[Dave Arquati]

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 25 May 2005, Boltar wrote:

Is it just my opinion or do other people think the DLR is being pushed
beyond what its really suited for?


I never thought i'd say this, but i agree with you.

Don't get me wrong - the DLR's a great thing, and has been and continues
to be instrumental in the development of Docklands and the littoral east
end. But ...

It was desinged to be a local tram-like service around the docks area.
Now it seems to be turning into an east london tube/train replacement
and I'm not sure its really up to the job.


That's true. The DLR is an excellent, well-run, reliable,
forward-looking light rail service, but it is ultimately only a light
rail service, and as such, will never be able to provide the speed and
capacity of real trains, or even tubes. During the early days of the
Docklands, it was enough; in the next couple of years, with the
three-car trains and sundry other improvements, it will be enough, but,
provided the area continues to develop according to plan, in twenty or
thirty years' time, it will not be enough. Transport planners have to
think in terms of that sort of timescale, if not more.

Now, the area is getting a dose of Crossrail, which will help, but that
only addresses a fairly narrow range of journeys. There are plans for
trams, or trolleybuses or something, in that general area of London, but
those are hardly going to fill the capacity gap. What the area needs is
proper heavy rail solutions; throwing out all sorts of short-termist
DLR-based solutions is ultimately failing to face up to this reality.

How are these DLR solutions "short-termist"? Obviously the DLR is a
light rail network for local journeys within an area; no-one is
suggesting that that role should change. The Jubilee line arrived to
provide a route for longer journeys to and from the area; Crossrail will
arrive in the future with quite high capacity for transporting people
from Stratford, Canary Wharf and Custom House into central London.

The vast majority of journeys are short journeys; that's why such an
emphasis has been placed on the bus system recently, and why
constructing DLR routes to serve regeneration areas around Docklands is
a good idea. Nobody is saying that East London Transit, the DLR or
Greenwich Waterfront Transit should be providing a high-capacity service
for travellers into central London; the whole point of the regeneration
areas around the Thames Gateway is to provide jobs as well as houses.

Yes, more people will be travelling into London; they will be fed into
enhanced Jubilee and Crossrail services via Stratford, West Ham, Canning
Town, Custom House, Abbey Wood, Romford etc. However, an awful lot of
people will just be travelling around the Thames Gateway area, and it's
vitally important that transit systems are in place to avoid them all
taking to their cars for the short trip into the town centre. Normal
buses provide part of the solution, but the main "capacity gap" you talk
about is for the increase in local trips which normal buses won't be
able to fulfil, and rail will not be able to fulfil cost-effectively -
hence we require intermediate modes like the Transits and the DLR.

Heavy rail is suited to heavy flows to and from large centres; the NLL
is wasted on the Royal Docks area, which needs a frequent, reliable,
*local* service where you don't have to walk 15 minutes to get to the
station for a two-stop journey, and where easy through journeys are
possible within the local area - that's Stratford via Canning Town to
Beckton or Woolwich.

The trouble is that the DLR options are doable now. The long-term
solutions (about the details of which i'm pretty hazy) would be
exorbitantly expensive. The two options that spring to mind are
extending the Jubilee line from North Greenwich (not entirely sure where
to, though!) and reclaiming some of the old railway alignments from the
DLR and using them for proper trains.

This is the problem; people who "don't like" the use of the DLR here
aren't really sure what the alternatives are, apart from increasing the
frequency of the NLL - which might help if you want to travel from the
vicinity of Canning Town or West Ham stations, but will be pretty
useless otherwise.

Which old railway alignments would you "reclaim" from the DLR and use
for "proper trains"? What services currently provided by the DLR should
be provided by heavy rail, and which DLR stations would you close to
provide that heavy rail service? Is this abstract concept of "proper
trains" to do with higher capacity?

The Thames Gateway doesn't need hazy possibilities for 15 years' time,
it needs definite probabilities now, before development starts, so that
people can get around their new local areas.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London