Both tunnelled alternatives were rejected on operation, construction, cost and environmental grounds. In summary, the reasons for rejection were as follows:
i) It is unlikely that passengers would wish to travel down a number of escalators to a deep level station for interchange purposes. This would mean that the high level services would continue to carry the majority of interchanging passengers;
ii) The scheme would not be likely to reduce significantly overcrowding at London Bridge Station without incorporation of other works. It would make interchange between Thameslink services and those to Cannon Street and Charing Cross more difficult because of the greater interchange distances involved;
iii) Significant expenditure would still be required at London Bridge to improve the station for the Cannon Street, Charing Cross and terminating services, even with the two low level Thameslink platforms;
iv) This would be a technically demanding scheme, particularly the very deep station construction. A great deal of design development work would need to be carried out to confirm that construction and operation would meet with HSE and HMRI approval. There is a significant risk that during the detailed engineering of the scheme further problems would be encountered and that overcoming these would cause major time delay and cost increases;
https://cdn.londonreconnections.com/files/reports/NR2004ThameslinkAlternatives.pdf