0135 Hrs GMT
London Thursday 28 May 2009
KHOODEELAAR! evidential replay of comment by Simon Jenkins in effect echoing what Khoodeelaar! has been saying for years: Scrap wasteful Crossrail
Crossrail will eat money. Kill it, Boris, and save the bankrupt Tube instead
Simon Jenkins28.04.09
Kill Crossrail. Kill it now. Offer it up as London's gift to public sector sanity, while there is still time to avoid millions of pounds climbing into billions on a project that London does not need. What London needs is a fully working, modernised Tube. So kill Crossrail to save the Tube.
Crossrail, with a completely new rail tunnel from Paddington to Liverpool Street, has few friends. It has been stopped and restarted too many times to count over the past quarter-century. When Gordon Brown said in 2007 that "it will definitely proceed", sceptics sensed the cold hand of death grip its throat.
When Whitehall set out a tripartite funding package for the line in 2008, the caveats and qualifications grew in number. In an interview in February the transport minister, Lord Adonis, warned the world that, if Londoners do not raise their two-thirds share, "the Mayor understands that Crossrail will collapse ... ".
Mention Crossrail to Boris Johnson and his normally open, cheerful visage changes to that of a parent just told his kids are on drugs. He starts to shake. When reminded that he once said Crossrail was "one of those times you have to say, get in that hole and keep digging" the look becomes a rictus.
At a farewell dinner at City Hall earlier this month, the outgoing head of Transport for London, Tim O'Toole, hinted at his known private view that Crossrail is capital madness. He pleaded with his colleagues to fight instead for the existing Tube, now teetering on the brink of insolvency. TfL executives know that continuing with Crossrail will eat money and distract management for a decade.
It would yield nothing but bad news stories, while severely disrupting traffic in central London just when it will be recovering from the water mains chaos. Test drilling is already upheaving St Giles.
Crossrail is no longer a railway that makes sense. Back in the Eighties it was way behind the Jubilee line and the then (and now) top priority, a new northeast/southwest line from Hackney to Chelsea and beyond. Lines were needed to fill the Tube-less no-man's-lands of Greenwich and Chelsea/Fulham.
It took Margaret Thatcher to force through the Jubilee line to help the Reichman brothers build Canary Wharf. Chelsea/Hackney has no such power backers.
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.
Crossrail's backers have duly fallen back on that catch-all for any extravagant project, "urban regeneration". But that involves taking the line far out to the east, at further cost. For all the efforts of consultants to prove otherwise, this line is neither profitable nor a priority for economic renewal.
Boris Johnson now has a golden chance. He knows the capital must tighten its belt somehow - especially after he failed to curb the gargantuan appetite of the Olympics (costing more than half the £16billion total for Crossrail).
Johnson has already had to end his predecessor's costly fantasies, the Thames Gateway bridge, the Cross-river tram and the Dagenham light railway extension.
The Government has offered £5.6billion to the Crossrail budget. The rest must come from a raised London business rate (£3.5billion), borrowing against so-called train access charges (£2.3billion) and £2.7billion from TfL, this time borrowing against future fares.
Given the recent history of Tube finances, these figures are wholly unreal. TfL is close to technical bankruptcy. Borrowing against future revenue is mad, especially when it has already been assigned to meet Crossrail's running costs. Has London learned nothing about dodgy accounting from the past five years of such projects?
Meanwhile the City Corporation is offering a meagre £200million, on top of which is budgeted £150million from City businesses and, once upon a time, £230million from the airports authority, BAA. Lord Adonis claims this amounts to a further £750million, which is inconceivable. The truth is that Crossrail is another financial pig in a poke.
The Government has already poured £2billion in extra guilt money into the Tube to finance its public-private partnership (PPP), the sunk cost of this now largely aborted scheme. No minister or official has ever taken responsibility for it - indeed the official, Shriti Vadera, has been rewarded with both a peerage and a ministry.
In addition, the Government has pledged a huge £39billion to TfL over the next decade, a sum higher than anything conceived during nationalisation. This, it says, will have to embrace the completion of the PPP scheme and Crossrail. But the latter is not formally ring-fenced.
This is the Mayor's great opportunity. He has a £1.4billion hole in his transport budget already and must somehow fund £3billion of debt left over from the Treasury's collapsed Metronet infrastructure company.
Adonis said last November that there was no way he would plug this hole, despite it being one of the Government's own creation. He could hardly have given a more direct indication of his willingness to see Crossrail crash.
Johnson could now argue that the £5.6billion for Crossrail be switched to other Tube projects, such as resignalling the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines and replacing Metropolitan line stock, projects that may anyway have to be postponed to meet the cost of Crossrail. Cancelling the latter would relieve the Tube budget of a tidal wave of uncertain costs now advancing down the track.
This would enable Johnson to declare himself the saviour of London's Underground railway, after a decade of mismanagement and financial chaos.
By liberating himself from Crossrail and demanding that London be allowed to keep its transport grant, he could begin to reconstruct TfL's finances and meet its voracious appetite for new signals, stations and rolling stock. He could declare a clean slate.
Johnson need not fear the Government on this: if ministers wanted Crossrail they would have paid for it. He need not fear the City.
He can use the recession as an excuse to put this white elephant to sleep while garnering the popularity of restoring London's transport system to sanity. But first he must kill Crossrail.
Reader Views (36)
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
A 'public transport' system is there to serve the needs of that public; the need for profit, though desirable, is therefore secondary. There are over 20 'service' providers in the greater London area because of privatization, this is a truly ridiculous situation. Stop wasteful advertising and 'poets of London Transport' and the plethora of give-a-way brochures and bring back the ROUTE MASTER BUSES!!! Give Londoners credit for common sense and stop making inane announcements!!!!
- Peter Jackson, London E1 0ND
The long branch of the Metropolitan Line from Paddington to Hammersmith via Ladbroke Grove could form the basis of an alternative Crossrail.
In this option, the line from Paddington to Stratford would follow the same route as the present proposal, but as a tube instead of full-size main line dimensions. At Stratford, the line would join end-on to the Jubilee Line and the trains would run back to Stanmore.
Thus the service would run from Hammersmith to Stanmore ie Hammersmith - Paddington - Bond Street - Liverpool Street - Stratford - Canary Wharf - Waterloo - Bond Street - Baker Street - Wembley Park - Stanmore, so the route would be like the Greek letter alpha, crossing over itself at Bond Street.
This would have most the advantages of the Crossrail, and none of the disadvantages, at a fraction of ther cost, and existing proven types of stock could be used.
It would also allow more frequent services on the Paddington to Hammersmith route, at present restricted due to the capacity of the busy northern arm of the Circle Line between Paddington, Baker Street and Aldgate.
- Henry Law, BRIGHTON England
Scrap the £16bn Crossrail mess! London's coalition of residents remain concerned about the wider implications of the bottomless pit that is Crossrail. Boris Johnson continues to be a great disappointment. The City should pay for Crossrail rather than rely on Londoners to get it out of the pit it has created
- The Coalition, London UK
Add your comment
Reader Views (36)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
A 'public transport' system is there to serve the needs of that public; the need for profit, though desirable, is therefore secondary. There are over 20 'service' providers in the greater London area because of privatization, this is a truly ridiculous situation. Stop wasteful advertising and 'poets of London Transport' and the plethora of give-a-way brochures and bring back the ROUTE MASTER BUSES!!! Give Londoners credit for common sense and stop making inane announcements!!!!
- Peter Jackson, London E1 0ND
The long branch of the Metropolitan Line from Paddington to Hammersmith via Ladbroke Grove could form the basis of an alternative Crossrail.
In this option, the line from Paddington to Stratford would follow the same route as the present proposal, but as a tube instead of full-size main line dimensions. At Stratford, the line would join end-on to the Jubilee Line and the trains would run back to Stanmore.
Thus the service would run from Hammersmith to Stanmore ie Hammersmith - Paddington - Bond Street - Liverpool Street - Stratford - Canary Wharf - Waterloo - Bond Street - Baker Street - Wembley Park - Stanmore, so the route would be like the Greek letter alpha, crossing over itself at Bond Street.
This would have most the advantages of the Crossrail, and none of the disadvantages, at a fraction of ther cost, and existing proven types of stock could be used.
It would also allow more frequent services on the Paddington to Hammersmith route, at present restricted due to the capacity of the busy northern arm of the Circle Line between Paddington, Baker Street and Aldgate.
- Henry Law, BRIGHTON England
Scrap the £16bn Crossrail mess! London's coalition of residents remain concerned about the wider implications of the bottomless pit that is Crossrail. Boris Johnson continues to be a great disappointment. The City should pay for Crossrail rather than rely on Londoners to get it out of the pit it has created
- The Coalition, London UK
We know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.Decades of timidity, underinvestment and cheap political expediency have made our public transport the shambles it is today.Why do we always go for short term gain and long term pain, and if you don't believe me ask the citizens of Muswell Hill who would have had a tube line to central London had it not been for blinkered cost cutting in the 1940s.
- Mick Isaacs, London
"Back in the Eighties it was way behind the Jubilee line and the then (and now) top priority, a new northeast/southwest line from Hackney to Chelsea and beyond."
According to one of Christian Wolmar's books (The Subterranean Railway I presume) the Jubilee Line was actually rated third in importance and benefits for the capital.
The top two were actually Crossrail and Chelsea/Hackney.
Why was the Jubilee Line Extension built? To help out the private sector developers of Canary Wharf...
That section of the book is a particularly fascinating read...
- Bods, Merton, London
I live and commute in London and what's desperately needed is more capacity, it needs relief from tube overcrowding. This is what Crossrail can provide. It's not a case of either or, London needs a revitalised tube and it needs teh extra seats Crossrail will provide.
- Andy, London, England
1) Chelsea and Fulham are on the tube already.
2) Hackney is going on the tube from next year- on the East London or the Elizabeth line as I hope they'll call it.
3) Greenwich ( which he Simon is right to say isn't on the tube) wouldn't be helped one jot by a Chelsea/ Hackney line at all anyway.
- Lee Jones, London
You may be interested to know that Crossrail is this year 20 years old in that the first design contract was let in 1989. Since then it has been redesigned at least 3 times and contracts are currently going out to redesign it yet again. If (and its a big if) construction contracts are eventually let it is likely that the contractors will redesign it again - at least in part. By then the cost of the design work in total will have run to hundreds of millions of pounds if not a billion. Crossrail should be renamed Gravyrail.
- Tunneller, London
London needs fast efficient transport from West to East across London to compete with other international cities.
People need to stop thinking of immediate benefit and think long term, if people thought like this we would never have had a tube network in the first place.
- J, Berkshire
You can upgrade the Tube to get more capacity out of it - but at the cost of years of misery whilst the work takes place. Much better to build something entirely new and separate which will cause much less disruption, and which will serve the whole country. And even in a recession those new tunnels will be well-used.
Crossrail (and indeed 'Superlink') provide so many more journey oportunities which simply increasing Tube capacity would not. It will be a piece of infrastructure which will last for centuries.
- Stephen Lawrence, Cambridge, England
Ray: "Tell me who these people are that need crossrail?" 200 million passengers in the first year of Crossrail operation. These are people being taken off the existing tube network - relieving congestion and overcrowding for us all. And Crossrail will integrate seamlessly with the Tube network, increasing capacity by 10%.
Sa, London and Luke, London: Spot on! Disagree with Simon Jenkins entirely.
Yes, the costs are big, but even the most conservative estimates predict that Crossrail will offer outstanding value for money - and a legacy which our children will thank us for.
Hold your nerve Boris!
- Matthew, London
Nick: New trains - better design, faster acceleration. New signalling: more trains can operate.
Add the two together and you get more capacity. That is why so much is being spent on new signalling so that more trains can run on the existing track.
- Paul, Kings Cross
' We should ditch Crossrail but also stop Tube upgrades, as an overused public transport shows this country is not very aspirational. Put the money into making it easier to drive around London, build more express ways and show that owning a car is something people have worked hard for and be proud of.'
Kimberley: Your village called, they want their idiot back. Drive home please....
- Nick, London, UK
Crossrail is essential for London's future and at least some of it will be built. If Boris wants to save money he should start by ditching his vanity projects. About £1bn could be saved by scrapping the 'new routemaster' (£150m+), scrapping the needless replacement of near-new bendy buses (£100m pa), not scrapping the western congestion zone (£50m+ pa), and reinstating the Venezuala deal (£30m pa). Add it all up - over the 8 year life of the Crossrail project Boris has already thrown away £5bn. And he has the nerve to talk about the 'largesse' of the previous administration!
- Paul, London
Remember the main Crossrail construction will take place between 2011 and 2017. There's plenty of time for the economy to recover and for money to be found.
As for the tube upgrade project, the recent report by the London Assembly transport committee suggested some ways to close the funding gap, the size of which is yet to be confirmed.
Boris needs to hold his nerve and find ways to keep these long term projects active. They have the potential to transform the public transport system and improve London's conpetitiveness and quality of life for decades to come.
- Kev, Bromley
The tube is overcrowded at rush hour, that is well remarked upon.
How then do you come to the conclusion that the solution lies in better signalling and new stock? We need more room to move people about. Crossrail will do this.
- David, London, United Kingdom
Excuse me, but there are many areas of London without a decent tube connection, including the busy and popular commuting areas of Muswell Hill and Highgate. A simple light rail extension in the above case would solve the problem. However, money was diverted from a proposed project in order to fund the Docklands light rail link in the 1980s, in what would appear to have been an alleged act of favouring the emerging south east of the capital. The mayor should either improve transport in London, for the sake of the Olympics if nothing else. But does he really care?
- Mark, Venice, Italy
Kimberley's comment is (unintentionally?) hilarious. We should stop funding the tube so people come in by car? 6 million cars should come into london on a daily basis should they? How much pollution would this cause? Where would they park?
- James, Vauxhall
Crossrail needs to go ahead, the South East of London is horrifically underserved in terms of public transport. The DLR extension to Woolwich was very much welcomed but crossrail is needed for the South East. Isn't it funny how the only ones against Crossrail live in areas already covered by the tube? I guess that's people though isn't it, intrinsically selfish?
- Tony Smith, SE London
Disagree with Simon Jenkins entirely. What London needs is both Tube improvements AND Crossrail. The Central Line runs at full capacity much of the day. More trains can run from the east and from the west without having to turn around at their edge of central london terminus.
So Crossrail is costing £16 billion and the Olympics £8 billion - the Olympics lasts for 3 weeks, Crossrail will last a lifetime - I know which one represents better value for money.
London has to continually evolve to maintain its status of being a great city.
- Sa, London
Boris should be congratulated on holding his nerve on Crossrail. London desperately needs to make itself attractive to future business and investors, or we'll never get out of this slump. The sooner the tunnel-borers get digging, the better - and maybe in the current climate some of the costs can be brought down. And then Crossrail 2.
- Simon, London
If you want clean, easy to install and maintain mass transport systems, then look at trolley buses, not Crossrail.
- Cap, London
Tell me who these people are that need crossrail?
- Ray, London
Is the coalition of residents a coalition of not very intelligent people? "An economical, environmental and transport mess"? And that is their description of a proposed new electric undergronud mass transit system in a dense world city with traffic that chokes its narrow streets! Cross Rail sounds like an intelligent solution that is long overdue to me; anyway it will be there being used by millions for 200 years with or without Heathrow. Instead of counting pennies to give token tax cuts to those who do not use urban mass transit systems thus polluting the city and reducing everyone's real quality of life the Mayor of London should be planning for the next major transport infrastructure, Cross Rail 2. These undergruond mass transit systems are additions to an over-capactiy underground network they are not competing forces! You need to first allieviate capacity on the underground if you want to have any hope of improving existing infrastructure. Trying to work around a live over-capacity system in engineering terms is a very costly exercise. Just look at the West Coast line upgrade for evidence of that!
- P Marsden, London UK
I've commented on this piece on my South London blog,http://southeasteleven.blogspot.com/ by making the suggestion that were Crossrail to fail, the money could be ploughed into extending the tube network across South London into Camberwell and Peckham.
- Three Wheeled One, SE11, London
Unless we're all going to go back to coal-mining, the biggest economic activity of the future will consisteven ,more than now, of information transfer in one way or another, plus the physical services that enable it. The model of shunting huge numbers of people into the same tiny spaces each day has been obsolete for a couple of decades or more, and was always something planners tried to avert. When the new towns were being planned before and after the war, nobody would have believed that the lucky residents would immediately jumnp into congested transport to get back into the Smoke. There's nothing that says financial services have to be carried out in one office antheap to get the job done; if anything the Crossrail money should be spent on upgrading the internet, which is apparently dangerously close to crashing due to undercapacity.
- Mdj E10, london uk
With the Thameslink improvements, there's honestly no further need for Crossrail and it should be cancelled asap. The job losses in the City and especially at Canary Wharf will also greatly reduce the numbers wishing to travel.
- John Buckeridge, London
The London-wide coalition of residents opposed to Crossrail agree with Simon Jenkins. The £16bn Crossrail must be killed for the sake of London residents, taxpayers and tube farepayers who will be exposed to another environmental, economic and transport mess of a kind that Boris Johnson will be responsible for should he choose to continue with this black hole of a transport scheme. Those who want Crossrail should take responsibility for it in its entirety including any costs which later need to be underwritten, pay for it with their own money and also keep the harm to the areas that want Crossrail as a transport scheme. Any takers?
- The Coalition, London UK
We should ditch Crossrail but also stop Tube upgrades, as an overused public transport shows this country is not very aspirational. Put the money into making it easier to drive around London, build more express ways and show that owning a car is something people have worked hard for and be proud of.
- Kimberley, London
Why not kill the Olympics and save the tube AND Crossrail?
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
I appreciate that these are data-free comments, but I have never understood why cross-rail as a concept got past the post. I do not doubt that it would be nice to have, but it does seem that we may be bringing Victorian Railway Technology to solve undefined 21st Century problems and paying for them with today's money....which we haven't got! In 10 year's time are we still to sit at desks in front of screens in Cornhill or Eastcheap? or even Canary Wharf? If so, if your lifestyle is dependent on such activity move to Essex or Suffolk or Kent or Surrey. Note also that from my experience the flow of traffic around the M25 is East to West in the Morning and the reverse in the evening. What use is Crossrail to these travellers. Lastly Heathrow is yesterday's accident and we cannot assume it will dominate our commercial lives in the future. My advice is leave your Mum and Dad down the Thames Valley and move East.
- Ray, London
Simon Jenkins is absolutely right, Crossrail is a white elephant already, is not needed and does not create the missing transport links that London actually needs. Nobody commenting here has actually given a good, sound reason for it to continue, only the usual nefarious rubbish about regeneration which is wholly unevidenced and which does not stand up to the most basic scrutiny.
Boris should kill off Crossrail now and spend the money on the Tube which desperately needs it.
- Matt, London, UK
Stuff Crossrail, i want a Cross Bridge. Trying to get across the river in east London is a nightmare.
A new Thames Gateway bridge is a MUST.
- Mr S.Port, London
Crossrail is vital to London, the South East, the whole UK.£36 billion in benefits to the GDP, 14,000 jobs created, many more other jobs also created as a result to service this great project.
Yes, of course invest in the existing Tube network but as well as Crossrail not at its expense.
Regeneration, modernisation and investment are a damn sight better that stagnation.
- Luke, London
We need to continue with this or it will never be done. It should be complete by the end of the next decade, just as we're coming out of the pains of debt and just when, hopefully, The City will be back on its feet again. I can see no more perfect time for this to arrive, and I believe it will provide a huge boost when it does.
- Liam Houghton, Westminster, London
Crossrail will provide new transport options, helping the city grow in new directions and relieving existing infrastructure. What will upgrading the existing network do for those large swathes of the capital without a tube service? The line won't be ready for many years - by which time the economy will have recovered and we will all be complaining about the same old capacity problems.
It's not about the City fending off the Wharf - if anything, the Wharf needs Crossrail more, since the Jubilee Line is at capacity. Crossrail is about keeping the capital moving and competing with other major cities around the world.
- Brockley Nick, London
Add your comment
- Peter Jackson, London E1 0ND
In this option, the line from Paddington to Stratford would follow the same route as the present proposal, but as a tube instead of full-size main line dimensions. At Stratford, the line would join end-on to the Jubilee Line and the trains would run back to Stanmore.
Thus the service would run from Hammersmith to Stanmore ie Hammersmith - Paddington - Bond Street - Liverpool Street - Stratford - Canary Wharf - Waterloo - Bond Street - Baker Street - Wembley Park - Stanmore, so the route would be like the Greek letter alpha, crossing over itself at Bond Street.
This would have most the advantages of the Crossrail, and none of the disadvantages, at a fraction of ther cost, and existing proven types of stock could be used.
It would also allow more frequent services on the Paddington to Hammersmith route, at present restricted due to the capacity of the busy northern arm of the Circle Line between Paddington, Baker Street and Aldgate.
- Henry Law, BRIGHTON England
- The Coalition, London UK
- Mick Isaacs, London
According to one of Christian Wolmar's books (The Subterranean Railway I presume) the Jubilee Line was actually rated third in importance and benefits for the capital.
The top two were actually Crossrail and Chelsea/Hackney.
Why was the Jubilee Line Extension built? To help out the private sector developers of Canary Wharf...
That section of the book is a particularly fascinating read...
- Bods, Merton, London
- Andy, London, England
2) Hackney is going on the tube from next year- on the East London or the Elizabeth line as I hope they'll call it.
3) Greenwich ( which he Simon is right to say isn't on the tube) wouldn't be helped one jot by a Chelsea/ Hackney line at all anyway.
- Lee Jones, London
- Tunneller, London
People need to stop thinking of immediate benefit and think long term, if people thought like this we would never have had a tube network in the first place.
- J, Berkshire
Crossrail (and indeed 'Superlink') provide so many more journey oportunities which simply increasing Tube capacity would not. It will be a piece of infrastructure which will last for centuries.
- Stephen Lawrence, Cambridge, England
Sa, London and Luke, London: Spot on! Disagree with Simon Jenkins entirely.
Yes, the costs are big, but even the most conservative estimates predict that Crossrail will offer outstanding value for money - and a legacy which our children will thank us for.
Hold your nerve Boris!
- Matthew, London
Add the two together and you get more capacity. That is why so much is being spent on new signalling so that more trains can run on the existing track.
- Paul, Kings Cross
Kimberley: Your village called, they want their idiot back. Drive home please....
- Nick, London, UK
- Paul, London
As for the tube upgrade project, the recent report by the London Assembly transport committee suggested some ways to close the funding gap, the size of which is yet to be confirmed.
Boris needs to hold his nerve and find ways to keep these long term projects active. They have the potential to transform the public transport system and improve London's conpetitiveness and quality of life for decades to come.
- Kev, Bromley
How then do you come to the conclusion that the solution lies in better signalling and new stock? We need more room to move people about. Crossrail will do this.
- David, London, United Kingdom
- Mark, Venice, Italy
- James, Vauxhall
- Tony Smith, SE London
So Crossrail is costing £16 billion and the Olympics £8 billion - the Olympics lasts for 3 weeks, Crossrail will last a lifetime - I know which one represents better value for money.
London has to continually evolve to maintain its status of being a great city.
- Sa, London
- Simon, London
- Cap, London
- Ray, London
- P Marsden, London UK
- Three Wheeled One, SE11, London
- Mdj E10, london uk
- John Buckeridge, London
- The Coalition, London UK
- Kimberley, London
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
- Ray, London
Boris should kill off Crossrail now and spend the money on the Tube which desperately needs it.
- Matt, London, UK
A new Thames Gateway bridge is a MUST.
- Mr S.Port, London
Yes, of course invest in the existing Tube network but as well as Crossrail not at its expense.
Regeneration, modernisation and investment are a damn sight better that stagnation.
- Luke, London
- Liam Houghton, Westminster, London
It's not about the City fending off the Wharf - if anything, the Wharf needs Crossrail more, since the Jubilee Line is at capacity. Crossrail is about keeping the capital moving and competing with other major cities around the world.
- Brockley Nick, London
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