New rail line needed to tackle traffic at Brent Cross
http://www.railtechnologymagazine.co...e&KeyValue=857


quote
"25/01/2008
The huge planned Brent Cross development should include a light rail
line in order to reduce traffic growth, according to a new report
published by the London group of the Campaign for Better Transport.

Without the new line, the large residential and retail development
would have a massive traffic impact: an extra 133,000 people and
29,000 extra vehicles are expected to travel into the area each
weekday. There are 8,000 car parking spaces in the existing shopping
centre, 7,500 additional spaces planned in the new residential element
and an untold number in the commercial elements of the new scheme. The
highway network and road junctions in the area would have to be
enlarged to cope with the extra traffic.

But a new rail line would connect and improve access to the existing
Brent Cross tube station and a planned new Thameslink station, both
rather remotely sited on the edge of the development. It would provide
a public transport spine through the development from the existing
shopping centre to the new residential and commercial district on the
other side of the North Circular. It could then continue south to Park
Royal, linking large parts of Barnet, Brent and Ealing, using existing
underused railway lines and connecting the Northern, Central, Jubilee,
Piccadilly and Bakerloo Tube lines, the overground and Thameslink.

Norman Beddington, chair of Campaign for Better Transport’s London
group, said:

“Brent Cross is only one of 42 areas where the forecast growth in
London’s housing and employment is to be concentrated. There’s already
too much traffic. If they all increase traffic as Brent Cross will do,
we are in serious trouble. We really can’t go on planning these
developments as though no one had ever heard of global warming. We
must plan for alternatives to the car, hence our proposal for a new
Brent Cross rail line. This is intended to provoke debate.”

unquote


Is the underused line - the Dudding Hill Junction Line to Acton - Does
this see much traffic these days?