Dave Arquati wrote:

Aidan Stanger wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
Aidan Stanger wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
Aidan Stanger wrote:

Yet they're eager to spend far more on infrastructure projects like the
£40m bus lane on the Thames Gateway Bridge, and the Canary Wharf branch
of Crossrail, which would cost far more than subsidies for boats ever
would. The cost of running boats is on the high side, but so are the
benefits: they can quickly provide plenty of capacity, link communities
N and S of the river, and serve remote parts of London which do not have
bus services (parts of Thamesmead are more than 500m from buses, and
some riverside industrial estates are much further).

Can you get from Heathrow to Canary Wharf by boat? Or from most parts of
West London, Paddington, the West End etc? It's not really relevant to
compare boat subsidies to the cost of Crossrail

It is really relevant to compare them to the cost of THE CANARY WHARF
BRANCH OF Crossrail, as its function would be very similar: providing
capacity to Canary Wharf, and linking communities across the river.

The Canary Wharf branch of Crossrail would only save about ten minutes on
the journey from Heathrow, or W.London, Paddington etc. to Canary Wharf,
compared with Crossrail to Stratford and then a short DLR journey.

DLR doesn't have the capacity to deal with large numbers of passengers
transferring off Crossrail at Stratford and heading for Canary Wharf.

It would if Bow to Stratford were double tracked and platforms were
lengthened.

DLR capacity is constrained by the layout of the North Quay junctions.
I'm not sure whether the junctions or indeed Canary Wharf station could
handle a very high combined frequency of trains from Bank and Stratford.

AIUI they already do in the peaks, but some trains have to turn back at
Bow Church because the single track between there and Stratford can't
take more trains.

The Jubilee line might, but it's a still a very poor second best to a
Crossrail branch.

Maybe, but Canary Wharf's just got the Jubilee Line, while much of
Central London still hasn't got the railways it needs to solve the
overcrowding problems. Which do you think should take priority?

CWG said they will contribute towards the cost of Crossrail.

Yes, like they contributed towards the cost of extending the Jubilee...

AIUI the scale of future developments at Canary Wharf will also mean
Jubilee line capacity will become a problem. Waiting until after CR2 to
build the Crossrail branch might be too long.

Meanwhile there's ALREADY a problem in Central London - the Victoria
Line is at capacity.

If we assume the CW branch will be needed sooner or later, and we assume
the real cost of the CW branch will remain the same (which may not be
true), then whether it's built now or later is the issue; building it
later means going through the whole consultation and hybrid bill process
again later, wasting money.

But if you initially started to use boats to provide the capacity then
when you have a high demand you can build a railway.

In the meantime, the money not spent on the
CW branch would only cover a small portion the cost of Crossrail 2,
which I believe is costed as even more expensive that Crossrail 1.

The 2bn saved from deleting the Canary Wharf branch and Whitechapel
stop, and locating the portal at Globetown, would pay for a fair chunk
of the Clapham Junction to Dalston Junction tunnel!

The Crossrail branch will also provide a new route into central London
from the North Kent line, which should aid capacity into London Bridge etc.

It won't do much in the way of tph capacity, as the Greenwich Line will
still have to be served. As for passenger capacity, if they were serious
about that then they'd finish the work needed to introduce 12 car
trains.

I did mean passenger capacity (for stations from Plumstead onwards into
London Bridge). You have a point about the 12-car project - but I didn't
mean that the CW branch is exclusively for freeing up passenger capacity
on the Greenwich line; it provides other benefits too, and the whole
package is attractive.

You think spending billions of pounds to construct some tunnels that
will carry only 12tph to a part of London that's just had a new railway
built to it, when other parts are grossly underserved, is attractive?
Even though that capacity could easily be provided with boats instead?

I'm not saying such a branch should never be built, but it should be a
lower priority than Crossrail Line 2. Meanwhile, boats can provide the
connectivity at a sensible cost.

What connectivity can the boats provide? They already provide
connectivity from southern part of the City, but the service is
expensive to provide and only accessible for destinations close to the
river.

I think I meant to type "capacity" there - providing capacity would be
far cheaper (per passenger) to provide if there were more passengers.
As for Connectivity, there is more potential downstream of Canary Wharf,
but the Wapping and Rotherhithe areas could also benefit.

Boats still can't reasonably provide a capacity of around 30,000
passengers per hour per direction. Providing capacity is cheaper per
passenger if there are more passengers, yes... until you have too many
passengers and have to provide more boats.

What I mean is that bigger boats are (at the same loading relative to
capacity) cheaper to operate than small boats.

I still think that the subsidy per passenger would be higher than any
other public mode, even if every boat were full. I looked up what's been
said in the London Assembly about the affordability of river services;
the answers I found are at the bottom. They're quite extensive.

They're cheaper per passenger than trains where the trains run empty!
Crossrail trains will be very high capacity, and the Thames Gateway area
will take a while to develop enough to support them. Isn't it better to
use boats to build up demand until development is already well underway?

- or even the Thames Gateway Bridge for that matter (where did you get the
£40m figure from?).

TfL expect the entire project to cost £400m, and the bus lanes were
expected to come to 10% of the cost. Actually they did say "up to 10%" to
it could be less, though somehow I doubt it. Anyway, it would be an
appalling waste of money, as tolls would ensure that traffic on the
bridge would be free flowing anyway.

I think the Dartford Crossing provides a lesson here. Unless toll
collection is electronic, the buses will need to bypass queues for
payment.

Tolling is planned to be electronic (probably similar to the Congestion
Charge).

In which case I accept that toll queues will not be a problem.

A lack of public transport lanes will also endanger the
acceptability of the whole project - those lanes are meant to be
convertible to tram or DLR later on should they be needed.

That's rather a poor location for a tram to cross the river, and the
plans for the DLR to use it are dead and buried.

Where else would a tram cross the river other than at the bridge?

The best location would be a tunnel from the Thamesmere area to
Creekmouth. Of course that would be in the distant future, if at all.

The idea of the bus lanes is to link Greenwich Waterfront Transit and East
London Transit, which should have built up a good passenger base by the
time the bridge opens.

Greenwich Waterfront Transit is something else that should be cancelled
to provide funding for the boat service!

The Mayor keeps mentioning the possibility of the DLR using it; I heard
him say so a couple of weeks ago. Of course, he might be wrong, but he
does seem to have it in his head.

The mind boggles!

Boats won't take you from Thamesmead to Romford, or Abbey Wood
to Barking.

Buses would do that without bus lanes.

No use if they get stuck in the toll queues, or in queues at the bridge
exits.

Considering the roads they flow out onto, that's unlikely.

TfL's own report on the bridge showed that during the peaks, demand
would exceed capacity, even at the desired tolling levels.

Then the desired tolling levels are too low! Raising them at peak times
could be one source of funding for the boat service!

That implies
slow-moving traffic which would hamper non-segregated bus services. The
bridge traffic will also be flowing out onto roundabouts I believe;
these are either be the standard kind or signalled (I'm not familiar
with the Thamesmead one, but I know the Barking one is signalled).
Signals definitely mean traffic will build up to some extent, and
standard roundabouts definitely seem to cause queues under busy traffic
conditions (the Headington roundabout in Oxford comes immediately to
mind; I rarely drive in London but I'm sure there are examples around here).

These roundabouts will have overpasses or underpasses. Some traffic
would queue on the slip roads (though not for very long) but most
traffic would flow straight out onto Eastern Way or the North Circular.

Boats can be useful but the river serves a limited catchment area;
interchange is also difficult between river and other modes except at a
few choice locations (although I accept that that can be remedied).

Many locations upstream of Greenwich, and a few town centers downstream!

Downstream means a lengthy passage around the peninsula and through the
Thames Barrier,

Assuming they're going to Central London. However, if you assume they're
going to the E side of the Isle Of Dogs, it would be quite a direct
route.

That's true. However, Crossrail will be faster from further afield (e.g.
Erith changing at Abbey Wood), and there will be DLR or Tube links
nearer (Woolwich, Silvertown, North Greenwich). I don't see where the
demand would come from for those services.

Thamesmead and Dagenham mainly. Also waterfront locations as far down as
Purfleet... talking of which, another reason why I oppose this Crossrail
plan is that it would only give Canary Wharf half a service - if you're
going to send Crossrail there, you should at least do it properly and
include a Tilbury branch as well as a SELKENT branch.

just to reach Woolwich, which will be getting a decent
link via the DLR to Canary Wharf anyway.

Another TfL project that's a wast of money. They should've concentrated
on the NLL/Crossrail tunnel instead.

They obviously see a good cost-benefit ratio for the DLR to Woolwich, so
it's probably not a waste of money. The money is coming from the
Treasury, and we know how stingy they can be!

They saw a good BCR because it was calculated WITHOUT the presence of a
Crossrail/NLL tunnel. Building that would empty that part of the DLR.

The DLR will provide a better service over the Stratford-Woolwich
corridor than the NLL ever could, given capacity constraints west of
Stratford and the operating costs of heavy rail.

The DLR route to Woolwich is very slow and indirect!

The problem with the river is that any pier will by its nature only have
half the catchment area of an inland rail/Tube station.

But development density is high enough for that not to be a problem.

There must be a problem somewhere or TfL wouldn't have dismissed the
idea of subsidised river services.

That assumes that TfL are
....sensible enough to know what to dismiss. I think if that were the
case they wouldn't be dismissing Routemasters!!!

(snip)