Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Tristán White wrote:

Brick Lane is fast becoming one of London's major thoroughfares for late
night bars and clubs, not to mention the restaurants. But it's not the
safest of areas late at night (in case you're wondering, a good mate of
mine was beaten up there by a gang in an unprovoked attack not long
ago). It never has been the safest of areas right from Jack the Ripper
days! :-))

Having an underground station nearby means that it's easy to get in and
out without having to make your way through backstreets to the new
alternative station on Shoreditch High Street. Which is not ready yet as
an alternative (if it goes to schedule, we're looking at June 2010 -
four years to go!)

The underground station isn't on Brick Lane itself but down a side street -
not the most safe either.

And it's all very well looking at it as "an underground station" but in
terms of service destination Shoreditch doesn't really offer much. Even when
it's been open, I've found it better to access Brick Lane by staying/getting
off earlier (as appropriate) on the District/Hammer at Aldgate East (or even
getting the Circle/Met to Aldgate) rather than changing at Whitechapel. Plus
Aldgate East is so close to the start of Brick Lane it's actually a more
pleasant walk (and more logical for a walk along the entire lane).

I suppose that for those living on the route of the East London Line it may
be a better access point but there isn't really the traffic to support it.

I'd also like to add that there is now a lot more employment around
Shoreditch High Street which didn't exist a decade or so ago, and so the
new station is serving this employment and hopefully generating more.
This area is known as the "City fringe" and one of the reasons for the
ELLX is to encourage further regeneration in this area. There are
similar hopes for Whitechapel - if Crossrail arrives too, Whitechapel
will become an extremely well-connected area and it is hoped that this
will lead to extensive regeneration in one of London's poorest areas.

(snip)

If they could have provided an interchange from the ELL-Extension at
Bishopsgate/SHS to the Central Line, I would agree that there is sense
in moving the station to Bishopsgate. But since there's not (another
missed opportunity), what is the exact thinking? Or they could even have
integrated Bishopsgate with Liverpool Street via an escalator link or
something - done a Monument/Bank thing.

Is any provision at all being made for a later interchange with the Central?
Currently the Central simply can't cope with another station between
Stratford and Tottenham Court Road (at least) - it adds to journey times on
one of the most congested sections of the network. Maybe when Crossrail is
running the Central congestion will have eased to make this viable, so why
not stick to the route and leave that possibility open?

Obviously a Central line interchange was considered at an early stage,
but it was dropped for the reasons stated - the journey time increase
for such a large number of passengers was not worth it. However, not
much provision is really needed - Shoreditch High St will be right on
top of the Central line, so "all" that's needed are Central line
platforms. Unfortunately, that's the expensive part, and could only be
justified if high levels of traffic were anticipated. Crossrail may
relieve Central line congestion, but it will also deliver passengers to
the interchange at Whitechapel instead, probably making a Central line
interchange even less likely.

I think a subsurface link between Shoreditch High St and Liverpool St
would be so long as to be impractical - Bank/Monument lends itself to
this because of the way the platforms are arranged beneath the surface,
with the Northern line between the Central and the District. SHS-LS
would probably be about twice as long as Bank W&C - Monument.


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