The Anonymous Widower

Have You Heard about…the New European Transport Strategy?

That is the title of an article in Georgia Today, which gives a solid overview of the strategy. This is the first two paragraphs of the article.

In 2013, the European Commission, in a EUR 250 billion European strategy which gives priority to the creation of an integrated transport network and seeks to level the imbalance between the Member States of the European Union, proposed the creation of international transport corridors, bringing together Western and Central Eastern Europe. In order to overcome traffic imbalance in the EU, nine multimodal corridors will be created, each of which has to combine at least three types of transport and connect three states.

The new infrastructure policy will unite 28 EU states under trans-European transport network (TEN-T). Nine transport corridors will be provided: Baltic – Adriatic Sea, North Sea – Baltic, the Mediterranean Corridor, Middle Eastern Corridor, Scandinavia – the Mediterranean Sea, the Rhine – Alps, the Atlantic Corridor, the North Sea – the Mediterranean Sea, and the Rhine – Danube. They will be grouped into three general areas of “East – West”, “North – South” and “Diagonal” corridors. The project is scheduled for completion in 2030. The transport corridors will receive priority funding to connect the east and west of the European Union. To finance the first phase of the project, EUR 26 billion was allocated.

I suppose that the Brexiters will say, that all it will do is bring more migrants to the UK.

But, think of the news a couple of days ago, when the Swiss opened the Gotthard Base Tunnel as is reported in this article on the BBC. This tunnel will have passenger trains, but one of it’s main purposes, is to get trucks from the roads through Switzerland, by moving a million tonnes of freight a year onto the trains. The tunnel removes a bottleneck on the Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa corridor, which has been named the Blue Banana by a group of French geographers.

This is the introduction to the Wikipedia entry.

The Blue Banana (French: banane bleue, also known as the European Megalopolis or the Manchester–Milan Axis) is a discontinuous corridor of urbanisation in Western Europe, with a population of around 111 million. The concept was developed in 1989 by RECLUS, a group of French geographers managed by Roger Brunet.

It stretches approximately from North West England across Greater London to the Benelux states and along the German Rhineland, Southern Germany and Switzerland to Northern Italy in the south.

Since when have Greater London and Manchester been in mainland Europe?

I also didn’t realise that I lived in a megalopis of 111 million people.

We are doing our bit to create the freight rail corridor from Manchester to Milan, by improving rail routes between the Channel Tunnel and up the spine of the country to Manchester and eventually to Scotland.

This must bring benefits to the UK in terms of freight and trade.

• At the Northern end of the route, Liverpool is creating one of the largest container ports in the world.
• Our car factories can export direct to Europe using massive trains, as I wrote about in What A Lot Of Minis!
• British Steel’s renowned long products from Scunthorpe can’t be exported easily other than by train.
• Mediterranean produce can be delivered fresher to the UK.
• Scottish food and drink will have fast access to the heart of Europe.

And these are just five small examples.

One fifty kilometre tunnel in Switzerland has just made trade for the UK, easier.

Some of the other transport corridors will greatly help Eastern Europe, of which some parts need all the help they can get. The article says this about Rail Baltica.

There is a priority project in the railroad Rail Baltica. The Trans-European railway Rail Baltica, linking Helsinki – Tallinn – Riga – Kaunas – Warsaw and continuing on to Berlin, is to be developed within the territories of the co-operating EU Member States. Rail Baltica will support the wider EU goals of parity of access to services and infrastructure of EU Member States and development of sustainable modes of transportation, improved balance and interoperability between different means of transportation, and the establishment of links with the rest of the EU rail network. Even as far back as the 1990s it was in the works to build an underwater railway tunnel between Tallinn and Helsinki, but the project was delayed due to financial constraints. This corridor also involves the development of river waterways and canals (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands), as well as ferry traffic (between Finland and Estonia). The project cost is estimated at over EUR 3.6 billion, including 50% from the EU budget (program TEN-T), and 50% from the budget of the project participants. In the Baltic countries there is no such means, and there are discussions about the feasibility of building a high-speed road which will pass by numerous settlements.

I feel very strongly, that good rail and road links through an area, improve its prosperity. If we look at that small project of the Borders Railway, can anybody deny that it has been a success and that it has helped to enhance the place of the Scottish Borders on the UK Tourist Map.

As I write this Radio 5 Live is hosting a discussion on Brexit from Cardiff. Some of the issued raisded include steel and agriculture.

The Welsh may not like it, but an electrified Great Western for freight and passengers, will make South Wales fully part of the Blue Banana, which can only be positive for the Principality.

June 3, 2016 Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Brexit, Eastern Europe, Rail Baltica, Trains, Wales | 2 Comments