London Mayor Boris Johnson has revealed the preferred route for Crossrail 2 – a project he believes is “vital” if London is to cope with its growing population.
Following a public consultation, the ‘regional route’, which would be made up of a combined underground and overground railway from Alexandra Palace and stations in Hertfordshire to south west London and Surrey, is being put forward as the proposed alignment.
The project, which could be completed by 2030, is expected to cost in the region of £20 billion and according to Johnson, London could potentially provide more than half of the required funding.
The capital’s population is expected to rise to 10 million by 2030 and 11.3 million by 2050. On top of that, the opening of HS2 will create an additional strain on the capital’s existing urban rail network.
A public consultation identified support for an extension of the proposed route from Alexandra Palace to New Southgate, as well as a station at Kings Road, Chelsea and a Hackney station at either Hackney Central or Dalston Junction.
Boris Johnson said: “Crossrail 2 is a vital project not just for the capital, but also for the regions from which people travel in to London on packed trains each day of the week. With London’s population soon to surpass its previous 1939 peak of 8.6m, and with more people travelling by Tube and rail than ever before, we need additional rail capacity to support future growth.
“For the capital to remain globally competitive there needs to be continued investment in our transport network and that’s why we have to get cracking on planning for Crossrail 2. It’s an essential infrastructure project that will deliver thousands of new homes and jobs, as well as helping to keep our great city moving.”
Consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) are expected to publish a report into funding options for the project ahead of the Autumn Statement.
The project team has said it will look to protect the proposed route in 2015 and is hoping to seek the powers to build the new railway in 2017.
If there’s 20bn of funding going, use it on electrifying every long distance rail route in the UK from St Ives to Thurso, from Holyhead to Harwich instead of wasting it on yet another London local transport scheme.
My Iast pay, check was 9500dlr working l2 h0urs a week 0nline, My neighb0ur’s sister has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 2o hours a week. l can’t beIieve how easy it was 0nce l tried it 0ut
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It’s not £20bn of government funding, it could be as little as £10bn with the rest being funded by London businesses.
If businesses elsewhere are willing to fund between 25% ad 50% of schemes I’m sure a lot more schemes elsewhere in the country would be built.
The other thing is that it will allow more services on the SWML to run into London, which could benefit people as far afield as Exeter, Weymouth and possibly even Bristol depending on where those extra services run, although almost certainly providing benefit to Southampton, Portsmouth, Basingstoke and Guildford.
The other option which could have only part of the benefit in terms of number of services (i.e. less new paths) was a 5th line over part of the route and was costed at £1bn. Therefore as that scheme would have been needed without Crossrail 2, it could be argued that money would have been needed from the government anyway.
The other side of the coin is that services on the SWML tend to be fairly profitable, meaning any increase in service would mean more money being paid back to the government, meaning that this extra money can be used to fund other rail improvements elsewhere. Effectively meaning that the government can use some of the money twice.
I would also argue that St. Ives (Cornwall) isn’t on a long distance rail route. Whilst St. Ives (Hampshire) and St. Ives (Cambridgeshire) are not on the rail network.
We’ve been promised major business investment in local London schemes since the Jubilee line extension. It’s almost always small potatoes compared with the overall cost. But if business stumps up £10bn, and the London Govt can stump up £10bn, then go ahead by all means. But why not give the people of Exeter and Weymouth the choice between funding Crossrail 2 or funding local transport scheme, or electrification of the rail system they actually use, and see which they choose? The argument that giving London preferential funding over the rest of the UK is good for the rest of the UK is wearing thin in St Ives (the one, of course, on the rail network) and Aberystwyth, and Newcastle, and Harrogate and Exeter and most of the country. London (that would be the one in England, not the one in Ontario in case you were confused) has had a very necessary massive boost in public transport over the last 20 years subsidised by those of use who live far away, but it’s time to move the focus elsewhere.
There’s a massive roads investment in the pipeline – that’s what most of the country needs. London is unusual that relatively few people own cars, and those who do, don’t drive them much. They rely on public transport, and as such the subsidy *per journey* isn’t nearly so outlandish as the per head figures.
That’s not to say that there isn’t a good case for investment elsewhere, and more rail electrification is part of that. Most beneficial transport investment for most people is better roads and better cars though.
*sigh* I was really hoping the Chelsea-Hackney line would be built…
That map is the original options map for consultation, not the one that shows the preferred route.