How would you overcome the Bollo Lane Crossings in the West London Orbital?

[Fazaar1889]

In the West London Orbital, the route is planned to go across the Bollo Lane crossing, however, the problem arises as there is already another crossing a little east which is already used by another Overground Line. If they were to permanently lower the crossing, it would cause significant disruption as there aren't any alternatives nearby(-ish).


Even the West London Alliance states that its a problem in their WLO strategy document:

https://democracy.brent.gov.uk/documents/s60139/07c.%20West%20London%20Orbital%20Outline%20Case%202017%201.pdf

How would you best solve this problem? Road bridge? Tunnel/Underpass? Diversions? As someone who knows next to nothing about engineering, I'd live to know your thoughts.

 

[mr_jrt]

Looks very much like were you to raise the roads over the railway you'd end up with ski jumps given the nearby junctions, so I suspect the railway would have to go over or under the roads. Perhaps a half and half approach might work, though. Or you just close off the junction. Not sure the homeowners adjacent will appreciate traffic whizzing past their upstairs windows, though.

 

[Fazaar1889]

Looks very much like were you to raise the roads over the railway you'd end up with ski jumps given the nearby junctions, so I suspect the railway would have to go over or under the roads. Perhaps a half and half approach might work, though. Or you just close off the junction. Not sure the homeowners adjacent will appreciate traffic whizzing past their upstairs windows, though.

Yeah, for a half and half approach, you could deepen the the South Acton to Brentford line but I'm not sure how much that might cost...

 

[bluenoxid]

I don’t know this area so take what I am about to say with a pinch of salt.

I would recommend following the District line on the southern side but it might need Gunnersbury Triangle grubbing out. Close both crossings. Will need a tunnel under the District line behind Acton works. Will screw up all the bus routes through Chiswick Park

 

[stuu]

With a liberal attitude to maximum gradients you could drop the Overground by ~4m in the distance from the junction. The road could be raised a couple of metres too, giving plenty of clearance. For the route to Kew that would need to sink a bit but there is more room for the road to be raised to get over it.

 

[PTR 444]

Even if you closed both crossings to vehicular traffic, the middle bit wouldn’t be cut off as it can be accessed via Chiswick Park (albeit with a revoking of the bus-only restriction). If you don’t want to mess up the existing bus routes, you could keep the South Acton - Brentford Line crossing open specifically for those routes with the appropriate TRO.

Attached is a map illustrating how it could be done:
Red - Road to close to vehicular traffic
Purple - Road to remain open only for local buses
Blue - Current bus-only road to open up for all traffic

 

[London Trains]

The simplest solution would be to just close both of them without any replacement for road vehicles. As shown in the previous post, the section between the two level crossings wouldn't be cut off as it would be accessible through Chiswick Business Park.

As for the bus routes, I'd suggest building a small bus station where there is currently a car park next to the South Acton-Brentford level crossing, with a pedestrian bridge or underpass directly into Chiswick Business Park. The 70 would terminate here, the 266 would be extended from Acton to the new bus station via Acton Lane, Bollo Bridge Road and Bollo Lane (replacing the 440), and the 440 would be diverted away from the area entirely, diverted after Acton to Chiswick Power Road via Acton Lane, Beaconsfield Road, South Parade, Acton Lane, Chiswick High Road and Power Road (and the 110 would take over the Wellesley Road section).