On May 1, 10:55*am, Tom Barry wrote:
wrote:
Sir Simon is a polemicist, meaning that he likes to dispute the
obvious.

While I take your point, Tom, I notice you didn't include the rest of
his paragraph. *I've done that, and emphasised the important 5 words:

"This project's only real friends have been in the City, eager to fend
off the "threat" from Docklands and garner the bulk of the 900,000
extra office jobs predicted for London a decade ago. NOBODY EXPECTS
THAT NEED NOW. The Central line's parallel capacity can easily be
increased by station improvements and better management."

The mistake here* is assuming that the Central Line is the one relieved
by Crossrail. *By my reckoning it also relieves the District, Jubilee,
DLR, Southeastern lines into London Bridge and particularly the
Piccadilly. *This means the effect is felt in places like Hammersmith,
Earls Court etc. where the District and Piccadilly suddenly have
substantial relief from overcrowding.

Pushing the argument a bit, it also relieves the A40 and M4...

Tom

* OK, the other mistake, apart from the convenient omission of the fact
that Crossrail massively improves access to Canary Wharf from the
western half of the city.

....and the entire wrongheaded stupidity of the piece, which is that it
ignores the fact that by the time Crossrail opens, City & CW levels of
employment will be back to mid-2000s levels anyway.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org