Sir Benjamin Nunn wrote:

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

Sir Benjamin Nunn wrote:


It's a blindingly simple idea, and would almost definitely become the

most

heavily-trafficked tube route out of Central London overnight thanks to

the

existing rapidity of the Vic.

You've just hit the problem. The Victoria is already bursting at the
seams in the peaks. They can't extend it because there isn't enough
capacity on the current route.



So... they are avoiding building the routes for which there would be the
greatest demand...

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Surely extending the Vic Southwards and the Bakerloo South-Easterly would
reduce the bottleneck situations at Stockwell, Kennington and Elephant?

As I see it, the more unique routes that exist, the greater the choice for
the traveller, and therefore the less congested each individual route is.
Because most of the current schemes are only contextually repositioning the
existing infrastructure, they aren't solving the problems at all.

This is a bit self-contradictory. Since it would be so difficult to
extend the Victoria to Croydon, the alternative should be to build an
entirely new cross-London route. Unfortunately this is very expensive
(Crossrail is est. £10-13bn and increasing with every review) and we can
probably only expect a project like this about every 20 years.

The problem on the Victoria line is in the centre rather than at the
edges. You *could* extend it to Croydon - but there'd be no room on the
trains for anyone else to actually get on them. In the outer areas, it
might be possible to dedicate existing track to Crossrail-like services
and thus improve the frequency (part of the current problem in South
London is conflicting movements as trains cross each other's routes).

Long sections of tunnel in south London would be prohibitively expensive
for the benefits gained; these tunnels are likely to cost more than the
JLE (i.e. more than £1m per metre!!).

South London needs more rapid routes to the centre, and better radial
connections (ever tried getting from anywhere in South/SW London to SE
London _without_ going into London Bridge? It's a joke).

I think south London needs more *capacity* into the centre (either
through higher frequency or longer/double-deck trains). Rapidity
certainly seems to be good from key centres such as East Croydon (about
30 mins to Victoria or London Bridge on a fast train?), Bromley South
and Wimbledon (SWT).

However, even increased capacity just shifts the problem to the termini
and the central Underground network. Enter Crossrail 2 & Thameslink 2000.

As for orbital connections (I assume you mean orbital not radial), I
agree that these are a problem. However, improvements are planned, with
the East London Line extensions and Croydon Tramlink extensions to
Sutton, Tooting, Crystal Palace and Streatham on the table. Further
improvements are likely to be difficult since it is difficult to cater
for the large number of origins and destinations in south London.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London