On Wed, 25 May 2005, Boltar wrote:

Is it just my opinion or do other people think the DLR is being pushed
beyond what its really suited for?

I never thought i'd say this, but i agree with you.

Don't get me wrong - the DLR's a great thing, and has been and continues
to be instrumental in the development of Docklands and the littoral east
end. But ...

It was desinged to be a local tram-like service around the docks area.
Now it seems to be turning into an east london tube/train replacement
and I'm not sure its really up to the job.

That's true. The DLR is an excellent, well-run, reliable, forward-looking
light rail service, but it is ultimately only a light rail service, and as
such, will never be able to provide the speed and capacity of real trains,
or even tubes. During the early days of the Docklands, it was enough; in
the next couple of years, with the three-car trains and sundry other
improvements, it will be enough, but, provided the area continues to
develop according to plan, in twenty or thirty years' time, it will not be
enough. Transport planners have to think in terms of that sort of
timescale, if not more.

Now, the area is getting a dose of Crossrail, which will help, but that
only addresses a fairly narrow range of journeys. There are plans for
trams, or trolleybuses or something, in that general area of London, but
those are hardly going to fill the capacity gap. What the area needs is
proper heavy rail solutions; throwing out all sorts of short-termist
DLR-based solutions is ultimately failing to face up to this reality.

The trouble is that the DLR options are doable now. The long-term
solutions (about the details of which i'm pretty hazy) would be
exorbitantly expensive. The two options that spring to mind are extending
the Jubilee line from North Greenwich (not entirely sure where to,
though!) and reclaiming some of the old railway alignments from the DLR
and using them for proper trains.

tom

--
this place would be a paradise tomorrow if every department had a
supervisor with a sub-machine gun