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Why are we not building new underground lines?

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Hetlana

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Sure, we have Crossrail and the DLR, but the fact is that we haven’t built an actual new underground line since 1979.

Now, you might say that ‘oh, we’re a developed country, we’ve done all that, but the fact is that London’s population is rapidly rising and there are still corridors and areas that are unserved.

Paris built its latest metro line in 1998, and the world has built so many new metro systems since then, so why can’t we in London build a new underground line - not a light rail, not a tram but an actual line.

You may ask about money, but the way they do it in Hong Kong is that they hand over brownfield and undeveloped land to the equivalent of TFL, which builds its own shopping malls and high rise apartments to rent, and gives it a massive amount of income which it can spend on improvements to the network.

Instead of handing over our brownfield ‘opportunity areas’ to private developers to sell to outside investors, we should have, and should be, having TFL develop the lot for prifitable rent to, for example, the squeezed middle who can’t afford to buy but can’t get into council houses either.

And as in Hong Kong, this would encourage TFL to build sleek new lines between these centres.

And guess what? Hong Kong does not have to have its internal projects be subsidized by the rest of China, like the rest of the UK is paying for Crossrail.
 
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Hadders

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The Jubilee Line Extension was built in the 1990s.
Crossrail is under construction and opens next year.
Northern Line Extension is under construction.
 

Bald Rick

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Have a look at the “Crossrail 3” thread.

In summary - there aren’t many underground corridors left.
Those that are left will have full size underground railways. Crossrail 1 being the first.

If you can find any brownfield opportunity areas in central or inner London, in Government ownership of sufficient size and in the right place to make sufficient cash to pay for a new line, then you’ve done a better job than new line promoters!
 

edwin_m

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The approximate proposed route of Crossrail 2 was originally envisaged as a new Tube line (the Chelsea-Hackney line). About five years ago studies were done into whether this should go forward as a Crossrail instead, the alternative being a version of DLR but with longer trains rather than a classic Underground line.

Reasons to go for Crossrail could include:
  • Modern machines make tunneling easier so no need to go for a small Tube bore
  • Today's expectation is for a proper evacuation walkway so the tunnel has to be bigger anyway to accommodate that
  • The larger train profile also gives more room and provides space for air conditioning which is also now considered essential
  • Crossrail uses main line trains with a few special features, not a completely non-standard Tube stock
  • Crossrail takes over suburban train services so reduces pressure on the main line termini as well as providing extra connectivity in and across central London
These advantages, especially the through running, outweigh the lower running costs of an automated DLR-type operation.

Paris has a particular problem that the Metro stations are very close together so it's too slow for journeys beyond the inner suburbs. RER goes perhaps too far the other way but the latest line (14) has longer station spacing. The Tube suffers from this to a lesser extent - Victoria Line has longer station spacing than the older lines - but it's probably true that most of the suburbs where better transport is needed are far enough out that the journey by a Tube with frequent stops would be too slow. Hence the Crossrail concept of through running to further suburbs but with relatively long distances between stops.
 

goblinuser

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The approximate proposed route of Crossrail 2 was originally envisaged as a new Tube line (the Chelsea-Hackney line). About five years ago studies were done into whether this should go forward as a Crossrail instead, the alternative being a version of DLR but with longer trains rather than a classic Underground line.

Reasons to go for Crossrail could include:
  • Modern machines make tunneling easier so no need to go for a small Tube bore
  • Today's expectation is for a proper evacuation walkway so the tunnel has to be bigger anyway to accommodate that
  • The larger train profile also gives more room and provides space for air conditioning which is also now considered essential
  • Crossrail uses main line trains with a few special features, not a completely non-standard Tube stock
  • Crossrail takes over suburban train services so reduces pressure on the main line termini as well as providing extra connectivity in and across central London
These advantages, especially the through running, outweigh the lower running costs of an automated DLR-type operation.

Paris has a particular problem that the Metro stations are very close together so it's too slow for journeys beyond the inner suburbs. RER goes perhaps too far the other way but the latest line (14) has longer station spacing. The Tube suffers from this to a lesser extent - Victoria Line has longer station spacing than the older lines - but it's probably true that most of the suburbs where better transport is needed are far enough out that the journey by a Tube with frequent stops would be too slow. Hence the Crossrail concept of through running to further suburbs but with relatively long distances between stops.
I'm not sure the OP means replicate the tube exactly for a new 'tube line'. Clearly, the deep level Underground concept is outdated as the trains are too small.
 

edwin_m

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I'm not sure the OP means replicate the tube exactly for a new 'tube line'. Clearly, the deep level Underground concept is outdated as the trains are too small.

OP says:
Sure, we have Crossrail and the DLR, but the fact is that we haven’t built an actual new underground line since 1979.
So I think "actual underground lines" were intended to be the topic for discussion.

The last totally new line was the Victoria in 1968, because although the Jubilee in 1979 got a new name most of it was previously part of the Bakerloo.
 

B&I

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Could it be because London has been overdeveloped to the extent that there are few viable opportunities left for new lines ? Why not ask about the lack of new (mainline) underground lines to provide much-needed capacity relief in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds ?
 

Clip

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Could it be because London has been overdeveloped to the extent that there are few viable opportunities left for new lines

Very possibly - as Bald Rick says theres very little room left in the centre of london now so its becoming more difficult to do which is why light rail or even trams could be the solution instead

Why not ask about the lack of new (mainline) underground lines to provide much-needed capacity relief in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds ?

Because they probably live in London and want to talk about London. Whilst i dont disagree with you about other cities you could always make a thread to discuss them or possibly use the existing threads which i believe are Leeds Crossrail, Bradford Crossrail or one of the many others?
 

jopsuk

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if we had political will (which is what actually creates funding) the tunnelling machines from Crossrail 1 would be boring Crossrail 2 already and the portal sites for Crossrail 3 (whatever that would be) would be in preparation. At the same time true Metro systems would be tunnelled under Birmingham, Manchester and the Leeds-Bradford-etc conurbation
 

LNW-GW Joint

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I think the HS1 London tunnels (2000s, 10+ miles) count as underground, not to mention the Channel Tunnel itself (1990).
The Heathrow lines (LU, Hex) certainly do, with their T4/5 extensions.
HS2, at great cost, will tunnel far out from Euston towards Birmingham.
Then there's the Farnworth re-bored tunnel near Bolton for NW electrification.
 

swt_passenger

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I'm not sure the OP means replicate the tube exactly for a new 'tube line'. Clearly, the deep level Underground concept is outdated as the trains are too small.
Is the right answer. Hence Crossrail 2 being full mainline size and length rather than the alternative Chelsea Hackney tube size line. They spent many years making that decision.
 

quantinghome

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I'm not really sure what the OP's point is. Areas previously not served are now done so by a number of extensions - Heathrow T4/T5, JLE, Northern line to Battersea, East London Line conversion to the Overground. Capacity has been uplifted by major upgrades to the existing lines. As for brand new lines, as others have pointed out the small diameter deep tube concept is now an archaic throwback - main lines size trains are needed.

Where would this new tube line go anyway?
 

DarloRich

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Why are we not building new underground lines?

Lack of political will, cash and perhaps a lack of solid ground to put the tube through. There are so many tunnels down there it must be like Swiss cheese under London!
 

Royston Vasey

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And guess what? Hong Kong does not have to have its internal projects be subsidized by the rest of China, like the rest of the UK is paying for Crossrail.
Yes but unlike Hong Kong, London accounts for a quarter of national GDP.* It's a complete fallacy that the rest of the UK pays for London infrastructure projects, given how much is returned to the public purse and the broader economy by the capital. And I don't live or work in London

*it used to be 18% twenty years ago before the Chinese economy exploded but is now low single figures
 
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LeeLivery

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I've been looking at the plans in Paris over the last through days and it's impressive. 4 new Metro lines, 5 Metro extensions, 2 Metro planned extensions, a new express line to Charles Airport and RER extending E.

In London, a new underground line would be great following the A5 from Cricklewood, to Marble Arch, continuing down to Victoria, Vauxhall, Oval, Brixton and along the A23 through to Streatham, Norbury and Croydon. It would follow clogged roads with awfully high pollution and reduce crowding on the Victoria. Definitely don't go back to Tube sized trains.

Honestly, people complain London gets transport projects, but it's still been less than other major cities in the world (other than NYC). Transport projects should be happening everywhere and it's not. France would've had Crossrail 2 open, Leeds Tram operational and several T&W Metro extensions done. London needs more trams and TfL seem totally disinterested in them. Now I'm not blaming TfL, it's the government who is to blame, but TfL needs to be shouting louder.
 

LeeLivery

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And guess what? Hong Kong does not have to have its internal projects be subsidized by the rest of China, like the rest of the UK is paying for Crossrail.

That's absolute nonsense. Fact is London, South East England and East Anglia are the only parts of England that pay more in tax than take out. Like it or not, we're subsidising the rest of England. Not forgetting London is paying a Crossrail levy.
 

BanburyBlue

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Could it be because London has been overdeveloped to the extent that there are few viable opportunities left for new lines ? Why not ask about the lack of new (mainline) underground lines to provide much-needed capacity relief in Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds ?

Was just going to say the same thing - why don't we have more underground lines in our biggest cities. It keeps being stated that as a country we are too London centric, then we keep putting in more infrastructure that makes us even more London centric.
 

AE

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That's absolute nonsense. Fact is London, South East England and East Anglia are the only parts of England that pay more in tax than take out. Like it or not, we're subsidising the rest of England. Not forgetting London is paying a Crossrail levy.

There are parts of the country outside of London and East Anglia which pay more than they take out. Likewise there are areas inside London and East Anglia which takeout more than they put in. It all depends where you draw your imaginary lines. And that's before you get into the chicken and egg argument of whether the regions you describe are wealth creators because of the public investment or vice-versa.
 

fusionblue

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The entire south east of London has no tube lines, and even with Crossrail coming it doesn't benefit the actual southern portion. SE Land networks all bottleneck through/by Lewisham and Bromley and generally any plan to extend anything has resulted in a lot of apathy (the thameslink project not doing anything to untangle anything from North Kent to Hither Green Junctions, or even explaining why not), poor forethought (Lewisham DLR being designed with no provision to go further south), or budgetary constraints (hence the bakerloo line). When there is a focus it ultimately centred around Woolwich to connect Crossrail to the DLR to make use of the shiny new resources already put in place.

It's largely a mishmash of "what's there is good enough" rather than "we have one point of failure for most of the transport in this stretch of London".
 

GRALISTAIR

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I remember with Crossrail 1, there was a stage in boring where they came extremely close to another structure. I am not saying we are at saturation point yet but with all the building foundations and infrastructure/tunnels already present, there can not be that many routes left.
 

eldomtom2

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I remember with Crossrail 1, there was a stage in boring where they came extremely close to another structure. I am not saying we are at saturation point yet but with all the building foundations and infrastructure/tunnels already present, there can not be that many routes left.
How deep is it practical to dig?
 

Royston Vasey

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There are many orbital corridors with no routes running along them - Ealing to Brent Cross (envisaged by Orbirail), Chelsea-Fulham Hammersmith-Brent among many others.
Are they corridors or just sets of two random places without a current link? I raise you Acton to Wimbledon
 

Class37.4

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I don't see the OP's point Building Underground lines is expensive. and we are spending what 15 Billion on Crossrail surely that's enough to going on with.
 

PR1Berske

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Why are we not building new underground lines?

Lack of political will, cash and perhaps a lack of solid ground to put the tube through. There are so many tunnels down there it must be like Swiss cheese under London!
You've typed the response I was going to give.

London has very limited space left, both underground and overground. To insert another two full-size tunnels + related infrastructure underneath London in 2018, let alone whenever this fantasy line would be started, would require solutions of the most expensive kind. It's almost unfeasible to suggest anywhere in London where a financially viable new line could possibly be inserted.

I am tempted to go to the Speculation sub-forum to ask where new lines could go in Manchester, Birmingham etc. A good idea for a chin-stroke,
 

Bald Rick

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The answer isn’t political though.

As has been said previously the answer to ‘why are we not building more tube lines in London’ is:

1) actually, we are (JLE, NLE, Picc extensions to Heathrow, etc)
2) but new lines across London have much more capacity if built to full main line gauge (Crossrail1, hopefully Crossrail 2), or to a more efficient system (DLR) so those are built / proposed instead
3) and after that, in the busiest parts of central London (where the capacity is required) there isn’t space underground for any more.

Politics doesn’t come into it, no doubt to the disappointment of many.
 
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