"Robin9" wrote in message
[color=blue][i]
'1506[_2_ Wrote:
;119050']On Mar 28, 10:59*am, Toby
wrote:

OTOH much 1950s planning for London was on the mark. By the mid
sixries we had the Victoria Line. It should have been followed by
the Chelsea to Hackney line.
It certainly should have been followed by the Chelsea to Hackney line
and would have been had we not had Britain's first anti-London
government.

Harold Wilson's government took the view that London could look after
itself and transferred money and jobs from London to the Provinces.
For example, they moved The Royal Mint from London to Wales.
Apparently it did not matter if people in London were thrown out of
work. As part and parcel of that policy, the Chelsea/Hackney line was
postponed.

Obviously, nearly fifty years later, London has changed so much that a
purely Chelsea/Hackney line would be a wasted opportunity. Eastwards
the line should be extended to Leyton Midland Road and Leytonstone
Underground Station and from Chelsea should be extended to Clapham
Junction and possibly Tooting Broadway and Tooting.

In my opinion a properly extended Chelsea/Hackney line would be far
more beneficial to London than Crossrail.

That may well be, but in the absence of the strong business pressure
that wanted and would part-fund Crossrail 1 (to get from Canary Wharf to
Heathrow), it's less likely to be funded. In any case, it's hard to
imagine that it will proceed until after HS2 (which itself will not
start until after Crossrail 1), so it won't arrive for at least another
20 years.