Listening this morning to the radio, I gave a little whoop. I heard a news report that the UK government had announced they had approved a major transport programme for London: Crossrail. This is amazing news, as Crossrail had been mooted as long ago as when I was at university in the early 90s, and had been complete as a proposal for at least ten years. So, after the length of time that it has taken to approve it, I must say I am surprised to see it reach the green light. The impact that Crossrail will have on London cannot be underestimated; Quite a few of the readers of this blog are outside of the UK and many of you have never been to London – so I thought I’d take a moment to illuminate this project and its importance for London as a whole.
Crossrail basically links east and west London in a pretty daring way – cutting a swathe (PDF) through London – overground in the urban areas, deep underground the city in the central stretch.
It is a kind of Mega-Central line running east to west, linking urban Underground services and National Rail major hubs together and acting much like the kinds of services we see in New York and Paris, where express Subway services are the norm . This is good for businesses, the inhabitants of London and our massive tourism industry - keen to get across the city fast, and FINALLY links Heathrow in a meaningful way with the centre of London (the tube takes 90 minutes from the centre of London and the link into Paddington is exorbitant and not convenient enough for most Londoners due to Paddington’s location).
But where Crossrail is really important is that it is an equalizer – sure, it serves the rich in the City of London and Canary Wharf, but critically it expands deep into Essex, into the much poorer areas of the region. What could have been an elitist project, essentially linking the airport with the city to the east has been given an extra dose of sweetness by going beyond – literally – by providing much needed infrastructure links into depressed areas of Greater London like Ilford, Romford, and into Shenfield. It might take an entire generation for the effects of this link to be felt economically in these communities, but I can only foresee good things as a result of this greatly expanded access.
The project will be the largest construction project in Europe (eclipsing Terminal 5 and the Olympics) and is estimated to be open in ten years (although I predict it will take 15). The cost? £16 Billion at current rates (but you can bet that will double by its expected opening in around 2017 - if you think that sounds silly then consider the expected cost was £2.5bn as recently as 1999).
Don’t put off your visit to London in the meantime – come so you can compare London pre and post Crossrail!
2 comments:
The cost will double? Ah - I see that you are very young. You must *start* with the idea that the cost will triple and then add a bit. I'll lay a wager that it will go over 50 billion.
Still in the 21st century, London's transport is hindered by the shape of the Victorian city. As railways were built, region by region, the terminal stations for each region were pushed as near to the centre of London as they could afford - but as the regions were rivals there was never any possibility that these stations could be joined up. So London is surrounded by a ring of isolated stations, all of which are awkward to get to (Waterloo, Victoria, Paddington, Kings Cross, St. Pancras and so on).
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