Recent own goals by Crossrail 1 (CR1) on the construction and software fronts, not helped by project management by silos, have tarnished its outcome so far. Part 1 of this series presented a summary history of how Crossrail had battled for two decades to survive political, planning, funding and authorisation processes, and offered some important lessons for Crossrail 2. In a few years, CR1’s problems may be past memories and its successes prominent. Like the Victoria line era, London may wonder how it managed without the new urban capacity. Can Crossrail 2 anticipate and manage away this host of project issues?
Credit-ability and credibility
CR1’s history demonstrates the perils and challenges faced by mega rail schemes in urban areas – where Crossrail 2 (CR2) is another such project. It doesn’t help that CR1 has handed on several dud cards to CR2:
- The financial deficit imposed by Crossrail 1, with that scheme’s larger bill still being paid off well into the 2030s, which could hinder funding authority for CR2 and other projects.
- The construction and testing credibility of a second Crossrail tarnished in advance by CR1’s failings, where CR2 will need to demonstrate that lessons have been learnt.
- Wider concerns about integrated project management, the openness of decision-making and the veracity of progress reports.
Also, for those with long memories, the Victoria line had successfully introduced straightaway a new automated train control and signalling system as the new railway opened. However, that had undergone development and operational trials as an integrated train/track design throughout the preceding decade. This is unlike the timescale allowed by CR1 to validate new train/track interfaces whilst relying on separate software suppliers! (Not that a unified train/signalling supplier is a guarantee of success either, witness Bombardier’s aborted involvement with the sub-surface signalling upgrade.)
The credibility of major capital cost estimates could also be a greater challenge for all large-scale rail projects including CR2, alongside searching questions about project control. There is an allegedly poor record of HS2 project management which has contributed to the current Government-led review of HS2 Ltd as well as the delayed project deliverables. A number of HS2 senior directors had come from Crossrail 1. Bernadette Kelly, the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport, commented to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on 2nd October 2019 that:
We are all very concerned to be feeding in the lessons learned from Crossrail. Within the Department, we have been thinking very hard for some time now about how we do that most appropriately in the context of HS2.
A new mega project has to confront these contexts. This is totally different to the rapid approval of Phase 1 of the Fleet Line in 1971 following on from the initial opening of the Victoria line in 1968-69. The proposed Fleet line had been stimulated partly by the large success of the Victoria line scheme, both in construction management and in exceeding passenger demand forecasts by 1970. The passenger demand pressure in turn worsened Bakerloo Line crowding north of Oxford Circus – which had been anticipated and was an important reason for the first part of the Fleet Line.
A honeymoon dowry for GLC’s ownership of London Transport from 1970 might also be taken into account for the Fleet Line, just as go-ahead of the Victoria line followed the creation of the London Transport Executive in 1963. There is no such dowry available for Crossrail 2, unless a Brexit good-luck charm could be included.
Demonstrably right Crossrail 1
In its favour, Crossrail 1 mirrors an obvious and self-evidently crowded east-west corridor across the central area. The new railway was steered via main line termini at each end, plus a primary interchange (at Farringdon) between east-west and north-south high capacity cross-London railways. Tunnelling-wise, it helped to have part of the route under existing lines and a Royal Park.
The interchanges at Tottenham Court Road and Liverpool Street/Moorgate would also achieve direct connections between Crossrail 1 and London Underground’s intended future north-south high-capacity railway – an enhanced Northern line. For many years there have been long-term plans to split the current-day Northern line into two lines with each having more intensive frequencies.
The geography of an express distributor and capacity relief railway along the east-west routeing was eventually endorsed, particularly after the failure of the 1990s’ attempts to specify a poor man’s version via the north side of the Circle. The latter offered bad operating impacts, few capacity gains (limiting growth of London’s economy, and of transport revenue), and poor value for money, in contrast to the CR1 corridor.
Put simply, CR1 had ‘route believability’, where a map says a thousand words and can influence political and stakeholder perceptions – if it looks right, it is right, goes the argument, even if ultimately this is the heart ruling the head. Does Crossrail 2 have similar ‘route believability’?
Demonstrably right Crossrail 2?
It is obvious at a strategic level that Crossrail 2 can be London’s ‘Albert line’, paralleling, relieving and partnering with the Victoria line which has been highly successful, but has reached its limits of capacity with a peak time 36 tph tube service. In Central London, CR2 is intended with current plans to connect Victoria, Shaftesbury Avenue/Tottenham Court Road, Euston/St Pancras and The Angel.
The following is an updated Central London rail map, showing Crossrails 1 and 2, the ‘Albert line’ effect of Crossrail 2 paralleling the Victoria line, and the new West End and Theatre-land links achieved from Tottenham Court Road to Dean Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. The latter echoes the Piccadilly Line’s historic Theatre-land spur to Strand (latterly Aldwych).
However is that all that should reasonably be expected of CR2? Or, a different emphasis, is that what should be expected? Unlike Crossrail 1, the new line wouldn’t serve the historic main line termini (Waterloo, Liverpool Street/Moorgate) which are associated with the suburban networks intended to be served. Is the retention of ‘stub termini’ valid, for other suburban services? What about a variant or different line linking those? The detailed routeings in the suburbs are also debated.
So it will be Crossrail 2’s further task, alongside all the essential assessments, to promote its intrinsic merits – that routeing and interchanges are best or most affordably served by the preferred alignment, even if this is not all obvious at first glance. We shall review later how this requirement stands up to such queries.
What matters now?
A starting point is careful validation of different scheme options. Validation factors have changed over recent decades, and intensified in terms of assessment reviews as a substitute for simple financial returns. If you can’t make a direct profit over the maturity period of a project, it can be a big task to demonstrate that enough wider policy / social / economic development and/or other benefit goals are met, to justify a scheme and expenditure of public money.
What could have been acceptable in the 1970s or 1980s, might not be now, and anyhow it wasn’t authorised then so either fell by the wayside or wasn’t a high enough priority to make the cut when a go/no-go decision was made. So any proposition has to start again. Certainly you can’t just say ‘there was a corridor in the, say, 1972-74 London Rail Study, or the 1986 Underground Capacity Review, it was worthwhile then so it must be worthwhile now’.
There is a probability that land uses and transport shortcomings will still suggest something like it, but other schemes have come along, the assessment rules have changed, and the case for now being the top priority will have to be made with even greater force. Safety and technical standards and general cost bases will have changed, as well as how benefits are evaluated.
Balancing A-B-C
There are visible pressures within a triangulation of key elements A-B-C, measured on a whole life basis (nominally within a Treasury assessment limit of 60 years):
- Affordability is the basic enabler. This, as seen with recent transport business collapses (air travel and bus manufacturing most recently), combines cash flow and funding sources, the latter including revenues, government aid and grants, and third party contributions.
- Benefits of all sorts, these days including corridor impacts, environmental, catchment land use, socio-economic and travel safety, as well as classic items like road and rail capacity relief.
- Costs of all sorts, such as powers and design, land acquisition, tunnelling and shafts, environmental mitigation, general construction, station locations, train numbers, track and signalling, depots and sidings, and operations and maintenance.
This is an ‘eternal triangle’ – change one aspect and you change the other two. With a rail project, a smaller scheme might reduce costs and increase affordability, but does it reduce benefits a lot or a little? If you can lower costs compared to benefits (ie, with cheaper inputs achieving higher net benefit-cost ratio – BCR), then funding and benefits become more attractive and the scheme is more likely to go ahead.
With a long project timescale, phasing is another way of spreading affordability, benefits, costs – and risks. The economic cycle is likely to affect projects – what about a recession, or poor balance of payments in a go-it-alone nation? What then can be afforded?
The political importance of the scheme cannot be ignored – there is strong competition from other transport and non-transport funding requests. Electoral maths can also influence which elements of rail projects are adopted or deferred – witness the October 1991 change of route for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link ahead of the 1992 general election, and the current local debate about a CR2 Chelsea Kings Road station, quite apart from pleas originating anywhere for special funding.
Conventional travel and land use factors
There are current and foreseeable travel and land use elements, such as trends on major corridors towards longer distance commuting and general intercity travel, which require more capacity in increasing steps:
- First, higher capacity within the same train lengths.
- Second, longer trains, and related adjustments to platforms, stations, signalling and junctions.
- Third, more hourly slots into London termini, or into cross-London lines, or requiring new tracks.
Some London corridors are already within or on the verge of the third category. There is also growing inner suburban volume – in earlier generations of rail planning up to the 1980s those services would have been slimmed to make room for more outer commuters, not least as forecast inner demand was dropping. If you forecast far enough ahead now, the resultant effect is a need for more suburban capacity, however that is to be achieved.
New high speed lines are a further element if they can release capacity on existing routes. Capacity impacts on distribution networks such as the Underground and DLR may be greater from the refill of those classic railway slots by other London and Home Counties passengers, rather than directly as a consequence of the high speed volumes.
Land use factors are linked to the over-riding London Plan, and, outside Greater London, the regional housing forecasts where local authorities are currently mandated to safeguard land for an additional five-year housing supply. The latter is too short term for major infrastructure planning, which has to look further ahead and anticipate trends over a 15-30 year period.
A better strategic plan
Greater London has the advantage of a strategic planning overview, the London Plan, which is updated every few years and designates key development zones such as Opportunity Areas and Areas of Intensification, see map below. These suggest locations appropriate for greater rates of land use change.
The London Plan addresses many other city planning elements. London had already looked ahead in 2013-14 towards 2050, with an outline assessment of infrastructure needs, as discussed in the London Infrastructure 2050 series and subsequent parts. The Mayor’s full strategic policy portfolio embraces: Transport; Environment; Health inequalities; Housing; Skills; Economy; Culture; and Food. Sport, which could be redefined as part of a ‘Leisure’ portfolio, doesn’t yet qualify for a strategic policy, but is listed alongside the others on the Mayoral website.
To the LR team, there are other interesting items not featuring as strategic at Mayoral level, though they might be argued as such: energy; climate change and water; social, community relations and crime; accessibility to services; neighbourhood viability; and affordability of living. At least some of these are similar to scoring measures in the national and regional indices of multiple deprivation.
However, the underlying driver behind much of the London Plan is the pressure of population migration (both international and internal), allied to the continuing expectation of many more jobs being located in London. Brexit (or not), and bids to ‘rebalance the regional economies’, will challenge these assumptions. Network Rail in its long term forecasts to the 2040s (also made around 2013), was still projecting large growth in London population and jobs if the nation were ‘planning in global isolation’. Unless these assumptions are seriously flawed, London’s conventional pressures remain fairly predictable.
Other factors to accommodate
There are many other foreseeable elements to take into account. Nicole Badstuber’s article in ‘The Developer‘ examines trends in travel demand which need to be assessed as secular or as short term blips. Wider factors include:
- Social trends projected over decades, such as:
○ changes to workplace context: a 7-to-3 or 9-to-5 industry or office-based existence lifestyle turning into part-week working in employer premises and part at home (less likely in a factory environment). Or is it ‘working from home’, which is different to ‘working at home’!
○ living longer lives plus the decline of Saturday (and now Friday and arguably Monday) working, leading to more scope for leisure-based activities,
○ changes in family and household size,
○ changes in different genders’ demand for travel, for occupational or other demographic reasons,
○ more on-demand knowledge of travel choices, including evening/night-time/weekend travel options such as Uber. - An increasingly varied range of travel products, such as a choice between peak and off-peak fares, discounted travel such as season tickets, carnets and advance fares, or click-in click-out capability with instant price capping. What else is to be anticipated from the transport industry?
- Housing vs. travel – do you move further out to buy (or rent) a larger and affordable home, or put up with less living space, to achieve a shorter journey to work or other lifestyle priorities? Do you have any choice anyhow, if London overall is critically short of affordable accommodation and London’s jobs growth and population growth still continues?
Geographical distribution of demand across London and beyond is also important. If outer and long distance commuting are correlated with housing growth, inner suburb densification has been the urban equivalent since the 1990s (it was a different story in London prior to that). One extra principal line serving, for example, two suburban corridors on each side of a large city – a generalisation of a classic railway proposition – may not be the right approach for all London geography if densification becomes more widespread.
Certainly, within areas of dense activity such as a central city core, the distribution and interchange functions of a cross-city railway are also vital considerations.
Finally, greater monetisation of environmental factors and/or a refreshed definition of environmental absolutes are clearly work needing to be put in hand, given the increasing pan-governmental concerns about carbon neutrality and what that may mean for prioritisation of mass transport solutions and other matters.
Ought bigger to be better?
For major schemes which are primarily radial, the main goals are to prioritise:
- London’s economic and growth capabilities
- Overall transport network effectiveness, measured as travel and capacity benefits and revenues
- Looking to current and future global objectives, strong environmental benefits
These may not be consistent with each other, in the forms that they are currently implemented, but they are not in principle mutually irreconcilable.
For network effectiveness, this includes well-understood lessons from the north side Circle reviews, where the absence of substantial London-wide gains was seen as a bad outcome. So if a bigger scheme costs more, well the benefits may be even greater.
You may not get another chance for major investment along the relevant radial corridor(s) until the next generation, or when infrastructure needs large scale re-investment. However, whether a bigger scheme survives the political, planning, funding and authorisation tests remains subject to all sorts of uncertainties, so there can still be a case of ‘lesser or incremental’ getting somewhere sooner and this needs to be kept in mind. Phased or ‘pre-Crossrail 2’ options may be relevant.
Next – The past reasons
We should now look at the other non east-west radial corridors in London which might justify a large step change in capacity. This requires us to disentangle the validation for different schemes. There is a past record of projects such as the Chelsea-Hackney line and we can’t avoid their history, they are part of Crossrail 2’s background. So we propose in the next part of this series to look particularly at the reasons which provided the logic for earlier versions of N/NE and S/SW corridors. That should allow a better comparison between ‘apples then’ and ‘apples now’.
Interesting that no comparisons have been made with the ThamesLink project – which I completely accept was more of a conversion than a new line, however despite numerous delays and alterations, it has in the long run proved at least in part to be a success.
This also to some degree has bearings on the points you made about long distance vs local commuter trains on lines approaching terminus (MML + TL into K+StP complex)
I do wonder however if a new N/S line (CR2 or whatever it ends up being called TL2 for example) will end up being a TfL project or a Network Rail project with concessions like LO given the current situation with CR1.
“Housing vs. travel”
Something not mentioned here is the cost of travel versus the cost of housing. Those of us in family situations where both partners work in London have done the maths, and for us it’s been more cost effective to buy an expensive house in zone 2 than move out of town and pay for two season tickets and a cheaper house.
Thanks for part 2.
Shouldn’t another of the factors being considered for the lines development be the densification of the housing stock? There is a huge variation in the number of people living in areas of London now, with new developments (say, Tottenham Hale, Canning Town, Battersea Power Station or Stratford City) providing a lot more people than the historic low-rise like Becontree.
Just looking a a map doesn’t really show these.
Re Brian,
Densification – a key element here is land ownership. A large amount of the land in an area needs to be owned by relatively few organisations to make large scale densification this realistically achievable. Otherwise there tends to be limited sporadic densification.
As simple example of this (with other transport scheme links – Bakerloo Extension) is the Old Kent Road Opportunity Area where most of the non council owned land is owned by just 3 organisation).
CR2 effectively sees 2 different strategies at the NE and SW ends.
At the NE end, a small number of large schemes will deliver lots of additional housing in small around a small number of stations number (see above land ownership example and also Meridian Water as template).
At the SW end a large number of schemes will deliver small-medium sized clumps of additional housing around a very large number of stations.
It would be nice to see more “mansion-style” blocks, rather than towers in a wasteland.
Densification can be facilitated by compulsory purchase and demolition. It does happen. A friend of mine had his ex-council house compulsorily purchased in Basingstoke (or Basingrad as he called it) to make way for a new development that needed a sufficient area of land. I don’t wish compulsory purchase on anyone, but from a societal perspective we need it.
Despite our small country, we build our towns to lower density than many other European countries. Many towns have extensive low density suburbia. Rather than building out into the countryside, densification would be good for us all. It facilitates stronger local economies and makes good public transport more feasible. My own town could do with it.
But most councils really don’t like doing this.
Vauxhall/Nine Elms has become the very definition of densification and Google Street View has become amazing for tracking this – compare these views of the same locations 11 years apart (and the transition in between):
Wandsworth Road 2008 – https://goo.gl/maps/NsPEkQkadBMqXsjb8
Wandsworth Road 2019 – https://goo.gl/maps/PpG5daG6VQqLt3hU8
Nine Elms Lane 2008 – https://goo.gl/maps/RMq5PD4ZnDriHHcN7
Nine Elms Lane 2019 – https://goo.gl/maps/qRU5XxSB2Lbt8X187
@ JC
Thanks for referencing Thameslink.
Yes the service is more reliable now and that mirrors the point made at the start of the article that after a few years the main memories can be about positives not negatives.
That doesn’t mean that the Thameslink problems didn’t happen! There is a catalogue of those, and lessons to be learnt (eg, train software problems, larger than anticipated construction complexities, problems with interim service patterns and pathing in/out of termini, and a failure to plan adequately for a new 2018 timetable and train crew training). Those too should be instructive matters for future large-scale schemes.
Thameslink certainly fits within the article’s discussion of different scales of intervention which are needed on various London radial commuting corridors, and at the top end of that spectrum.
As to the operator of choice, well the potential density of CR2 service pattern (up to 30 tph through the core, and mainly inner suburban in characteristic – at least as currently planned) points to an urban focus for operating excellence. One also suspects that TfL would want to protect its core revenues to, from and within Central London.
However the prospect of a high frequency cross-London railway overlapping with a continuing suburban network out of Waterloo (potentially still main line-operated unless the Overground’s remit broadens), does lead to some questions. The project itself is a multi-organisation team, so there aren’t artificial barriers. Something to be discussed in a later Part…
Finally, there is the obvious point, already made in previous LR commentaries, that the current omission of Thameslink from the ‘tube/Overground/TfL Rail’ diagram doesn’t help passengers to adopt the most efficient travel solutions. To the extent that Thameslink is ‘Crossrail 0’ within Greater London, there may be some advantage within several years in putting it on an equal perception footing with Crossrail 1. Marketing adequate accessibility for ‘RER’ type railheads (TL, CR1, CR2) will also be important in general for passenger distribution, as hinted at towards the end of LR’s Peak Tube article. Another discussion, another Part, possibly!
@ Paul
Housing options will of course depend on lots of factors, your rational approach is instructive.
@ BB
NGH has made important points. Densification is also linked to strategic and local planning policies, as suggested in the article’s coverage of Opportunity Areas and Areas of Intensification. It is intended to cover this later.
I should also have said thanks @Jonathan Roberts for another great article.
I have lots of opinionated concerns about CR2 as the proposal stands, and I’m curious to see how many of them will be validated as this series progresses!
Clearly, not all Rail Corridors are being exhausted. The Carlton Road Junction is the next relief for both Victoria and Jubillee Lines, offering faster more convenient and more importantly cheaper alternatives.
The Living Wage is one thing and whilst we don’t seek a return to 3rd Class Steerage Travel or Workers Trains.
A monthly Travel Card that avoids Zone 1 Prices is the next Cost Saving. Deutsche Bahn ( Arriva London) will get this. As London grows Developers must directly Fund Transport as at Riverside and Beam Park. Cut out the Middleman at Council Level.
Stratford via a new Station at [Crayoned suggestions redacted. LBM]
Crayons!!!!!!!
@Paul “Housing vs. travel”
The cost of two season tickets from Peterborough (50 mins to King’s Cross) is about £10k per year. £10k p/a would fund approximately £300k of additional mortgage debt payments.
300k would just about cover the difference in cost between Peterborough and Zone 2 (when we looked we saw good options at 600k vs 900k) but the London option is only accessable if you have a large enough household income to convince the bank to grant you a much bigger mortgage.
You also need a much bigger deposit to access the best mortgage rates (180k vs 270k to reach 30% of the property value in this case) otherwise the 10k p/a rapidly stops covering the delta.
London’s the better option for your long term wealth, and standard of living (reduced commutes) – but it’s only available to you if you already have a pile of money. Generational privilige in action.
I note with interest that MTR Crossrail Ltd is no more. The taint of the Crossrail failures have been removed from the company. Stand forward, MTR Elizabeth Line Ltd! (See their LinkedIn page).
@PAUL DONNELLY
Arriva Rail London is a concession, so receives none of the fares, so I’m not really sure what there is for them to “get”.
If you don’t travel in to Zone 1 very often, as I do, I find the daily caps to be quite workable without the need to worry about the hassle of buying weekly tickets. You can get an awfully long way (Stratford to Watford, Uxbridge to West Drayton for £1.50 off peak)
@Bob
I don’t disagree with much of that.
One of the things that has changed in recent years though is that mortgage lenders’ “affordability” tests have become much more comprehensive and expenses like commuting costs get factored in to the amount they’re willing to lend.
Without wishing to get too crayon-y, I have always thought that CR2 tries to solve two separate problems and does neither successfully. Sending inner suburbans somewhere a lot of people don’t want to go, meaning there will have to be a residual service into Waterloo has never made much sense to me. Wouldn’t a shorter link between Waterloo and somewhere NE with only a couple of stations, and a separate metro line from Balham along the CR2 route to somewhere NE make more sense?
@Herned – I agree with you absolutely that the issue is that it tries to solve too many problems simultaneously and therefore solves none. How many schemes and of what scope would be better vfm is probably beyond this site and its moderators’ tolerance, but at least a NE/SW scheme and a NS scheme seem to be implied by what we know so far.
“Arriva Rail London is a concession, so receives none of the fares”
Just in case anyone is confused by that apparent contradiction, the British railway has recently adopted the word “concession” to mean the opposite of what everyone else means. So Brian is actually correct. Though it would be less confusing if we adopted the longstanding terminology and called it a management contract.
Thank you Jonathan. I’m looking forward to future parts.
Re. the omission of Thameslink from Tube maps, I wonder if anyone has researched recently how people choose a route: past experience, informal information from friends, paper maps, Google maps, TfL route planner etc. etc?
I would have thought the main drivers for CR2 would be relieving existing overcrowding and then relieving potential future overcrowding. For this to succeed it certainly needs to take people where they want to go. For peak flows from the SW lines this surely has to be the City?
@Herned
I would certainly agree that there has been, historically, a very strong link between people’s place of work and the London terminal for their commute – so that city workers disproportionally live in Kent and Essex rather than Berkshire. However, domestic trains on HS1 seem to undermine this. You would have expected that the majority of commuters coming in from Ashford or Gillingham would work either in the southern part of the City or the southern parts of the West End, so that St Pancras would have been inconvenient. Certainly, when I worked close to London Bridge, the traditional route was no slower from Ashford and avoided a change and higher fares that would have resulted from going via St Pancras. But the HS1 domestic trains on South Eastern are packed. Some of this may be to do with churn – that people with jobs in Docklands or northern parts of the West End now find that better value homes are available in Kent which they can now easily commute from. But I can’t see how that accounts for all of the switch.
But if it has happened with HS1, then it may well happen with Crossrail 2, as well.
Thank you for another thought provoking article.
@ Quinlet: Churn could account for most of that. Very few people now stay in the same job for life, and HS1 has now been running for 12 years – plenty of time for people to change jobs and / or houses.
Thameslink is another example – when I commuted into Holborn Viaduct in the early 1990s from Herne Hill, I could usually get a seat. On the rare occasions I have gone that way recently (joining at Wimbledon) the trains have always been rammed long before they reached Herne Hill.
@Quinlet,
Adding around 20 minutes to the old 1 hour journey time to Ashford was probably a factor in persuading many people to switch to HS1 from there.
@timbeau/quinlet – that certainly used to be the conventional wisdom. I wonder if it is still true today – there are many constraints compared with what happened 20 years ago: partner’s job location, children’s schooling, the housing market – which mean that it has become much more difficult for any one individual to relocate, let alone a family. My impression – and it’s only an impression – is that all these constraints taken together have become a major block on the housing churn rate. It would be interesting to know of some rigorous academic studies, as opposed to estate agents’ puff, that looked at this. If it is true, then the consequence of stasis in the market is longer journeys.
Case study 1: Lord D’s son and daughter in law having managed to secure jobs in a certain establishment near Salisbury and in NR’s Brum office, now find they are stuck with living in Oxford (Botley actually) as halfway between the two. Moving requires one or both of them to change jobs. Prior to this, with only one working, living on the Dawlish settled estates and catching that XC train from Guildford had been feasible. I could cite a dozen cases of similar nature.
I tend to agree that constraints on housing location, particularly for families but also for couples with both partners working are greater than constraints on job locations, so people tend to stay in the same area for housing for longer. But couple that with the move away from jobs for life to more frequent changes in employer must surely then mean that people will tend to look for new jobs only in areas that they can reasonably reach from home. HS1 has meant that East Kent residents can now reasonably look for jobs in Docklands and the northern part of the West End when that was more difficult before, a consequence must be that fewer work in the City. HS2, on that basis, would open up jobs in Mid town and the very north of the City to residents of south-west London and Surrey that are currently just too difficult to reach. This would echo what has happened with HS1. A consequence would be that fewer south-west London/Surrey residents would work in the Waterloo or City areas. Hence the need to continue to operate trains into Waterloo, while still there, would not be quite as pressing as today.
@quinlet – I agree that there are counter currents here. It would be interesting to look at the churn rates in housing over time compared with the churn rates in jobs. Whereas, I understand that the former have dropped dramatically in recent years, I haven’t seen many figures for the latter. Maybe one should draw a difference between London, especially the CAZ, where there is still a genuine choice of jobs, and OMA and Roseland where the “company town” syndrome still applies.
@Quinlet
“HS2, on that basis, would open up jobs in Mid town and the very north of the City to residents of south-west London and Surrey that are currently just too difficult to reach. ”
I think you mean CR2, unless an extension of HS2 from Euston into Surrey is planned.
Of course, Yes I meant CR2 – an understandable slip, I hope you will agree.
I’m a bit late to this discussion, but Crossrail 2 is still very much up in the air. Not least with the issues surrounding funding and the Covid lockdown this year which is affecting forecasts and planning.
One thing that strikes me is why does Crossrail 2 have to go to Victoria? We already have multiple national rail lines which serve Victoria. Is it because these lines need relieving traffic-wise? Would it not be better to connect to for example Charing Cross, then Tottenham Court Road -Euston/St P, or else the Clerkenwell/Farringdon direction suggested by the Taxpayers Alliance proposal?
@KEVIN
Sorry, Crossrail 2 isn’t “up the air”, it’s been cancelled. TfL staff have been redeployed. “Plans to build Crossrail 2 will be shelved as part of the £1.8bn bailout deal agreed by the government and Transport for London at the weekend.” – theguardian.com
Crossrail 2 is an ex-project.
@Brian Butterworth
CR2 has been shelved/mothballed, which is different from cancelled. Mayor Khan said that Crossrail 2 is “ready to be restarted” in the future despite this month agreeing to shelve the project in return for a bailout for Transport for London (TfL). I believe that some CR2 planning activities will continue, but can’t locate the reference at the moment.
@LBM
I understood that the only thing left was the Safeguarding, which means that TfL will still continue to “pay” for the land rights required to protected the route from conflicting development.
@LBM – I believe that some CR2 planning activities will continue..
The DfT letter requires that the mayor and/or TfL, in “relation to Crossrail 2, prioritises safeguarding activity and brings an orderly end to consultancy work as soon as possible”.
TfL spokesperson said: “Although we have started to utilise the skills of the Crossrail 2 team on other business-critical projects, the team continues to support the work of refreshing the 2015 safeguarding directions in order to protect the route from future development. This will ensure that the crucial infrastructure can be delivered at a time when a long-term sustainable funding model is in place.”
Since 1 April 2019 the mayor of London has been collecting the Crossrail2 community infrastructure levy (MCIL2).
Final milestone of sorts.
The Crossrail project officially closed on 26th May 2023 with the remaining staff transitioning to TfL or leaving the company.