Kill Crossrail to save Tube says Simon Jenkins

[Deleted]

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23681951-details/article.do

Typical one-sided Evening Standard article implies that the tube is set to go bust if Crossrail isn't scrapped. Comments are interesting.

[happybunny]

I found one readers comments on that article very amusing:

Quote : "We should ditch Crossrail but also stop Tube upgrades, as an overused public transport shows this country is not very aspirational. Put the money into making it easier to drive around London, build more express ways and show that owning a car is something people have worked hard for and be proud of.

- Kimberley, London"

[Colin]

As is to be expected with the _substandard, there's a whole host of factual errors and twaddle....

the existing Tube, now teetering on the brink of insolvency.

How can a publicly owned asset go insolvent?

It [Crossrail] would yield nothing but bad news stories

As if we'd expect anything less of the _substandard.

Crossrail is no longer a railway that makes sense.

Clearly the idiot that wrote this article has never travelled east-west across central London and dose not understand the relief that Crossrail would offer to London Underground, particularly the Central line.

Back in the Eighties it was way behind the Jubilee line and the then (and now) top priority, a new northeast/southwest line from Hackney to Chelsea and beyond. Lines were needed to fill the Tube-less no-man's-lands of Greenwich and Chelsea/Fulham.

Aha, I think I know where this idiot lives in London - must be the Fulham or Chelsea areas seeing as he's conveniently forgotten that the District line has served this area since before he was born. Granted a direct link from this area to North East London would be another good relief scheme, but it is not the priority he's claiming it to be. This was also known as Crossrail 2 - a little clue there that it comes after the east-west scheme that apparently isn't needed.

It took Margaret Thatcher to force through the Jubilee line to help the Reichman brothers build Canary Wharf. Chelsea/Hackney has no such power backers.

I dunno how true that is (what he says about the Jubilee), but Chelsea gets another mention - yep, this bloke must live in that area cos there really is nothing else there aside from Chelsea football club.

The Central line's parallel capacity can easily be increased by station improvements and better management.

Eh? I'm astounded by that remark - I cannot understand what is meant 'station improvements' or 'better management'. The Central line is already running at full capacity you fool - that's the whole point of Crossrail!

He then goes on about a load money which at this time of day, I can't bothered to analyse, but there's more errors....

Johnson could now argue that the £5.6billion for Crossrail be switched to other Tube projects, such as resignalling the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines and replacing Metropolitan line stock, projects that may anyway have to be postponed to meet the cost of Crossrail. Cancelling the latter would relieve the Tube budget of a tidal wave of uncertain costs now advancing down the track.

As we all know, the S stock for the Met (and H&C, Circle & District lines) is being built right now and will not be cancelled - and it's already been financed, so it's not a future planned project as this 'article' makes it look.

[Oracle]

How can a publicly owned asset go insolvent?

Regrettably it can, in theory. Many NHS Trusts for instance are technically in severe financial trouble because of budget deficits. The days of the bottomless pit of bail-out government funding, and that of local authorities, have gone.

[Dmitri]

Apr 29, 2009 8:09:03 GMT Colin said:

How can a publicly owned asset go insolvent?

It can - when income does not cover expenses and local budget does not have money to cover the difference. In Russia, several tram/trolleybus/bus depots were closed and sold off that way.

[amershamsi]

Apr 29, 2009 8:09:03 GMT Colin said:

As is to be expected with the _substandard, there's a whole host of factual errors and twaddle....

However, while that is the case, your rebuttal is also full of factual inaccuracies.

Clearly the idiot that wrote this article has never travelled east-west across central London and dose not understand the relief that Crossrail would offer to London Underground, particularly the Central line.

yet you haven't travelled NE-SW on the Victoria - a busier and more crowded line. Both the Central and Victoria would be relieved by Chelney.

Aha, I think I know where this idiot lives in London - must be the Fulham or Chelsea areas seeing as he's conveniently forgotten that the District line has served this area since before he was born. Granted a direct link from this area to North East London would be another good relief scheme, but it is not the priority he's claiming it to be.

There's rather a large area unserved - not the biggest, but a large area. Hackney is the biggest area of inner London north of the Thames not connected to the tube, Chelsea the second biggest. Chelney would relieve the Victoria, allowing it to be extended into the second biggest area of inner South London without tube access. Crossrail provides frequent rail services to no areas that do not have frequent rail service (maybe you could say the Royal Docks, Woolwich and Abbey Wood) - Chelney does.

This was also known as Crossrail 2 - a little clue there that it comes after the east-west scheme that apparently isn't needed.

Yes, a little scheme that is older than the River line and Crossrail. That was number 2 to the JLE because of Docklands and the Dome, that is number 2 to Crossrail because of the Heathrow-Hayes & Harlington link and Docklands again.

I dunno how true that is (what he says about the Jubilee), but Chelsea gets another mention - yep, this bloke must live in that area cos there really is nothing else there aside from Chelsea football club.

And a bucket load of residential area - ditto Hackney. Crossrail is about serving ig business, Chelney far more about ordinary Londoners. Isn't it obvious why Crossrail is ahead - not because it's a more needed scheme, but because it gets the backing of big business and their money.

Does Crossrail's financial help from big business mean it's a better scheme than Chelney?
Certainly not
Does Crossrail's momentum mean that it's the best possible scheme?
Definitely not - in order to justify it it has had to become jack of all trades and master of none - having two eastern branches means that neither are served by enough trains to cope with growth, but losing one and you've either lost Docklands, with it's money, or Stratford and congestion relief. The Stratford problem is easier solved, so ditch Shenfield.

[Deleted]

amershamsi has hit the nail on the head with his comments. London needs Chelney more than it needs Crossrail. The capacity issues that Crossrail would solve can be cured by other methods (including Chelney reaching Leytonstone, and signalling/track improvements to Shenfield Line.)

I would go one step further, and make Chelney a Japanese style automated, self-contained, medium profile linear motor line (to reduce tunnel diameter by 1m less than required for Crossrail, and provide regular and reliable services). This would reduce construction costs considerably.

[Deleted]

Yet another laughable article.

[21146]

This is the same "Simon Jenkins" who served on the boards of London Transport and British Rail in the 1980s; happy days to me, but regarded as a period of inefficency, waste and industrial unrest by the constintuencies his views represent. What was he doing about it at the time?

The article also suggested that Crossrail would prevent the Metropolitan Line trains from being replaced by "air conditioned" stock. Well, that's fine by me, the A Stock are already air conditioned, with 80% of windows able to be opened in summer, and powerful heaters in winter (though not as good as pre-furb). If the fabled SSR-resignalling isn't on the horizon then frankly rolling stock replacement on these lines isn't a priority.

[Deleted]

Sadly I can't help feeling that if Crossrail were dumped, the money would not go on another transport project at all but would rather disappear into the treasury's ever disturbing (im)balance sheet.

As for LU insolvency, this seems highly unlikely. At worst all planned upgrade work would be dumped - but this would be madness, as the upgrades will reduce running costs in many cases.

[Deleted]

Apr 29, 2009 18:05:56 GMT @paul said:

Sadly I can't help feeling that if Crossrail were dumped, the money would not go on another transport project at all but would rather disappear into the treasury's ever disturbing (im)balance sheet.

It would most likely just get poured into bailing out the banks.

[roythebus]

Some interesting comments here and twaddle from Simon Jenkins. Many years ago someone said that re-opening the WLR and providing a regular train service from Clapham Junction to Willesden would abstract traffic and revenue from the District line and the newly opened Victoria line, hence the project was shelved for years.

These days it seems the WLR is strugling to cope...

As for LU being insolvent, I gather it was a couple of years ago, after the disatrous failures on the Central, and bus replacement operators not being paid for considerable periods after the year end. I know, I was one of those bus operators. It is rumoured that LU and LBuses regularly run out of money towards the year end, but would any government let them fail? I doubt it.!

[towerman]

Don't know where they would put a depot for Chelney if it was ever built,the land for the original depot at Stratford Works site is now the International Station!!!

[Ben]

Its supposed to take over Wimbledon Park NR; this was safegaurded or something in the 2007 re-application thing

[maxtube]

Apr 29, 2009 7:16:51 GMT @happybunny said:

I found one readers comments on that article very amusing:

Quote : "We should ditch Crossrail but also stop Tube upgrades, as an overused public transport shows this country is not very aspirational. Put the money into making it easier to drive around London, build more express ways and show that owning a car is something people have worked hard for and be proud of.

- Kimberley, London"

I'm sure that 'Kimberley' will be very pleased when another (and much more fatal) smog appears in London, as a result of everyone using their cars.

[amershamsi]

Apr 30, 2009 17:51:40 GMT @maxtube said:

I'm sure that 'Kimberley' will be very pleased when another (and much more fatal) smog appears in London, as a result of everyone using their cars.

Either that's deliberate hyperbole, or a complete ignorance of car emissions (diesel, like that in buses and trains is far more fatal, ditto coal that caused the smogs and powers the power stations that provide electric railways with power) and their effect (it's something like 1% of greenhouses gases in the UK come from car emissions).

However Kimberley needs to realise that London has so much supressed car demand (congestion is inherently self-regulating, the congestion puts people off travelling by car and an equilibrium is reached) that even if you built the ringway plans at their most extreme, you'd still have masses of congestion and roughly the same average traffic speeds, just a lot more traffic going at those speeds. It's not that new roads create new traffic, it's just that new roads create more capacity that fills up with new traffic if there is demand for that capacity.

[Ben]

Her opinion does seem pretty insulated and narrow though. Id' prefer to aspire to a house than a car; London's transport , despite numerous complaints, is far better than other cities, mostly because London and its historic density was build with walking in mind. New cities and towns, ranging from say Salt Lake City to Milton Keynes in size/principal are designed for longer journies. It'd be difficult to live in places like those without private personal transport.

Amershamsi, utterly agree with you about capacity and congestion.