Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to Cockfosters
(which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand would still be
poor for two reasons:
....
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near other
Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is only a few
minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for the key
theatre-going market.

And yet which station on the Picadilly Line is so over capacity that it
frequently has to limit passenger access and could really benefit from a
nearby alternative station?

The only feasible alternatives are Holborn and Leicester Square. As an
alternative to Covent Garden, Aldwych would be fairly useless, given the
slow access and egress, and its northbound orientation.

I also wouldn't separate point one (the effect on the rest of the line)
from point two. Trains that went to Aldwych wouldn't be able to go to
Covent Garden or Leicester Square, making overcrowding at those stations
worse. The solution to Covent Garden overcrowding is to increase
capacity at Covent Garden, not to reopen a station that would be of
little use to the majority of people heading to the area.

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