Speeding up slow journeys between London boroughs

[PTR 444]

London is a global player when it comes to public transport connectivity, but the issue with cities of its size is that away from the mainline corridors, everywhere takes so long to get to. For example Epsom Downs is only 10 miles from Clapham Junction as the crow flies, but it takes longer to get there than it does from Basingstoke, at least 30 miles further away. Moreover, Sutton to Stratford (London) is a quarter of the distance of Waterloo to Southampton but the journey takes just as long due to the stopping nature of cross-London rail services.

As for buses, they can be so slow that it becomes quicker to run the route from end to end. Using another real world example, me and my sister (both currently training for a half marathon) ran the Wandle Trail between Carshalton and Wandsworth today. We did pretty well with a time of 1hr 45 mins, but the bus route back (270 to Mitcham, 280 to Rosehill, 154 to Carshalton) was impacted by road closures in Tooting, with the entire return leg taking a whopping 2 hours! I understand there’s not a lot you can do to alleviate this sort of disruption when you haven’t got room to build additional infrastructure, but it does highlight how it can take an age just to get between boroughs in a bustling metropolis.

We have Superloop now for the outermost transport links which don’t have a parallel rail route, and this is an excellent step forward for transport in London, but should TfL be considering running more express style bus routes, building new tram lines and relief lines on Tube/Overground routes to make journeys faster between a wider range of London boroughs?

 

[JonathanH]

For example Epsom Downs is only 10 miles from Clapham Junction as the crow flies, but it takes longer to get there than it does from Basingstoke, at least 30 miles further away.

Is the time taken to get from Epsom Downs to Clapham Junction a useful determinant of journey time in London? People plan their lives around where the rail service gets them to a destination in a reasonable time, not the other way round.

We have Superloop now for the outermost transport links which don’t have a parallel rail route, and this is an excellent step forward for transport in London, but should TfL be considering running more express style bus routes, building new tram lines and relief lines on Tube/Overground routes to make journeys faster between a wider range of London boroughs?

It is a question of priorities. The Bakerloo Line extension is likely to be deemed a better use of money than bulldozing an extra pair of tracks through houses alongside existing railway lines.

As for buses, they can be so slow that it becomes quicker to run the route from end to end. Using another real world example, me and my sister (both currently training for a half marathon) ran the Wandle Trail between Carshalton and Wandsworth today. We did pretty well with a time of 1hr 45 mins, but the bus route back (270 to Mitcham, 280 to Rosehill, 154 to Carshalton) was impacted by road closures in Tooting, with the entire return leg taking a whopping 2 hours!

Sounds fun. Isn't the 127 better for Mitcham to Carshalton? In normal traffic, the 127 isn't a bad bus route, but I am not sure an express route would be overlaid. Clearly London has a lot of single carriageway roads, because of the way it developed. It isn't easy to get a distinction between limited stop and all stop buses in that situation. Again bulldozers aren't going to be welcome.

 

[PTR 444]

Is the time taken to get from Epsom Downs to Clapham Junction a useful determinant of journey time in London? People plan their lives around where the rail service gets them to a destination in a reasonable time, not the other way round.

Well I suppose if you are a suburbia resident who always goes to Central London for work, shopping and entertainment, there’s little reason to do so in another suburb. Even so, the journey from Epsom Downs could be quicker if it went via Mitcham Junction. The expansion of the Royal Marsden at Belmont might necessitate the need for a better service on that line.

It is a question of priorities. The Bakerloo Line extension is likely to be deemed a better use of money than bulldozing an extra pair of tracks through houses alongside existing railway lines.

True, although you don’t need to bulldoze houses in all cases. For Tube lines, I don’t see why some outer lines couldn’t be quad tracked to allow some faster skip-stopping journeys. This would be welcome on the Northern from Kennington to Morden as that section can be tediously slow.

Sounds fun. Isn't the 127 better for Mitcham to Carshalton? In normal traffic, the 127 isn't a bad bus route, but I am not sure an express route would be overlaid. Clearly London has a lot of single carriageway roads, because of the way it developed. It isn't easy to get a distinction between limited stop and all stop buses in that situation. Again bulldozers aren't going to be welcome.

Carshalton Beeches to be precise which is better served by the 154, especially if a 280 arrives into Mitcham first. In hindsight the best option would have been to get off the 270 at Tooting Broadway, take the Tube to Morden then get the 154 from there. The diversion on the 270 took us all the way to Streatham via Tooting Bec Road, even though it could have cut a significant corner by going via Church Lane (B241).

 

[PGAT]

It was announced quite recently that TfL were looking into a second Superloop

 

[30907]

The infrastructure is patchy - my sister reported that she used the SL from Shirley to Croydon - the first mile or so to Trinity Roundabout was congested (trunk road, no easy option for bus lanes), aftercwhich it was fine.

BTW Wandsworth to Carshalton Beeches by bus - why would you, unless you have a bus pass, if trains are running?

 

[JonathanH]

For Tube lines, I don’t see why some outer lines couldn’t be quad tracked to allow some faster skip-stopping journeys. This would be welcome on the Northern from Kennington to Morden as that section can be tediously slow.

You can't get any more trains through the central sections though, so it is quite dubious what additional capacity is being added by a faster Kennington to Morden journey, for a lot of money.

BTW Wandsworth to Carshalton Beeches by bus - why would you, unless you have a bus pass, if trains are running?

Cheaper.

 

[PTR 444]

BTW Wandsworth to Carshalton Beeches by bus - why would you, unless you have a bus pass, if trains are running?

Cheaper.

Engineering works on the line through Wandsworth Town might have also played a part on this occasion. My sister has the Citymapper app which did take this into account, but unfortunately didn’t recognise the diversion on the 270…

 

[Basil Jet]

It was announced quite recently that TfL were looking into a second Superloop

Announced where? I can't find anything. Where would it go?

 

[mike57]

I was born in London, and spent the first 20 odd years of my life there, growing up with the fact that jorneys within London would have average end to end speeds of 10mph or less.

The problem is that London and other large cities have grown up with ever increasing distances to be covered in order to move around. Because this evolution has 'happened' rather than being planned transport hasn't been designed to accomodate this growth. In general getting to Central London has always been fairly easy, with most roads and railways being radial, the fun starts when you need to travel across the centre or around the outer suburbs, as the infrastructure is just not there.

To fix this would take a massive investment, and some of the existing infrastructure has been upgraded, the re-introduction of regular services on the West London line, reopening the Snow Hill tunnels and incorporating the East London line into the Overground has made a big difference compared with 1980 when I left London. The only new major cross London infrastructure is the Elizabeth line, and this nearly broke the bank.

Things like SuperLoop are always going to be constrained by existing infrastructure, with routes for the most part on 'local' roads which have congestion and lots of pinch points.

These issues are probably a good argument for stopping cities from getting too big, imagine if the green belt hadnt happened and growth had carried on out into the home counties.

Its also true that people will make decisions based on available transport options, growing up I refused a job in Brentford and took one in Wimbledon because the journey was easier and pay was similar.

Thinking back to the late 60s there were the urban motorway plans, but these were hugely unpopular with the communities they would have passed through obliterated. They would have allowed the currently difficult journeys to be speeded up but no one today would seriously suggest that type of project even if the money was available.

The only thing that would deliver a step change improvement would be more Crossrail type projects, including possibly an outer circle route, but given the final cost of Crossrail/Elizabeth line the chances of this happening are I would suggest close to zero, and I dont think a change of goverment will change this situation.

Its interesting to see what Paris are doing with their Grand Paris Express project(s), that is what London needs, but two problems, Paris is more compact to start with, and the French seem more willing to invest in infrastructure.

 

[telstarbox]

It's a carrot and stick thing too relative to driving. If you drive from Carshalton to Zone 1 it's going to be slow and parking will be expensive, so the train wins for most people. Carshalton to Wandsworth is an easier drive and parking will be cheaper or free.

 

[PGAT]

Announced where? I can't find anything. Where would it go?

Somewhere on Twitter it was announced a couple of weeks ago by someone from TfL. It didn’t say anything about where it would run only that they were considering it.

Edit: found the tweet

https://twitter.com/RossLydall/status/1759902461173576061

 

[PTR 444]

Roger French’s latest blog post might be worth a read - similarly involving buses getting stuck in traffic in Streatham…

BusAndTrainUser Verify

Saturday 9th March 2024 Contextual Alert: The following blog was written prior to Lambeth Borough Council’s dramatic decision on Thursday afternoon to suspend the Streatham Wells Low Traffic …

busandtrainuser.com

Saturday 9th March 2024

Contextual Alert: The following blog was written prior to Lambeth Borough Council’s dramatic decision on Thursday afternoon to suspend the Streatham Wells Low Traffic Neighbourhood with immediate effect.

Teaser Alert: I paid a return visit to Streatham yesterday afteroon to see what impact this suspension was having. Read on for the results.

There was never any doubt the story carried by a number of media outlets at the end of last month highlighting massive peak time delays to buses heading south on Streatham High Road was true. First reported in The Times on Sunday 25th February, graphic video and photographic evidence showed stationary nose-to-tail buses accompaning dramatically worded articles highlighting the problem, including one bus reportedly taking two hours to travel three miles, something confirmed by TfL.

 

[AlastairFraser]

London is a global player when it comes to public transport connectivity, but the issue with cities of its size is that away from the mainline corridors, everywhere takes so long to get to. For example Epsom Downs is only 10 miles from Clapham Junction as the crow flies, but it takes longer to get there than it does from Basingstoke, at least 30 miles further away. Moreover, Sutton to Stratford (London) is a quarter of the distance of Waterloo to Southampton but the journey takes just as long due to the stopping nature of cross-London rail services.

As for buses, they can be so slow that it becomes quicker to run the route from end to end. Using another real world example, me and my sister (both currently training for a half marathon) ran the Wandle Trail between Carshalton and Wandsworth today. We did pretty well with a time of 1hr 45 mins, but the bus route back (270 to Mitcham, 280 to Rosehill, 154 to Carshalton) was impacted by road closures in Tooting, with the entire return leg taking a whopping 2 hours! I understand there’s not a lot you can do to alleviate this sort of disruption when you haven’t got room to build additional infrastructure, but it does highlight how it can take an age just to get between boroughs in a bustling metropolis.

We have Superloop now for the outermost transport links which don’t have a parallel rail route, and this is an excellent step forward for transport in London, but should TfL be considering running more express style bus routes, building new tram lines and relief lines on Tube/Overground routes to make journeys faster between a wider range of London boroughs?

They should definitely look into additional Superloop routes, perhaps funded by something like a workplace parking levy in the town centres it will connect.

 

[mike57]

Roger French’s latest blog post might be worth a read

I found this an interesting read, its an area I knew growing up in 60s and 70s, and even back then had a reputation as an area to avoid if time was of the essence.

My take on it all, a given surface route has a maximum capacity, and once that is exceeded nothing will move. LTNs look good on paper, but as with a lot of things you get consequences, and one of those is pushing more traffic onto the main roads, the traffic that used to cut through the LTN hasn't disappeared, as has been demonstrated.

The surface rail lines tend to cross the A23 axis, so this means even historically it depends more heavily on buses than the parallel A24 which has the Northern Line. Buses are not the answer for a major route such as this.

Imagine the situation if the Victoria line had been extended just under 3 miles to Streatham station, with stations maybe every 3/4 mile, the old long distance through bus routes could be broken into sections, and buses could do what they are best suited to, local connectivity. Even one tube train every 10mins is going to move more people than the current bus provision.

Superloop routes are going to fall into the same trap if more areas decide to create LTNs.

Maybe rather than Crossrail 2 or some other 'grand scheme' maybe London would be better off with some smaller scale projects, in South London Bakerloo and Victoria line exentions would be top of my list. In west London create some rail connectivity into Heathrow from the south (as in from the SR lines).

 

[PTR 444]

I found this an interesting read, its an area I knew growing up in 60s and 70s, and even back then had a reputation as an area to avoid if time was of the essence.

My take on it all, a given surface route has a maximum capacity, and once that is exceeded nothing will move. LTNs look good on paper, but as with a lot of things you get consequences, and one of those is pushing more traffic onto the main roads, the traffic that used to cut through the LTN hasn't disappeared, as has been demonstrated.

The surface rail lines tend to cross the A23 axis, so this means even historically it depends more heavily on buses than the parallel A24 which has the Northern Line. Buses are not the answer for a major route such as this.

Imagine the situation if the Victoria line had been extended just under 3 miles to Streatham station, with stations maybe every 3/4 mile, the old long distance through bus routes could be broken into sections, and buses could do what they are best suited to, local connectivity. Even one tube train every 10mins is going to move more people than the current bus provision.

Superloop routes are going to fall into the same trap if more areas decide to create LTNs.

Maybe rather than Crossrail 2 or some other 'grand scheme' maybe London would be better off with some smaller scale projects, in South London Bakerloo and Victoria line exentions would be top of my list. In west London create some rail connectivity into Heathrow from the south (as in from the SR lines).

The issue with extending existing tube lines is that they are mostly at full capacity. The Victoria Line is already overcrowded for its entire length, therefore extending it will only make problems worse with even more passengers piling on. You’d be better off building a brand new Tube line from Croydon to Waterloo or even Holborn (taking over the Aldwych branch).

 

[mike57]

You’d be better off building a brand new Tube line from Croydon to Waterloo or even Holborn (taking over the Aldwych branch).

I think the main issue is the A23 axis needs something, ideally a tube line, Are new lines in the central area feasible? Getting the crayons out maybe extend the Bakerloo south from Elephant, rather than SE. Whatever you do is going to cost, and I doubt the funding is there, but unless you can reduce the need for road transport you are never going to really solve the problem.

Its also hard to put a true cost to congestion, as well as lost time how many people look at a potential journey and just say "No I'll do something else" be that not taking a job or whatever.

 

[JonathanH]

I think the main issue is the A23 axis needs something, ideally a tube line, Are new lines in the central area feasible?

The A23 axis has a railway line, but not one with a high frequency. Some people choose to use buses to Brixton or other underground stations rather than the railway service.

 

[mangyiscute]

Roger French’s latest blog post might be worth a read - similarly involving buses getting stuck in traffic in Streatham…

BusAndTrainUser Verify

Saturday 9th March 2024 Contextual Alert: The following blog was written prior to Lambeth Borough Council’s dramatic decision on Thursday afternoon to suspend the Streatham Wells Low Traffic …

busandtrainuser.com

personally, would just turn the road into a bus only road, that way the buses wouldn't get stuck in traffic

 

[JonathanH]

personally, would just turn the road into a bus only road, that way the buses wouldn't get stuck in traffic

What parallel road do you suggest other traffic uses? Would that slow down other buses? It is a very difficult balance.

 

[mike57]

What parallel road do you suggest other traffic uses? Would that slow down other buses? It is a very difficult balance.

Hence my comment about the need for a tube line. Just had a quick look and the are 14 buses in the next 10 minutes on the A23 at Christchurch Rd at the start of Brixton Hill. A similar stop, Hildreth Street on the A24 has 5. If there is the need for that sort of intensive service then buses are probably not the right answer.

I dont know how well loaded those buses will be, but I would suspect that everyone using the radial routes Brixton Streatham via A23 would fit on one tube train, leaving the buses to provide connectivity around rather than into and out of the centre.

The A23 axis has a railway line, but not one with a high frequency.

Streatham Hill station cuts across the A23, Streatham has trains, and so does Brixton, but what links them all together?

 

[PTR 444]

I think the main issue is the A23 axis needs something, ideally a tube line, Are new lines in the central area feasible? Getting the crayons out maybe extend the Bakerloo south from Elephant, rather than SE. Whatever you do is going to cost, and I doubt the funding is there, but unless you can reduce the need for road transport you are never going to really solve the problem.

Its also hard to put a true cost to congestion, as well as lost time how many people look at a potential journey and just say "No I'll do something else" be that not taking a job or whatever.

The Bakerloo extension to Lewisham is still needed however, as that serves Old Kent Road which is an area even more deprived from rail transport. Perhaps you could have two branches, with the Lewisham one as planned and another heading towards Walworth, Camberwell, Streatham and Croydon?

 

[TrainBoy98]

The Bakerloo extension to Lewisham is still needed however, as that serves Old Kent Road which is an area even more deprived from rail transport. Perhaps you could have two branches, with the Lewisham one as planned and another heading towards Walworth, Camberwell, Streatham and Croydon?

I know the Bakerloo is quieter compared to the other lines, but is there enough capacity through the core for both of these branches?

Likely better to leave it to do Old Kent Road, and have a new line for the Streatham direction (which I'm sure won't be on the cards, sadly)

 

[mangyiscute]

What parallel road do you suggest other traffic uses? Would that slow down other buses? It is a very difficult balance.

Just don't drive, there are plenty of other ways to get around.
if you remove the road people will find other ways to make their journey and it will lead to a better city for all

 

[JonathanH]

Just don't drive, there are plenty of other ways to get around.
if you remove the road people will find other ways to make their journey and it will lead to a better city for all

Yes, I have some sympathy for that, but the issue is that car drivers are more likely to use parallel roads than switch to other means. Removing the A23 as a arterial route would presumably push traffic through Mitcham and Upper Norwood.

Unfortunately, you only have to look at the hysteria about ULEZ that only affects a small proportion of drivers to see how popular converting the A23 into a busway north of the Thornton Heath Pond would be.

 

[mike57]

if you remove the road people will find other ways to make their journey

Or they will just 'vote with their feet' and leave the area completely. The problem with that approach is that the well off are unaffected, they can go, and its those at the bottom of the pile that get stuck with the consequences.

Unfortunately, you only have to look at the hysteria about ULEZ

Again I suspect that affects the lowest paid/poorest disproportionaly.

 

[sprunt]

Cheaper.

Marginally. Wandsworth Town to Carshalton Beeches is £3.50 off-peak assuming you're using PAYG.

 

[AlastairFraser]

The Bakerloo extension to Lewisham is still needed however, as that serves Old Kent Road which is an area even more deprived from rail transport. Perhaps you could have two branches, with the Lewisham one as planned and another heading towards Walworth, Camberwell, Streatham and Croydon?

Or reinstate the Camden to Brixton section of the Cross River Tram and extend it to West Croydon straight down the A23?

 

[Basil Jet]

Or reinstate the Camden to Brixton section of the Cross River Tram and extend it to West Croydon straight down the A23?

TfL's tram man said many years ago that there no way a tram could be got past St Leonards Church in Streatham.

 

[cle]

I know the Bakerloo is quieter compared to the other lines, but is there enough capacity through the core for both of these branches?

Likely better to leave it to do Old Kent Road, and have a new line for the Streatham direction (which I'm sure won't be on the cards, sadly)

This was studied - and Walworth/Camberwell/Denmark Hill could easily fill a tube frequency service, as could New Cross Gate/Lewisham.

But splitting the current frequency, it wouldn't be viable to do such a big build for 12tph each branch - even if it went up to say 15tph, it would be full - look at Brixton. And too much $$$ to build two branches.

As the Lewisham route contains the OKR opportunity stretch, and includes the future of the Hayes branch (inc NR paths divested) - and connects to the busiest piece of the ELL at NXG as well as all the Dartford lines - that was chosen for the bigger network potential.

Camberwell would likely be a little stub. Super useful in another lifetime - but for now I'd think something else would be a better solve. The Thameslink station was offered as a consolation prize, but that is now deemed excessive/too expensive, which I don't agree with. Also that four track stretch is massively underused as a mainline.

 

[AlastairFraser]

TfL's tram man said many years ago that there no way a tram could be got past St Leonards Church in Streatham.

In that case, a short premetro-style subsurface section past the church along Streatham High Rd between Pendennis Rd and Stanthorpe Rd (around 750m including approaches) wouldn't be insurmountable.
You'd probably have to relocate a lot of utilities and it wouldn't be cheap, but certainly cheaper than a tube line if that is the only major obstacle.