http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...UD318&refer=uk
quote
London's $32 Billion Crossrail Proposal Clears House of Commons
By Reed V. Landberg
Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- London's effort to build the 16 billion-pound
($32 billion) Crossrail link from Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf won
the support of the House of Commons today, bringing the 18-year-old
proposal closer to reality.
The lower chamber of Parliament approved the Crossrail Bill at its
third reading without a vote, allowing the proposal to pass to the
upper House of Lords in the coming weeks. Both houses must approve the
measure for it to become law.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government along with the
Conservative and Liberal Democrat opposition parties support the plan,
which would spur the U.K.'s biggest transport infrastructure project
since the Channel Tunnel and ease the strain on the aging train
network in the capital.
``It will support the development of London as a world city,'' Tom
Harris, a junior transport minister in Brown's government, said in
Parliament in London today.
Stephen Hammond, a Conservative lawmaker who shadows Harris, said he
supported the bill but wanted more details about how the Treasury,
London businesses and residents of the city would finance the plan.
The railway will connect Heathrow airport with central London and then
run 5 miles (8 kilometers) east to the Canary Wharf office development
starting in 2017.
The project includes digging two 14-mile (22-kilometer) tunnels
beneath central London. Construction may begin in 2010 and would
reduce congestion on the London Underground.
Bechtel Group Inc., the San Francisco-based construction company that
built the Channel Tunnel, was hired in 2005 to oversee the design of
Crossrail. London Mayor Ken Livingstone has said Bechtel will be one
of a handful of companies considered to build the railway.
Construction may begin in 2010.
Unquote

Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

In message
Mwmbwls wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...UD318&refer=uk
quote
London's $32 Billion Crossrail Proposal Clears House of Commons
[snip]
Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

No. unless they want to kill it completely.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:13:43 -0800 (PST), Mwmbwls
wrote:

Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

As I understand it, the Lords may amend (or reject) any
Commons-originated Bill except a Money Bill (the Budget, in effect).

If the Lords amends a Bill, those amendments must be approved by the
Commons before Royal Assent can be sought.

Should the Commons disagree with Lords amendments, the Lords then can
either withdraw them, allowing the Bill to go to RA; or it can insist
on them, possibly resulting in a game of Parliamentary ping-pong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_...dom_Parliament

On 14 Dec, 08:13, Mwmbwls wrote:

(snip)

Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?


BBC London radio has a monthly (ish?) phone-in with Mayor Ken
Livingstone, and I listened to the last one in November. On it he said
what everyone else has already said about taking Crossrail on to
Reading - that there is a lot of work due to happen at Reading soon,
and that would offer a good opportunity to extend Crossrail on to
terminate there. Given the timescale of Crossrail, it would seem quite
possible that when it opens it will run through to Reading.

Regarding Ebbsfleet, the Mayor also said that he hoped the line could
be extended to terminate there as well (as per the original plan), and
that it was possible that by the time Crossrail opens work may have
got started to bring it to Ebbsfleet.

The Lords aren't going to try and do anything stupid that might
jeopardise the overall progress of the Bill - if they did, it would
just be reversed in the Commons and they would earn themselves a harsh
condemnation from many quarters.

"Mwmbwls" wrote in message
...

Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

When I saw your thread title, I thought it would be a report on how the
Lords were already proposing changes - however I see nothing other than a
report that the commons stages are complete.

Is the title wishful thinking?

Paul

On 14 Dec, 12:51, "Paul Scott" wrote:
"Mwmbwls" wrote:


Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

When I saw your thread title, I thought it would be a report on how the
Lords were already proposing changes - however I see nothing other than a
report that the commons stages are complete.

Is the title wishful thinking?

Paul


It would appear to be just that!

On 14 Dec, 13:07, Mizter T wrote:
On 14 Dec, 12:51, "Paul Scott" wrote:

"Mwmbwls" wrote:

Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

When I saw your thread title, I thought it would be a report on how the
Lords were already proposing changes - however I see nothing other than a
report that the commons stages are complete.

Is the title wishful thinking?

Paul

It would appear to be just that!

It would be nice if the lords were to force them to rebuilt the nice
buildings they plan to obliterate on the way. It seems to me almost as
if its routing, and the structure of its stations has been
deliberately designed to demolish anything nice that developers and
modernist idiologs like Norman Foster and Richard Rogers wouldn't be
able to demolish any other way.

I don't see why they should be allowed to pull down things like the
buildings on Cowcross Street and replace them with some huge office
block or glassy steel windowed box; they should be forced to rebuild
it all, like at the forecourt of St. Pancras, or at least to rebuild
it according to the new design if its too expensive to reuse the same
bricks etc.

On Dec 14, 5:51 pm, lonelytraveller
wrote:

I don't see why they should be allowed to pull down things like the
buildings on Cowcross Street and replace them with some huge office
block or glassy steel windowed box; they should be forced to rebuild
it all, like at the forecourt of St. Pancras, or at least to rebuild
it according to the new design if its too expensive to reuse the same
bricks etc.

Why? Should all new trains be built to look like the Rocket?

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, Rupert Candy wrote:

On Dec 14, 5:51 pm, lonelytraveller
wrote:

I don't see why they should be allowed to pull down things like the
buildings on Cowcross Street and replace them with some huge office
block or glassy steel windowed box; they should be forced to rebuild it
all, like at the forecourt of St. Pancras, or at least to rebuild it
according to the new design if its too expensive to reuse the same
bricks etc.

Why? Should all new trains be built to look like the Rocket?

Yes. That would be WICKED COOL.

tom

--
Linux is like a FreeBSD fork maintained by 10 year old retards. --
Encyclopedia Dramatica

On Dec 14, 8:13 am, Mwmbwls wrote:
Will the Lords be able to amend the bill so that Reading, Ebbsfleet
and possibly Stansted become the logical termini?

I live in Reading and I don't want Crossrail to come here. Why?
Because Crossrail will be a stopper service. I want to catch an HST to
Paddington, overtaking the slow Crossrail trains past Maidenhead, and
then change for the ride into central London (or beyond). Taking it
all the way to Reading would increase the already sky-high cost and
take away capacity for other, more useful, trains for Reading.


Dan