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Post by LondonNorthern on Aug 20, 2023 9:39:57 GMT
Hello all,
I’ve created this thread because I would like to discuss the future of London, purely because at the minute, it can only be described as “choking itself”. I look at how busy the Elizabeth Line has gotten since opening just last May and this is after remote work has taken some commuters off the public transport system in the peak hours. I know there is provision to extend the Elizabeth Line to 11 carriages and have a 32tph frequency through the core, and whilst that’s all well and good, how long will it be before that capacity is eaten up? How many more Crossrails can we realistically build through Central London before there is very simply not the space? I presume Crossrail 2 will be the last tube line added to the Kings Cross/City area/West End simply due to space constraints, and how digging deeper for other new lines will come with an exponential price tag.
I think a look at Stratford, for example in the past 25 years is an excellent example of how much outer London interchanges have absolutely ballooned in usage and importance. It was just the Central Line and one DLR branch in 1998. Then came the London Overground, the Jubilee Line and the DLR. Other examples include the Croydons, Finsbury Park, Old Oak Common will likely fall under this, Canary Wharf. Barking, West Ham, Highbury & Islington. So, given we have a 4 million shortage of houses, moving forward should we look at creating a second metropolis in the UK? I think Birmingham would be an excellent candidate for this given HS2 is guaranteed to reach there. Or maybe Sheffield? Or maybe Manchester? Who knows. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts though because I’m sure people can agree that there is very little space left for us to expand as a city.
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Post by rj131 on Aug 21, 2023 20:03:00 GMT
Hello all, I’ve created this thread because I would like to discuss the future of London, purely because at the minute, it can only be described as “choking itself”. I look at how busy the Elizabeth Line has gotten since opening just last May and this is after remote work has taken some commuters off the public transport system in the peak hours. I know there is provision to extend the Elizabeth Line to 11 carriages and have a 32tph frequency through the core, and whilst that’s all well and good, how long will it be before that capacity is eaten up? How many more Crossrails can we realistically build through Central London before there is very simply not the space? I presume Crossrail 2 will be the last tube line added to the Kings Cross/City area/West End simply due to space constraints, and how digging deeper for other new lines will come with an exponential price tag. I think a look at Stratford, for example in the past 25 years is an excellent example of how much outer London interchanges have absolutely ballooned in usage and importance. It was just the Central Line and one DLR branch in 1998. Then came the London Overground, the Jubilee Line and the DLR. Other examples include the Croydons, Finsbury Park, Old Oak Common will likely fall under this, Canary Wharf. Barking, West Ham, Highbury & Islington. So, given we have a 4 million shortage of houses, moving forward should we look at creating a second metropolis in the UK? I think Birmingham would be an excellent candidate for this given HS2 is guaranteed to reach there. Or maybe Sheffield? Or maybe Manchester? Who knows. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts though because I’m sure people can agree that there is very little space left for us to expand as a city. I don’t think London is choking tbh. The Elizabeth line is certainly busy (which is a good thing), but I don’t think it’s ‘choking’. Everyone who wants to use it can use it, and it’s doing wonders for the local economies. It’s also created a lot of spare capacity on the tube too thanks to the transfer of passengers. The Central and Jubilee lines which certainly were choking pre-Liz line are much more bearable now. So there is still significant capacity in the network. The good thing that covid has done is that it’s affected travel patterns in a good way. It’s dissipated passengers in the traditional rush hour times where there was no extra room for more, and brought in more leisure travelling passengers when there is room for more capacity. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, but considerably less people used the transport at weekends, so filling some of that capacity up is certainly welcome to TfL. Also this increase in leisure passengers is certainly good for tipping the balance in the favour of us consumers. According to some stats I read a little while back, rail travel is 103% of pre covid levels, but revenue is still at less than 90%. This is because of people going out and about more (fantastic for everyone), but ultimately they have a choice to use that mode of transport. The rail companies have to price the fares attractively to draw those punters in, make it too expensive and they’ll lose that potential custom. In business terms the pricing has greater elasticity now. They don’t have that captive market of commuters like they had before, which is a good thing for us and keeps the big companies on their toes. Also cities do seem to be hitting a peak. London schools are closing thanks to extortionate rents driving families out of the cities, not to mention declining populations in European countries. I know not the case in this country I think in 2050 the population of this country is projected to decline after hitting about 77 million I think? So yeah I don’t share your view on how the scope of London will change in the future, I don’t think the trajectory will just keep going up and up and up until it can’t cope. We all thought that about London buses up to 2011 but look what happened after 😂 if Paris can handle a city of 12.2 million people in a city and transport system that’s smaller than London (and with 3 million less people), I’m sure London can cope with whatever gets thrown at it! 😁 |
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Post by LondonNorthern on Aug 21, 2023 20:50:35 GMT
Hello all, I’ve created this thread because I would like to discuss the future of London, purely because at the minute, it can only be described as “choking itself”. I look at how busy the Elizabeth Line has gotten since opening just last May and this is after remote work has taken some commuters off the public transport system in the peak hours. I know there is provision to extend the Elizabeth Line to 11 carriages and have a 32tph frequency through the core, and whilst that’s all well and good, how long will it be before that capacity is eaten up? How many more Crossrails can we realistically build through Central London before there is very simply not the space? I presume Crossrail 2 will be the last tube line added to the Kings Cross/City area/West End simply due to space constraints, and how digging deeper for other new lines will come with an exponential price tag. I think a look at Stratford, for example in the past 25 years is an excellent example of how much outer London interchanges have absolutely ballooned in usage and importance. It was just the Central Line and one DLR branch in 1998. Then came the London Overground, the Jubilee Line and the DLR. Other examples include the Croydons, Finsbury Park, Old Oak Common will likely fall under this, Canary Wharf. Barking, West Ham, Highbury & Islington. So, given we have a 4 million shortage of houses, moving forward should we look at creating a second metropolis in the UK? I think Birmingham would be an excellent candidate for this given HS2 is guaranteed to reach there. Or maybe Sheffield? Or maybe Manchester? Who knows. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts though because I’m sure people can agree that there is very little space left for us to expand as a city. I don’t think London is choking tbh. The Elizabeth line is certainly busy (which is a good thing), but I don’t think it’s ‘choking’. Everyone who wants to use it can use it, and it’s doing wonders for the local economies. It’s also created a lot of spare capacity on the tube too thanks to the transfer of passengers. The Central and Jubilee lines which certainly were choking pre-Liz line are much more bearable now. So there is still significant capacity in the network. The good thing that covid has done is that it’s affected travel patterns in a good way. It’s dissipated passengers in the traditional rush hour times where there was no extra room for more, and brought in more leisure travelling passengers when there is room for more capacity. It certainly doesn’t feel like it, but considerably less people used the transport at weekends, so filling some of that capacity up is certainly welcome to TfL. Also this increase in leisure passengers is certainly good for tipping the balance in the favour of us consumers. According to some stats I read a little while back, rail travel is 103% of pre covid levels, but revenue is still at less than 90%. This is because of people going out and about more (fantastic for everyone), but ultimately they have a choice to use that mode of transport. The rail companies have to price the fares attractively to draw those punters in, make it too expensive and they’ll lose that potential custom. In business terms the pricing has greater elasticity now. They don’t have that captive market of commuters like they had before, which is a good thing for us and keeps the big companies on their toes. Also cities do seem to be hitting a peak. London schools are closing thanks to extortionate rents driving families out of the cities, not to mention declining populations in European countries. I know not the case in this country I think in 2050 the population of this country is projected to decline after hitting about 77 million I think? So yeah I don’t share your view on how the scope of London will change in the future, I don’t think the trajectory will just keep going up and up and up until it can’t cope. We all thought that about London buses up to 2011 but look what happened after 😂 if Paris can handle a city of 12.2 million people in a city and transport system that’s smaller than London (and with 3 million less people), I’m sure London can cope with whatever gets thrown at it! 😁 Well they seem to be making far quicker infrastructure changes than we are, they've got 3 new lines opening by 2027 (even if only in sections). And it's taken us how long to build a new line? 15 years? We've only had 3 extensions, the East London Line from Dalston Junction to Highbury and Islington, a new curve of track near the South London Line for LO trains to connect onto it and the Barking Riverside extension. This is in 13 years. So I don't share the sentiment, and when you see the scale of development across London passenger numbers are going to very quickly shoot up and the transport system won't be able to handle it unless we continue building at a rapid pace. Old Oak Common is going to choke the Overground no doubt. The North London and West London lines are already at capacity during the peaks. I can see the Elizabeth Line becoming far busier out towards the west once HS2 starts running services into London.
Paris also has the luxury of space they can expand into. Unfortunately, in many of the pinch points in Central London, space is becoming very limited. I cannot see a Barcelona Line 9 being constructed, especially not when space is already a premium. Crossrail 2 will be the last line in the Euston/King's Cross area I reckon, the City seems to be full up in terms of space and I don't think there's space within the Tottenham Court Road area (especially when you consider how close the Elizabeth Line was constructed to the Central Line). The population within the GLA is also increasing, so I don't think the families leaving the city is clearly enough to balance the number of people choosing to now live within the city. Hence why I believe a second metropolis is necessary. We can harness the 4 million housing shortage to actually build somewhere else and create a second metropolis for business to thrive. We have an entire new high speed line coming to this country, so therefore it'll be even easier to travel to other cities in order to work. Manchester and Birmingham are ramping up their tram network coverage, meaning that new housing developments can at least be served by frequent public transit to commute into and around the cities.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Aug 22, 2023 20:23:58 GMT
I do not get the point of this post. It is well known that Birmingham and Manchester are major metropolis's
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Post by LondonNorthern on Aug 22, 2023 20:57:52 GMT
I do not get the point of this post. It is well known that Birmingham and Manchester are major metropolis's One the equivalent of London though in terms of significance. A lot of people complain how the UK is so London-centric and countries like Germany have their infrastructure relatively evenly distributed across their cities but yet almost all the jobs seem to be in London. Surely with HS2 decreasing travel times across the UK in the coming decades and to prevent London from further overwhelming itself Birmingham or Manchester wouldn't be bad shouts?
Apologies, I should have made the thread title clearer
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