On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 00:08:16 +0100, "John Rowland"
wrote:

"Tom Sutch" wrote in message
news

Last night (16 July) Chiltern Railways gave a presentation
and question/answer session about their plans for a new
interchange station at West Hampstead, which I went along to.

About time too. Still a huge construction challenge but of enormous
potential benefit.

* No public funding required. This is a point in this proposal's favour,
as previous ones have been either reliant on public money, or have had to
include massive development to recoup the cost.

Why would massive development be a bad thing? I can think of few better
places to put massive development. Why are TPTB building more and more at
Canary Wharf and then planning new railways to serve it, and then refusing
to put major development at the places which already have more railways than
they need? They seem to be saying "We'll increase the number of trains
stopping here, but we don't want to increase the number of people accessing
the station from the street. And we'll build a busway to let extra bus
routes come here, but we don't want extra people working or living here,
even though the more traffic generators there are in West Hampstead, the
more sustainable the bus routes are." They should build a "Hoge Catherijne"
stretching at least from the southernmost station to the northernmost
(apologies for the Utrecht reference).

A very good point - this would be appropriate planned and sustainable
development if done properly. The catchment area accessible by public
transport would be enormous.

Chiltern said they would put some plans up on their website over the next
few days/weeks.

I must remember to keep an eye out for that.

Did they say the extent of the bus services planned? Are the majority of the
Finchley Road bus services going to be diverted to serve it? Are any of the
Edgware Road services going to be diverted to serve it?

I'd be astonished if the thinking had progressed that far to be honest.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!