[x-posted to uk.transport.london]

On May 27, 3:23*pm, kev wrote:

Slasher Hammond to strike again?

From
http://www.building.co.uk/crossrail-...000374.article

Central London station and two spurs face the axe as project team
works to cut £5bn from budget

The government is considering making £4-5bn of cuts to the £16.9bn
Crossrail scheme, as the scale of capital spending cuts starts to
emerge.
An internal Crossrail team, under instruction from ministers to save
money on the scheme, is understood to be considering dropping either
the planned Tottenham Court Road or Bond Street station.

All the options under consideration include:

Dropping one of the planned central London stations
Dropping or reducing some spurs outside central London, including the
link to Canary Wharf and Abbey Wood in the east, and Maidenhead in the
west
Reducing the trains from 12 to 10 carriages, thereby minimising the
size of stations
Wide-ranging value engineering for the rest of the project.
A source close to the process said: “The team is being asked to look
at the whole scheme. If you took out both spurs and reduced the
platforms and stations then they’re looking at £4-5bn of cuts.”

London mayor Boris Johnson last week said Crossrail had to mount a
“Stalingrad defence” to guarantee funding for the original scheme.
Stephen Norris, former Tory MP and Transport for London board member,
said he believed axing a central station and the spurs were being
looked at. “The government needs to understand the difference between
the kind of spending that fills ad pages in the Society Guardian and
genuine investment in the country.

“If you’re going to cut Abbey Wood or Maidenhead you might as well
shelve the whole lot. It only makes sense to dig the tunnel if you do
the whole scheme. It’s like planning to buy a new car without an
engine.”

A Crossrail spokesperson said the organisation “constantly makes
efforts towards value management and value engineering to achieve
maximum value for money”, but declined to comment on specific
cutbacks.

It is not known what impact a decision to drop Tottenham Court Road
station might have on the £250m upgrade of the tube station, currently
being undertaken by Vinci and Bam Nuttall.

If cuts that deep are really on the cards, then as Steven Norris says,
they might as well not bother.