Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Peter Masson" wrote in message
...

"Neil Williams" wrote

It is vastly cheaper to rent than buy on a monthly basis in many
places these days. Certainly, in Milton Keynes one would pay about
£500 per month to rent a one-bed flat but £700-800 per month to
purchase it using a repayment mortgage. The main reason for this is
that there is a glut of rental property on the market. Given the
limited amount of property, this will necessarily cause purchase
prices to rise.

If the owners of buy to rent property start to think that property sale
prices have stopped rising they will sell and invest the money elsewhere -
this will increase the stock of sale property and bring prices down,

lets' hope so :-)

tim

while
reducing the stock of rental property pushing rental costs up.

Peter

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 26 Mar, 20:43, Tom Anderson wrote:
Oddly enough, I've just successfully purchased six months' supply of
contact lenses [at 1/3 of UK opticians' prices for the same brand made
in the same US factory. Can we wind up that cartel next please?], some
groceries and toiletries, and a toasted sandwich - all from people who
speak Turkish and no English.

What was in the sandwich?

Indeterminate meat.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Mar 26, 6:53*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Mr Thant wrote:
On 25 Mar, 23:49, Tom Anderson wrote:

The Jubilee?

To Docklands. AIUI the Jubilee between London Bridge and North
Greenwich is already one of the most congested bits of the network.

Right. And how is Crossrail going to relieve that? By letting people on
the North Kent line from east of Abbey Wood change there? That's not
exactly a huge fraction of the Jubilee's passengers, is it? And don't they
already have the option to do Greenwich - Docklands by DLR? Not that
that's exactly a high-capacity route itself.


There will also be the East London Line extension feeding passengers
in at Whitechapel. These passengers who would currently goto London
Bridge for the Jubilee line.

True. All of which could be done without the tunnel, for a fraction of the
price.

And without increasing any capacity from the termini to where people
work/shop/go out/etc, which is the whole point of the current iteration
of the project.

Entirely agreed. But the point i was making in the text that's been
snipped is that the Crossrail project doesn't deliver significant
increases in capacity outside central London, and none that couldn't be
provided much more cheaply.


But it is the central London section that needs the capacity, as the
Underground can not distribute passengers arriving from the mainline.
How much cheaper would it be to provide the extra capacity across
London without the joining the lines to the west and east? Passengers
taken off, for example, the Central line at Liverpool Street /
Stratford will give more capacity for passengers from the West Anglia
lines.

Again, could be done without the tunnel.

And where do you plan to build the extra platforms at Paddington and
Liverpool Street?

Liverpool Street isn't limited by platform capacity, it's limited by
capacity through the station throat. Rebuilding that is entirely possible,
although of course not trivial. I don't know about Paddington, i have to
confess. But since all we're talking about is lengthening trains, why do
we need more platforms?


Paddington has at least three platforms that are of limited length
(12-14, plus 11 which shares the country end track with the entrance
to platform 12). If you lengthen the trains to 8 or 10 coaches, I
don't think that any of these platforms can cope. Liverpool Street
also suffers from some of the same problems, with platforms 16-18
limited to 8 coaches. At both locations, the trains serving these
platforms will be the ones sent down the crossrail tunnels.

Do we know how much of the budget is for this? My understanding was that
Oxford Circus wasn't going to be rebuilt; the Crossrail station would be
essentialy separate. It thus has a slightly marginal effect on
overcrowding - the people relieved onto Crossrail will no longer be
clogging the place up, but plenty of other people will. No idea about TCR.

Slightly marginal? The two Crossrail stations adjacent to Oxford Circus
will have enormous entrances at the ends nearest to it, exactly to
attract the crowds away without overcrowding the actual Oxford Circus
area. In theory at least they're hoping to attract away a lot more
passengers.

If you're going into Oxford Circus to get on the Victoria line, this isn't
going to make any difference whatsoever. The new bit being added, however
enormous, will only decongest the existing station to the extent that they
can abstract passengers away from the Central line.


The difference in getting to the Victoria line is that it will be
easier to enter the station. It will also mean that Oxford Circus
doesn't need to be expensively rebuilt to add capacity for entrance /
exit.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

In message
John B wrote:

On 26 Mar, 20:43, Tom Anderson wrote:
Oddly enough, I've just successfully purchased six months' supply of
contact lenses [at 1/3 of UK opticians' prices for the same brand made
in the same US factory. Can we wind up that cartel next please?], some
groceries and toiletries, and a toasted sandwich - all from people who
speak Turkish and no English.

What was in the sandwich?

Indeterminate meat.


Meat from a named animal costs extra I suppose.

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

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 26 Mar, 18:53, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Mr Thant wrote:

On 25 Mar, 23:49, Tom Anderson wrote:

The Jubilee?

To Docklands. AIUI the Jubilee between London Bridge and North
Greenwich is already one of the most congested bits of the network.

Right. And how is Crossrail going to relieve that? By letting people on
the North Kent line from east of Abbey Wood change there? That's not
exactly a huge fraction of the Jubilee's passengers, is it? And don't they
already have the option to do Greenwich - Docklands by DLR? Not that
that's exactly a high-capacity route itself.


You've a point about North Kent / south east London commuters who are
likely to already be interchanging with the DLR at Greenwich or
Lewisham.

However Lewisham/Greenwich - Canary Wharf DLR trains are rammed during
the rush hour, not least with many passengers who are making such an
interchange.

Interchange to Crossrail at Abbey Wood would be an option for some of
these passengers.

Note that as well as London to Dartford stopping services, Abbey Wood
is also served by Charing X to Gillingham (via Rochester and Chatham)
trains. These do also stop at Lewisham, so interchange is indeed
available with the overcrowded DLR there (note that these trains also
stop at Woolwich Arsenal).

However the South London RUS makes clear that Lewisham station is
badly struggling to reliably handle the number of trains that
currently stop there - if this service could be diverted away from
Lewisham that would definitely be of very significant benefit.
(Passengers would also have the option of changing to the DLR at
Woolwich Arsenal for other Docklands destinations.)

I've absolutely no idea if what I'm about to suggest is remotely
feasible, but if more trains from Kent were to stop at Abbey Wood then
this would provide some relief for the Jubilee line by removing a
number of passengers who arrive at London Bridge then 'double-back' on
the Jubilee to the Docklands.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 10:58:46 GMT, Martin Edwards
wrote:

Mike Roebuck wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:24:50 +0000, Jane Sullivan
wrote:

In message , Neil Williams
writes
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:58:47 +0000, Jane Sullivan
wrote:

And if those employees lost their jobs, then that would take several
billion pounds out of the local economy of the south-east and, by
extension, Britain.
But why would they lose their jobs if Crossrail didn't happen?
They'd lose their jobs if the financial centre of Europe moved out of
London to Frankfurt.

So - learn German and move to Frankfurt.

Lower cost of + higher standard of living for the sake of making a
little linguistic effort.

You'd need to learn German and then learn Rhineland German.

No - my German is fluent, and I learned it mostly in Hamburg. I never
needed to learn Hessisch as well to communicate when I was in
Frankfurt-am-Main.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 26 Mar, 18:53, Tom Anderson wrote:
Right. And how is Crossrail going to relieve that? By letting people on
the North Kent line from east of Abbey Wood change there? That's not
exactly a huge fraction of the Jubilee's passengers, is it? And don't they
already have the option to do Greenwich - Docklands by DLR? Not that
that's exactly a high-capacity route itself.

But if you're coming from Finchley or wherever, you can easily switch
from using the Jubilee at London Bridge to Crossrail at Moorgate. I
think the same applies to passengers coming from most places west of
Docklands.

Entirely agreed. But the point i was making in the text that's been
snipped is that the Crossrail project doesn't deliver significant
increases in capacity outside central London, and none that couldn't be
provided much more cheaply.

I don't disagree.

Liverpool Street isn't limited by platform capacity, it's limited by
capacity through the station throat. Rebuilding that is entirely possible,
although of course not trivial. I don't know about Paddington, i have to
confess. But since all we're talking about is lengthening trains, why do
we need more platforms?

Crossrail is expected to release significant capacity at Liverpool
Street for other services, even if its own route isn't seeing a big
increase. And there's quite a few more trains west of Paddington
planned, which would require platforms Paddington doesn't have.

If you're going into Oxford Circus to get on the Victoria line, this isn't
going to make any difference whatsoever. The new bit being added, however
enormous, will only decongest the existing station to the extent that they
can abstract passengers away from the Central line.

Again, it depends where you're ultimately going. Yes Crossrail is
useless if your destination is actually on the Bakerloo and Victoria
(except Paddington of course), but if you're changing to some other
line than there's possibly a way to do the same journey using
Crossrail. Farringdon in particular is going to have direct trains to
places you might currently reach from Victoria or King's Cross, as
Thameslink 2000 will be complete.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Mizter T wrote:
On 26 Mar, 18:53, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Mr Thant wrote:

On 25 Mar, 23:49, Tom Anderson wrote:
The Jubilee?
To Docklands. AIUI the Jubilee between London Bridge and North
Greenwich is already one of the most congested bits of the network.
Right. And how is Crossrail going to relieve that? By letting people on
the North Kent line from east of Abbey Wood change there? That's not
exactly a huge fraction of the Jubilee's passengers, is it? And don't they
already have the option to do Greenwich - Docklands by DLR? Not that
that's exactly a high-capacity route itself.


You've a point about North Kent / south east London commuters who are
likely to already be interchanging with the DLR at Greenwich or
Lewisham.

However Lewisham/Greenwich - Canary Wharf DLR trains are rammed during
the rush hour, not least with many passengers who are making such an
interchange.

Interchange to Crossrail at Abbey Wood would be an option for some of
these passengers.

Note that as well as London to Dartford stopping services, Abbey Wood
is also served by Charing X to Gillingham (via Rochester and Chatham)
trains. These do also stop at Lewisham, so interchange is indeed
available with the overcrowded DLR there (note that these trains also
stop at Woolwich Arsenal).

However the South London RUS makes clear that Lewisham station is
badly struggling to reliably handle the number of trains that
currently stop there - if this service could be diverted away from
Lewisham that would definitely be of very significant benefit.
(Passengers would also have the option of changing to the DLR at
Woolwich Arsenal for other Docklands destinations.)

Certainly off peak, the Gillingham trains these days seem to go via
Greenwich rather than Blackheath and Lewisham. Not sure about the rush
hour, though.

Robin

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Am Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:16:55 UTC, schrieb Mike Roebuck
auf uk.railway :

So - learn German and move to Frankfurt.

You'd need to learn German and then learn Rhineland German.

No - my German is fluent, and I learned it mostly in Hamburg. I never
needed to learn Hessisch as well to communicate when I was in
Frankfurt-am-Main.

Neither did I after living for more than three decades here. And it
is really not needed. More than a quarter of the city's population is
of foreign descent, and among young people this percentage is even
higher.


Cheers,
L.W.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 26 Mar, 16:42, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:09:41 on
Wed, 26 Mar 2008, dave hill remarked:

I'm disappointed they aren't doing the rowing in Nottingham - I could
have walked to the venue!

I was under the impression that the Row course at Holme Point(?) was
not up to standard and a NEW facility needed to be brought into
use.

MRD applies.


Mornington Crescent.

Jonn