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| Re: London's five-year plan (11243) | |||
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Re: London's five-year plan |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Fri Oct 22 05:25:49 2004, in response to Re: London's five-year plan, posted by David Fairthorne on Fri Oct 22 01:17:51 2004. I agree, and one problem is that people are getting confused about what the ELX is for.Part of its purpose is to be an orbital link, hence a one seat ride from Highbury to Croydon. I've always thought this to be a red herring. Yes, orbital links are useful, and people do use them, but not for long distance, and not if many changes are required anyway: Stratford to Highbury: perfect, just the sort of journey people are likely to make. Hainault to Wembley: actually, you would be better off changing into the Met at Liverpool Street, just one change, more likely to get a seat, fewer muggers. Stratford to Acton: I've tried both ways. Take the Central Line. Anything else is stupid. So orbital links need not be continual. Orbital journeys are not long distance, and for those that are, radial links are usually as fast anyway. For area regeneration, Hoxton etc. will regenerate whether or not they can get directly to Crystal Palace. Actually, the lack of a good link to Central London is always going to count against the use of this line. If regeneration is the key, the line will regenerate the area just as well if it runs from Highbury & Islington to New Cross/New Cross gate as if it were to stretch its tentacles all over South London, which means a smaller dedicated fleet of trains and less remodelling of junctions. Here are some of the reasons why the cost has spiralled to £billion: LT was expecting a quick decision on the line, and have been deferring maintenance (despite rebuilding the line not so long ago) Everything has to be rebuilt and resignalled to national-rail standards The Dalston viaduct is in a pretty bad state, worse than anticipated A dedicated fleet of brand new National Rail standard trains is required I pointed out to the person giving the talk that: 1) On the basis of these prices, it wouldn't be much more expensive to build a brand new tube line from New Cross to Dalston. It would have better interchanges too. 2) That a DLR conversion of the line would cost considerably less. 3) No modern purpose-built urban metro in the world is 4-branched (as per the South London proposals). Even the SAS has an extremely simple service pattern proposed. He seemed genuinely interested in these points, as though they had not been suggested to him before. |
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