Paul G wrote:

Transport for London (TfL) had been exploring ways to fund construction
of the Barking Reach route, but London Mayor Ken Livingstone now seems
to have secured the cash needed to accelerate the project.

You've got to hand it to the DLR bods, they're pretty good at getting
cash for all these extensions. The Woolwich Arsenal one is already
well under construction, with the eastbound platform at WA about to
shut for a few months to enable construction to take place.

I know the DLR is cheaper to build than the tube, but surely something
like the Bakerloo to Camberwell could have been built for near to the
same price as three new DLR extensions (King George V, Woolwich
Arsenal, Barking)? The Bakerloo tunnels are already halfway down
Walworth Road, and the remaining distance to Camberwell Green can't be
much longer than the DLR river tunnel to Woolwich.

I guess studies have been done about which extensions to the network
will offer more benefit to more people, etc. but it seems to me that
the DLR system is becoming ever more bitty and complex, possibly at the
expense of more coherent additions to the tube network.

Patrick