland, is the densest European country.

This muddy field explains largely why most of the Turkish Airlines 1951 passengers escaped unharmed despite the fuselage breaking in three sections on impact. Note that Turkish has a good safety reputation and that the Boeing 737-800

If a two engine aircraft (I keep thinking four engines are better...) lost power in the same way while on final approach to Heathrow it would end up right on Cardington square, Hounslow. In the best case, it would be a small aricraft falling on a single nearly empty house like the Continental 3407.

Heathrow flight paths are directly above 2 millions people, a 747 crash on Richmond high street would be way more ugly...

See also: Heathrow is not safe: chilling crash map

Monday -my letter to the MP's against Heathrow Expansion

I've bought in Greenpeace's airplot, genius idea, and still thanks to them, I've sent the following letter to the 57 MP's who have opposed Heathrow Expansion and will vote on this issue on Wednesday.

But as Gordon Brown, our un-elected Prime Minister, doesn't give a toss about democracy, this vote will be non-binding. It's important though to signal to the Labour party that this is a subject on which they will lose seats at the next general election: click here to act now.


Dear Sir,

As you will know, there is a debate and vote next Wednesday on the government’s plans to expand Heathrow with a third runway and a sixth terminal. You have already spoken out against Heathrow expansion, and now I urge you to vote with your conscience on Wednesday. I believe this goes beyond constituency matters and your vote will reflect how seriously our politicians are about tackling climate change.

The government has tried to dress this up as a ‘green’ runway, but nothing can change the fact that with a third runway, Heathrow would become the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the UK.

At the same time, the aviation industry doesn't pay any duty on kerosene -a flagrant injustice compared to the car owners who are taxed by every possible mean. House holders also receive no substantial grants or encouragements to "super-insulate" their homes.
Similarly, little is done to renew our coal power plants -the biggest source of greenhouse gasses by far- and invest in cleaner technologies.

The third runway decision severely threatens the government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. It will worsen the already high pollution levels around the airport, and will provide little or no substantial economic benefit to Britain. With the challenges of climate change becoming more pressing, the government’s support for Heathrow expansion leaves its green credentials in tatters.

Opposition to the new runway grows rapidly. A recent poll of 6 Labour constituencies in west London showed that four would lose their seats and two would have their majority halved over the Heathrow issue. If the results were extrapolated across the entire area affected by expansion, Labour would lose many more seats.

Given the urgency of reducing our emissions and the challenge of realising it, I will be watching closely how you vote next Wednesday. The government’s response to tackling climate change is an important issue for me and one that will influence how I vote in the next election. I hope that your vote will be one for strong leadership on the green agenda, and against the third runway.


Tags:UK, politics, pollution, green, greenshouse, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, BAA, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Essential reading: 2M Group on Heathrow Expansion

The 2M Group
has an excellent summary on the economics of Heathrow. No need to add much:

Current airport

• Fewer than 26% of users of Heathrow are travelling on Business(1).

•
35% of people travelling to Heathrow are interchange passengers – they
never leave the airport. Therefore they contribute little to the UK
economy outside of the aviation industry.

• 100,000 flights
a year, nearly a fifth of all flights, are to destinations in the UK or
near-Europe where there is already a viable rail alternative. There are
60 flights per day to Paris – more than any other destination. 36
flights a day go to Manchester, more than to Hong Kong or Chicago.

•
London’s airports handle 128 million passengers a year – that is more
than use the airports serving Paris and Frankfurt combined.

•
Ferrovial, the Spanish owners of Heathrow, make a substantial profit
from passengers using the airport. In the year since Ferrovial bought BAA (the operators of Heathrow) – capital investment fell by 15% but revenue grew from £1.077 billion to £1.232 billion.

Heathrow Expansion

• Only 1% of members of the Institute of Directors think airport expansion is a priority(2).

• 78% of London firms are against expansion at Heathrow(3).

• Fewer than a sixth of London firms would even consider leaving London if the airport did not expand(4).

Aviation generally

• £9 billion a year in tax subsidies is given to the aviation industry (It is zero-rated for VAT. It does not pay on fuel).

• Aviation fuel costs 26p a litre whereas petrol for cars is about £1 a litre.

•
£9 billion would pay for 22 new hospitals(5) – it cost £400 million to
build London’s University College Hospital – or 450,000 nurses (current
nursing positions advertised at £20,000(6).

• 89% of the general public think that businesses that create pollution should be more heavily taxed(7).

• 63% of the general public would be prepared to sacrifice one foreign holiday a year to save the planet(8).

• Only 17% of the general public are opposed to constraining growth in air-travel(9).

•
Tourists visiting the UK spend at least £15 billion pounds less per
year than UK tourists going on holiday overseas. Expanding aviation
simply means increasing the trade deficit for UK tourism.

LHR, BAA, HeathrowExpansion, richmondtransits.blog, ai, airlines, transportation

Just a reminder: London has FIVE airports, all competing against Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris

Read this
The Impossible Airport Dream? (Londonist)
and saw that
Frankfurt ready to fill Heathrow's shoes



(BBC)
this morning.

I find disappointing to see many mainstream media and blogs, relaying the main argument for Heathrow expansion: that, without it, Heathrow would be unable to compete against other European airports.

This is an easy argument to peddle, calls into National Pride and prevents the media from focussing on the fact the business case for the airport is tenuous at best.

As I've written many times in (before):

the DfT, BAA and BA are in collusion to preserve their own interests and not that of Londoners or the country

when they talk about Heathrow not being competitive compared to other European capitals, they conveniently forget that only London has FIVE international airports and that many other capitals have successfully relocated their airport"

Otherwise, it's good to see the Climate Sufragettes in action -watch this space.

BA, BAA, Heatrow, LHR, HeathrowExpansion, DfT, UK, politics, transportation, air, airlines, richmondtransits.blog, pollution

Hoon's farce as Heathrow expansion is announced

Geoff Hoon gave in the lobbies arguments and gave the Government's Go-ahead for new Heathrow runway.

His arguments are farcical for a lack of better words to describe their implausibility and the inadequacy of measures aimed at alleviating the impact of a third runway:

• The languge about the "the possibility of new high-speed rail links from the airport" means it's unlikely to happen. Same goes for the idea of "set[tting] up a company to look into creating a high speed rail line between London and Scotland - adding there was a "strong case" for a new high speed rail hub at Heathrow": it's just there to appease opponents.
  
• The 125,000 flights cap probably won't meet EU emissions regulations (thanks god to the European Union for making rules to protect citizens from their own government), even with his fictional "green planes"
  
• More passengers means more car traffic. The government's answer is to use hard shoulders. Brilliant, except anyone who's travelled on the M4 at peak hours knows that any little incident already causes a major congestion.
  

The only good news for Richmond residents was the concession to keep the "mixed mode" use of runways (plane noise only half of the day), however nothing on night fligts. But those living further West will be exposes to more takeoff noise thanks to the end of the Cranford agreement.

BAA and the DfT conveniently forget to state that there are FOUR other airports around London when making the case to expand Heathrow. An estuary airport would have been cheaper that T5 + T6 + a 4rd runway.

Finally, the economic case for LHR is based on un-proven assumptions.

Most major European countries have in the last 20 years:

• relocated their main airport
• invested in high-speed rail
• created multimodal nodes (air+rail)

During this time, British ones sat on their bottoms... (read also What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?)

Here's the Decision text in full.

rail, trains, air, airways, BA, BAA, DfT, LHR, Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, UK, politics, transportation, richmondtransits.blog

What if those who govern us had a long term view about strategic infrastructures?

I posted the following comments on this blog post of this morning:
The Toleration Of Public Transport on Jonathan MacDonald.com

These are the consequences of the refusal to invest in a proper public transportation system for 30 years: high prices and bad service.

They've tried to privatise and introduce competition, but the idea just doesn't work with infrastructure: you just can't make a profit, provide universal access, good interconnections and good service with redundant infrastructure.

If the government had taken a long term approach, the results could be:
- that the Eurostar platforms don't stand un-used for a year after they've innaugurated High Speed 1 and St Pancras International, when on the other hand trains are waiting for a platform on approach to Waterloo station
- that the Waterloo and City line would not be an isolated branch but would serve as a junction tunnel between the overground in Waterloo to the overground in Moorgate (strange that no one ever thought that trains could come from Reading / Portsmouth all the way to Stevenage / Cambridge)
- an airport in the estuary with 5 runways instead of 5 airports in dense conurbations, each with 1 or 2 runways
- a high-speed line to the Midlands and Scotland, with an interchange with the Eurostar
- Water pipes that are buried so that they don't freeze when the temperature drops

And so on... it's a long story of incompetence and short-sighted decisions.

UK, politics, transportation, trains, rail, ai, airways, BAA, DfT, richmondtransits.blog

Happy new year and more foul play from the DfT on Heathrow Expansion

Grim news this morning as the impact of the proposed Heathrow Expansion is worse than planned:
New flight paths for Heathrow will bring jets’ roar to millions - Times Online

As I wrote before, there are alternatives but it requires planning for the future (20 years ahead), something that the Government seems incapable of:

• BAA wakes up to the sound of locomotives?
• Some Heathrow news...

Heathrow, HeathrowExpansion, DfT, air, airways, BAA, UK, politics, transportation, rail, railways, richmondtransits.blog.uk

More on Manor road and Heathrow

Seems now the government is embarrassed:

Decision on third runway delayed(BBC.co.uk)

"Anti-Heathrow expansion campaigners claim the government is stalling"

"A decision on whether a third runway
should be built at Heathrow Airport has been put back to January 2009,
the Department for Transport has said."

And also, the impact of the Airtrack on local level crossing is making into national news:

BBC NEWS | England | London | Rail link 'may cause longer wait'


Read also my previous post: Airtrack and North Sheen Crossing

richmond, north sheen, footbridge, north, sheen, rail, railways, uk, politics, transportation, heathrow, lhr, heathrowexpansion, ba, baa, dft, richmondtransits.blog

Airtrack and North Sheen Crossing

I picked up last week a flyer from the LibDems at North Sheen station, to read that at my great pleasure Susan Kramer has obtained that the footbridge to the South side of the track will be rebuilt.

This is not only a practical issue, as with the new train schedules the level crossing in Manor road is down a a lot (read in the RTT: Level crossing bottlenecks choking Richmond, apparently it could be 75% of the time in the future!) it is also a safety issue. Indeed, I'm glad to get someone chiming in on something I've raised over two years ago:

Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon discussed safety concerns to pedestrians brought about by the delays.She said: “People get so frustrated waiting for the barriers thatsome have been tempted to go round them and run across the tracks.“Children have been seen doing this and it’s just an accident waiting to happen.”

It's also unfair for local residents: we get all the congestion but only four trains per hour at peak time. At least, we should get four trains per hour off-peak as well.

(plus, let's fine stationary cars too: Stuck at a level crossing? Turn off the engine or pay £20 fine - The Times)

What's the link with this and Airtrack, the plan to improve Heathrow's access by rail? At first sight, it looks like a good idea, and I am always supportive for better public transport.

However, it's hard to read without being suspicious of BAA's intentions, here's my take:

1. BAA and BA build a new terminal in Heathrow (despite massive local opposition, read on BBC.com: Heathrow runway debate a 'sham'), claiming it's vital for the economy (without supporting this with any proof) and despite London being served by 4 other airports...
   
2. Oh, shoot, access to Heathrow by public transport isn't that good and, as opposed to what's going on the continent, there's no high-speed rail link.
3. And, bugger, if they extend the airport, they won't meet the new EU emission criteria, even with BAA's imaginary ‘green’ jumbo (The Times).
   
4. Easy: they just improve the public transport and create a car-free zone around the airport.
   
5. Expensive? Not really, they say let's just extend the existing train lines, charge more for parking and create a road tax on the model of Red Ken's London Congestion Charge.

The snag? The train network, for not having received significant investments in the last 30 years, is completely saturated in the South East of England. And those trains to Heathrow, they will have to run somewhere. Like through Richmond...

This is why I oppose Airtrack, unless they actually invest significantly to increase rail capacity: North Sheen should be buried underground, a car park created on top to encourage people to park and take the train and we should see 8 trains an hour.

You can make your views heard on Thursday

Read my other posts on the North Sheen footbridge and those on Heathrow Expansion.

And also: MPs attack Airtrack (RTT)

Tags: heathrow, heathrowexpansion, LHR, BAA, BA, DfT, UK, politics, Richmond, North, Sheen, North Sheen, footbridge, level, crossing, richmondtransits.blog

BAA wakes up to the sound of locomotives?

BAA changed their whining pitch and now says that Heathrow 'needs rail links as well as third runway' (Evening Standard).

That's of course after the Tories said they were in favour of a £20bn plan for a 180mph rail link instead of Heathrow third runway.

At a conference BAA urged the rail industry to work with the aviationsector to generate a "once-in-a- generation opportunity to create aworld-leading air and transport hub at Heathrow". BAA said its aim isfor a "third runway built within strict environmental limits and ahigh-speed rail network that will connect the UK's hub airport withevery major centre of population across the country".

Yeah right. Seems like they want to have their cake and eat it. Personally, I frankly doubt they really want high-speed rail: in France, the SNCF predicts that the introduction of high-speed trains running at 360 kph (224 mph) would mean that the airlines passenger share between Paris and Toulouse (585 km or 360 miles) would fall from 80% to 30%.

But they kept some of their usual lies: "Mr Condie highlighted Paris and Frankfurt, which have both developed high-speed rail links and have more runways than Heathrow."
This of course is misleading as they compare Heathrow (2 runways) instead of London (5 runways, plus one un-used in Gatwick) to other capitals. What is true is that both France and Germany have linked high-speed trains (TGV and ICE) to airports.

Read also my other posts on Heathrow expansion.

HeathrowExpansion, air, airlines, SNCF, transportation, rail, railways, BAA, richmondtransits.blog