On 16 May 2004 12:40:35 GMT, Mark Hynes wrote:

[ellx]
Other than the extension north the route follows existing national rail lines.
Living on the proposed southern route of the extension, I've never quite been
able to work out why it's been trumpted as so important. It doesn't open up
many (if any, really) new journey opportunities that seem likely to have any
great demand. All of the southern stations are currently commuter stations
to London Bridge and London Victoria, and unsurprisingly commuter journeys
to those terminuses are the vast majority of journeys. I can't really see
the demand changing from that and all of a sudden there being a rush of
people travelling from, say, Forest Hill to Whitechapel. Which is a journey,
like most others using the proposed extension, which can already be made
easily with just one change anyway.

but surely the ELLX does the following?

a) extend Tube services to South London
b) provides a new cross London service
c) provides faster journeys to Docklands via Canada Water / Shadwell
stations
d) provides a new access point to part of the City via the Shoreditch
High St station
e) provides a Tube service into the London Borough of Hackney
f) provides a potential for economic development in deprived parts of
London
g) provides an orbital rail service across South and Inner East London
h) provides a second Tube link into the Tramlink network
i) potentially reduces the loading / congestion via key Central London
termini and their adjacent tube stations.

I don't doubt that a reasonable proportion of people will remain with
the National Rail services to current termini but at least many people
will be offered an increased choice of travel options with a reasonably
high level of service.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!