On 6 Oct, 17:47, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:
Boltar wrote:
It seems George Galloway is against it as well. What a surprise...
Well, what self respecting marxist could agree with a service that
would take all those nasty capitalists to work in canary wharf? That
and he might be worried all the tunnelling under Tower Hamlets could
scare off the illegal immigrants he sucks up to there.

There's been a bit of Not In My Back Yardism in that part of town as well -
the proposal for a rubble extraction shaft in Victoria Park has previously
provoked a "Not here but we don't have an idea as to where else and we
expect the developers to find a site" campaign.


The thing I don't like about Crossrail is that it seems that the
designers have gone out of their way to make it necessary to demolish
anything old that would be difficult to demolish under normal
circumstances due to popular protest.

For example, they chose to make it necessary to demolish the Astoria,
a popular and iconic music venue with much history, to sort out the
station at Tottenham Court Road, rather than choosing to demolish the
fairly unpopular Centrepoint on the other side of the road. They chose
to make it necessary to demolish a block of Dean street near Diadem
Court, rather than the ugly 1970s office block on the other side of
oxford street, or the building that Dean Street Tesco is in, or the
modern buildings of St Anne's court.

They chose to obstruct the side entrance at paddington, rather than
demolish the horrifically ugly modern building on the other side of
the road. They chose to demolish one of the nicer buildings on
Southhampton row, rather than the horrible 1960s/1970s extension of
Central St Martins Academy. They chose to demolish some of the nicest
buildings around Farringdon, rather than modern office blocks round
there. They chose to demolish parts of Bloomfield street instead of
the UBS building or the uninspiring modern 1980s block housing Austin
Reed.

I still don't see why they didn't route it as a new tube line from
Paddington to Liverpool street via Charing Cross and Temple - reusing
the old Jubilee line route and Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly where
possible. At least that way it would introduce useful routes that
aren't there already - when the Victoria line was built as relief for
the Piccadilly they didn't follow the Piccadilly slavishly, but made
the path oscillate either side, so that it fulfilled something more.
If it took that route, there'd be a quick way from green park to
Marble Arch, avoiding interchange at bond street, there'd be a quick
way from green park to Paddington too, instead of having to change at
oxford circus and go the slow way round.

All these routes that people have to take now because there isn't a
more direct line could be simplified, but instead they have something
that parallels the central; except from Tottenham court to Liverpool
street it goes off to parallel the Metropolitan instead for a while.
This is fairly useless, because there's hardly anyone for whom
Tottenham Court Road - Farringdon is a significant shortcut; it
doesn't stop at Holborn, so anyone going through Holborn and trying to
get to Barbican or Farringdon is no better off than they were before.