Support grows for Crossrail 2

Yesterday business lobby group London First published a report recommending the Crossrail 2 project, outlining how it could benefit the transport network.

A new rail link connecting southwest and northeast London, via a tunnel beneath central London, would transform journeys for commuters from the southwest and the northeast, including Wimbledon, Kingston, Twickenham, Hackney, Islington, Tottenham, Cheshunt and Hertford East, the report says. It would also relieve several London interchanges, including Euston, Victoria and Clapham Junction, and reduce pressure on Tube lines. In some cases, journey times would be more than halved.

Over the next 20 years, employment in London – mostly in central London – is projected to rise by 700,000 and the capital’s population is expected to rise by 1.5 million to almost 10 million.

If the necessary planning and consultation for Crossrail 2 were to begin now, the new line could be open by the early 2030s.

The plan is put forward in the final report from London First’s Crossrail 2 task force, chaired by former transport secretary Lord Adonis.

Central to the project is construction of a tunnel between Wimbledon and Tottenham, with a spur to Alexandra Palace.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “The case for the construction of Crossrail 2 is incontestable and is made forcibly in this report.  Over the next 20 years London’s population is forecast to expand to levels that will clog the Tube and rail arteries of our great city if we do not provide more capacity.  There is no time to lose and my team will work closely with London First and others on developing plans for this vital railway.”

Initial calculations put the cost of the recommended option for Crossrail 2 at approximately £12bn. After considering other types of service and route options, the task force concluded that the proposed Crossrail 2 scheme with suburban and regional services was by far the most cost-effective method of delivering the necessary step-change in capacity required. Without Crossrail 2, at least £6bn would need to be spent on incremental improvements to existing tube and rail infrastructure, offering a fraction of the benefits, while still leaving London congested.   Congestion is projected to be particularly severe on a southwest-northeast alignment, which receives limited benefit from Crossrail 1 and Thameslink.

The report recommends that the Mayor should now take forward work on detailed planning and consultation, with the aim of developing the basis of a safeguarded route for when the Department for Transport goes out to consultation in late 2013. This would potentially enable construction to begin in the 2020s and Crossrail 2 could then open in the early 2030s.

London First chief executive Jo Valentine said: “The UK faces a stark choice: go on investing in London’s transport to keep pace with population and jobs growth – or stifle London’s future success with bottlenecks. And we have to make the decision now. We cannot afford the decades of indecision that delayed getting started on Crossrail 1.”

Lord Adonis said: “Crossrail 1 provides a new east to west London line; Crossrail 2 is equally important for southwest to northeast London routes, where congestion on rail and tube lines will be unbearable by the late 2020s.

“Without Crossrail 2 by 2030, Euston and other tube stations at mainline termini will be so congested they might have to be closed for parts of each weekday because of the danger to passengers.  Waterloo, Victoria, Euston, Kings Cross, St Pancras and Clapham Junction all gain massive congestion relief from Crossrail 2, which is essential to keep London moving as its population rises by another 1.5m over the next 20 years and the number of rail journeys into London termini increase dramatically.”

Network Rail chief executive David Higgins said: “If the capital’s economy is to continue to thrive then we must plan now, together, for the transport infrastructure requirements of London’s future. Our projections show that by 2031 we will need to accommodate 36% more commuters into London each day. Network Rail is already delivering the biggest capacity improvement programme since the Victorian era, but even that will not be enough on some routes.

“A regional Crossrail 2 scheme will provide the capacity we need to provide for the commuters of the future, providing extra capacity to and through central London and easing overcrowding on the already congested routes into Waterloo and Liverpool Street.”

But the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) warned that the needs of the rest of the country should not be forgotten. CECA director of external affairs Alasdair Reisner said: “A scheme on the scale of Crossrail 2 will do much to tackle the major issue of congestion in London, which already costs the economy billions. However, equally major congestion issues will continue to arise elsewhere in the UK, with as negative effects on the economy.

“It is vital that investment to tackle congestion with such schemes is made in a balanced manner across the whole of the UK - particularly if schemes on the scale of Crossrail 2 are to be deemed acceptable by the public.”

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