On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Jonn Elledge wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Moreover, even if it's just transport, there's no way i could buy bonds to
support, say, improvements to the tube without also contributing to bloody
crossrail and other such nonsense. Still, it's better than nothing.

What's your obejction to Crossrail? Apart from anything else, it's
effectively just going to be a big tube line... Sure, it'll go a couple
of stops outside London, but so does the Metropolitan line.

Death also to the Metropolitan Line! And Thameslink, while we're at it!

Okay, so i was feeling somewhat cranky when i made that post. I do,
however, have a vague objection to Crossrail, based on two points:

(1) It makes life easier for commuters. It's not that i have anything in
particular against commuters, but i do have something against commuting,
and making life easier for commuters will make more people commute. The
thing about commuting is that it involves people living a long way from
their place of work - the travel is environmentally damaging and stuff,
probably, and moreover, it leads directly to urban sprawl, which is bad.
What we need is a higher density of living in the city (ie, ways to make
high-density living more enjoyable and practical, which from a transport
perspective means more and better transport within London), rather than to
expand the effective size of the city. At any rate, that's what the
Compact City theory says, and i find it fairly persuasive (but
IANAPlanner); read Rick Rogers's 'Cities For A Small Country' for the
details. Also, i'd just read a column in the Sindie about Crossrail and
its potential impact on the demography of City workers, so i was full of
righteous leftie rage.

(2) I thought it was going to be able to route national services across
London - Harwich to Holyhead, Paris to Edinburgh, that sort of thing. When
i realised it was just a jumped-up commuter line, i was dead put out. Much
less cool.

tom

--
The Impossible is True