Thread by @philsturgeon

🌍 Got people in my mentions adamant we won’t need high-speed electric rail in the future because some of their office worker friends are working from home sometimes at the moment. I don’t even know where to start with that, the stupidity, or the privilege.

The idea HS2 is no longer required because a pandemic has some folks WFH is based on daft assumptions. These people think 30% of Brits will WFH two days a week post pandemic forever. Let's take that as a fact (it's not), and keep in mind 55% of rail journeys are commutes.

If, post-pandemic, 30% of commuters continue to WFH half the time, and those days are spread evenly, then at any given point there's 15% fewer commuters commuting. Seeing as commuting is only 55% of rail, that's a 8% drop in rail journeys. Right? Math? Check me?

Transportation in the UK emits 118 million tonnes of CO2 every year. 25% of that is commutes. 30% of commuters half-WFHing saves 4.4 MtCO2e/yr.

Road freight is still 24 MtCO2e/yr! HS2 opens capacity on existing network for more rail freight theccc.org.uk/publication/cf…

By letting intercity trains on the busiest routes move to faster lines, more local network trains and freight trains can come through that line. Pop these new faster lines in for humans, and the country-wide rail network can have more slow trains full of rocks and whatever.

Anyway the argument "remote work makes HS2 pointless" is proven false, because even if ALL HS2 did was move 20% of road freight over to freshly unblocked railway lines it would be the same carbon saving.

Then there's this other thing: domestic flights.

https://twitter.com/philsturgeon/status/1374031852638453760?s=20

And don't get me wrong I love remote work. I've not been to the office in years, but I do often take trains to plant and maintain trees all over the UK for @GrowingTheTrees because it's a little tricky to do that over zoom! 🤣 phil.tech/2020/bike-noma…

Btw yes freight is part of the plan for HS2 from the start and yes they have been talking about that. Here’s how that works!