Crossrail: THIS is how to invest in rail

MGWR wrote: »

That's a waste. They're spending a whopping €247 million per mile (average figure) on that project, and all they're doing is creating run-through parallel to existing underground connections, and creating absolutely no new lines outside of the city area (i.e. serving no new destinations). It'll take them decades to recoup any of that cost.

If they "invest(ed) where the people are" when it came to motorways, there wouldn't be any going through the country at all. Connect cities and towns? Why bother, right?

The real answer is capacity. The metropolitan and circle lines are bursting at the seams in rush hour and a thorough analysis of journey patterns showed that passengers were breaking their journeys at Paddington in the west and Liverpool St in the east and going further into the City and West End by tube.

The opportunity that Crossrail gives London is also that commuting patterns can be almost rebooted if a faster more direct service from places like Maidenhead, Essex and now Reading is offered, the housing crisis in London is helped with more direct trains.

Crossrail offers faster connections to Heathrow from the City and will increase the capacity significantly of key stations like Bond St and Farringdon.

Already there is talk of Crossrail 2, a link between Tottenham and Chelsea, although the benefit there will be to link the wider North East and South West commuter lines beyond those areas if one if the options is chosen.

It's a big bold project. It's a game changer. Hopefully we can do the same with Dart Underground plus an airport connection.

Copyerselveson wrote: »

The real answer is capacity. The metropolitan and circle lines are bursting at the seams in rush hour and a thorough analysis of journey patterns showed that passengers were breaking their journeys at Paddington in the west and Liverpool St in the east and going further into the City and West End by tube.

The opportunity that Crossrail gives London is also that commuting patterns can be almost rebooted if a faster more direct service from places like Maidenhead, Essex and now Reading is offered, the housing crisis in London is helped with more direct trains.

Crossrail offers faster connections to Heathrow from the City and will increase the capacity significantly of key stations like Bond St and Farringdon.

Already there is talk of Crossrail 2, a link between Tottenham and Chelsea, although the benefit there will be to link the wider North East and South West commuter lines beyond those areas if one if the options is chosen.

It's a big bold project. It's a game changer. Hopefully we can do the same with DART Underground plus an airport connection.

There is no "game changer" other than to waste money and shift people off existing infrastructure. The Circle Line does not have to be "bursting at the seams" if the signalling gets a decent upgrade (six to seven trains per hour is incredibly infrequent, even with the shared District and Metropolitan services)—and there has been one company fired from that project already, so that's going to get delayed even further.

Why is it that people think that there is such a large through-riding market when there is not? never mind overestimating the riding public having the airports as a destination? Wait until the cost of building this shows up in massive fare rises, shifting people back to automobiles. If Crossrail is supposed to be inspired by Paris' RER, it's done badly and for far more money by contrast.

One thing that Varadkar talks sense about is not bothering with "DART Underground" (which will direct trains away from the city centre) and looking at passenger service through the Phoenix Park Tunnel, which DMUs can use (forget about new EMUs for a long time). In Dublin, the extant infrastructure has to be used properly before considering new build; and a lot of problems can be fixed with even signal upgrades there, especially related to train frequency and average speeds.

@MGWR there isnt a cats chance in hell that people will shift to cars in London if the fares are perceived as too high.

Varadkar is actually on record as saying that he would like Dart Underground to happen.

London isnt some midwestern US city that is trying to introduce light rail, it is a densely populated city with 10 million inhabitants that attracts significant numbers of commuters from a fifty mile radius and beyond. London's transport system will be beyond capacity in a few years time and needs to plan ahead in order to be ready for our ever expanding population.

I agree the Circle line needs improvement but in itself is not a substitute for Crossrail.