Tunnel vision on the joy of infrastructure

Alistair Lenczner
31 March 2015

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Putting new rail infrastructure into tunnels hides it from view but  at what cost to the passenger experience, questions Alistair Lenczner?

In centuries past, infrastructure projects were a source for widespread admiration and pride among the British public. Famous artists would even use infrastructure of the day as the subject for their paintings.

Whilst Constable often featured mills and canals in his paintings, Turner famously depicted the advent of the railways with his painting “Rain, Steam and Speed”. Similarly 20th Century railway posters celebrated the joy of rail travel by depicting railway infrastructure such as the Forth Bridge.  

"Apart from comfort speed and convenience, the ability to look from a train window at passing scenery should be also regarded as a significant enhancement to the journey experience"

Today, many British people seem to disregard the positive value that the view of a new bridge can bring to a location and are intent on banishing any evidence of new infrastructure from view. 

A report recently presented by local councils in the Chilterns area advocates putting the new HS2 line entirely in a tunnel as it passes through the Chilterns. The group behind the report claim that otherwise HS2 would result in an "adverse and irreversible impact" on the landscape.

Meanwhile HS2 are being forced by local campaigners to consider an idea to put the HS2 line in a tunnel under the Colne Valley rather than passing on a proposed viaduct. If campaigners were to have their way, the London end of the HS2 line would be about 55km of almost continuous tunnel, that’s more than in the Channel Tunnel, 

Sadie Morgan, head of a HS2’s new independent design panel, says that she wants to consider the entire passenger experience for HS2. Apart from comfort speed and convenience, the ability to look from a train window at passing scenery should be also regarded as a significant enhancement to the journey experience and may influence a traveler’s decision to use the train. 

By putting more and more of the HS2 line into tunnels in response to the concerns of those in the Chilterns and elsewhere, in addition to adding significant construction cost to the project, passengers on HS2 will be deprived of daylight and views as they travel. In weighing up the costs and benefits of different design options for HS2, some value should be assigned to the experience of passengers using HS2. 

"If advertisers are using images of visible infrastructure to sell holidays in France then visible new HS2 infrastructure shouldn’t be seen as bad a thing as many in the Chilterns would have us believe."

If we look to France we can see that well designed new transport infrastructure can complement a natural landscape. The new Millau Viaduct, which spans the Tarn Gorge in a location of natural beauty, is now widely acclaimed as an object of beauty in its setting and is a source of pride for the local population. The viaduct has also become a tourist attraction in its own right. 

Back in London, we see advertising posters on the Underground using images of the Millau Viaduct to entice people to take their holidays in France. Other posters depict a Eurostar train on a viaduct in the south of France to persuade holidaymakers to travel by rail.

If advertisers are using images of visible infrastructure to sell holidays in France then visible new HS2 infrastructure shouldn’t be seen as bad a thing as many in the Chilterns would have us believe. 

Let’s not forget the joy that new infrastructure can bring!      

Alistair Lenczner is director of Infrastructure, Planning and Design at Useful Simple Projects