CONSTRUCTION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
As an example, when Andrew Adonis went to Euston to launch the report just before 9am, access to the Underground was cut off because it was so busy, which is not untypical. Despite the Victoria and Northern line upgrades, Leam said, the situation will only get worse without bold new infrastructure investment.
Groundswell of support
We asked whether he thought policy-makers might pay more attention to such a plea coming directly from business, rather than from vested interests within the rail industry who would always want investment in rail anyway.
He said: “I think that’s true; crucially, for these
behind to build a coalition across business, across political parties that fi nally helped to make it happen.”
London First haven’t put together their Crossrail
2 proposals as just interested
observers, however: they’ve had a lot of input from TfL and Network Rail, both of whom are conscious that the current safeguarded route comes up for review later this year, or early next.
Leam said: “Everyone thinks that if you were to do a scheme like this today it wouldn’t be that route – so let’s get a new route, to free up sites that are no longer needed and also to safeguard a proper route.”
the tunnel, which would relieve the constraints of London terminal capacity”, and suggested consideration of four-tracking the West Anglia route. In late 2011, TfL released its preferred options: an automatic metro option, and a regional option.
London First’s suggested route, similar to TfL’s regional option, is shown on the map (inset), and suggests a single Crossrail 2 terminus for Euston and King’s Cross/St Pancras, and an interchange with Crossail at Tottenham Court Road.
London First says that with this alignment, Wimbledon, Kingston, Surbiton, Epsom and Twickenham in south-west London would
sorts of big and expensive projects that span parliaments and governments, you need to have that groundswell of support.
“It was a key feature in not only getting the go- ahead for Crossrail, but making sure it survived a change of government and the recession with public expenditure cutbacks. The fact it had such widespread support, including from business, was vital.
“Businesses are not only calling for this [Crossrail 2], they’re helping fund it as well.
“London First came about 20 years ago, during that funny interregnum period between the abolition of the GLC and the creation of the role of mayor and GLA, when big London businesses were worried about London’s infrastructure, about maintaining London as a city, and the need to keep on investing to keep up with growth.
“Crossrail was the big thing London First got
The route and the history
The current iteration of the Chelsea-Hackney line – whose history can be traced 1974 London Rail Study – was safeguarded in 2007 (and updated in 2008), superseding the previous 1991 safeguarded route.
be direct benefi ciaries, along with Islington, Hackney, Tottenham and the Lee Valley in the north-east, while places like Woking, Basingstoke, Southampton and Portsmouth will be indirect benefi ciaries.
The London First task force considered a number of service and route options, explained in the report, but concluded that the version of the scheme with suburban and regional services was “by far” the most cost-effective.
Network Rail’s London & South East RUS proposed further changes to the route, which it said could “fully resolve” the South West Main Line peak capacity gap through an alignment via Clapham Junction rather than the Southfi elds route to Wimbledon. It said the West Anglia corridor could provide a “ready- made destination corridor for services through
Mayor of London Boris Johnson spoke at the launch (left), giving the proposed route a valuable political boost. He said: “There is no time to lose and my team will work closely with London First and others on developing plans for this vital railway.”
London First chief executive Jo Valentine said lessons had been learnt from Crossrail 1 and other major infrastructure schemes, especially the importance of acting quickly.
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