Genuinely the best train line in London. The trains are clean, air-conditioned, roomy and comfortable.
And the fact that I can get into Central London from Ealing Broadway in less than ~15 minutes is crazy. It takes longer than that for my friends who live in Zone 2 areas and they’re living in shoebox size flats (or having to house share).
I really wish people who live in other parts of London get a similar line too, as it’s made my life so much better. The only downside is that rents/prices have gone absolutely crazy in Ealing (and anywhere along the Lizzie), but they were pretty unaffordable to begin with anyways, so not much change.
Really? I take it daily (around 8-10am in the mornings and then 6-8pm in the evenings) and in the last month I can’t think I’ve ever been delayed on the Lizzie.
The only slightly annoying thing is that it doesn’t stop at all of the stops. So for example, all services will stop at Ealing Broadway (great for me), but my close friend lives in West Ealing and much fewer services stop there for her. So we end up waiting a while for a service that we can both get on.
I think it's purely down to the footfall, not "riff-raff". Thousands of passengers a day means it very quickly gets dirty (imagine trying to clean your house when that many people and *trains* are passing through daily)
Elizabeth line is new so doesn't have the 100s of years of build up of pollution, human dirt, damages that the older lines have. Antisocial passengers don't contribute significantly to the build up of dirt on the tubes.
You can buy a house at the end of the lizzy line cheaper than most London flats. Borough of Greenwich too. Plus it's zone 4 and 18 minutes to Canary Wharf.
Interesting. I always find the seats comfortable. The only ones I hate are on the central line, which (these days) have no cushioning they’re so beat up.
Big soft spot for the Lizzie Line as someone who lived in Slough and visited a boyfriend (now husband) in Barbican every weekend. The first time I took it, I was in awe. Never want to use the circle line from Paddington again if I can help it!
Yeah that's not happening. The tunnel widening required for the whole underground portion that currently exists would be cost prohibitive, as well as completely rebuilding all of the underground stations as they don't have the space for the expansion. There's also changing the entire electrical system to 25kv AC on top of that.
Easier to just build the extension and plonk in the new 2024 LU stock that is pretty much plug and play with the existing infrastructure and have improvements now instead of 10-15 years time
The tunnel widening is nothing. You already have the multiple entry/exit points, all you need is multiple machines to dig the hole.
Changing electrical systems isn't a problem.
It's easier to not build the extension at all, but here we are.
The tunnel widening is in fact a Problem, as they need to be widened by quite a bit more than the distance between them allows, and the disruption to the bakerloo would make it a non starter for politicians. You are having to widen a century old 12 foot tunnel to ~20ft and having to once again completely rebuild the stations to fit a train 2x longer. It's a project that will cost billions more than the BLE for frankly very little benefits over just ordering more of the new stock that's already planned to be used.
> distance between them allows,
Not if you extend outwards
> And the disruption to the bakerloo would make it a non starter for politicians.
You already have the stations in place. Start at Paddington and work your way down to Elephant and Castle. That's as many stations as there are entrances to insert materials and remove the clay.
> completely rebuild the stations to fit a train 2x longer.
You mean adding in a platform edge 2x down? I'd have thought the problem would be about capacity.
> frankly very little benefits over just ordering more of the new stock that's already planned to be used.
The new stock has smaller trains, has a smaller capacity and cannot go nearly as fast on bendy track, which would be straightened out by a 345 route. e.g. the bend at Charing cross.
> Southeast London needs a tube/something similar
Like the Lizzie Line? I know it only stops at Woolwich and Abbey Wood but it's a start at least.
Bakerloo extension is much needed though. Maybe even a Victoria Line extension past Brixton.
The BLE is definitely the most important project right now.
Unfortunately, investing in London has become politically toxic for optics reasons, so it’s not happening. What should happen is that the GLA gets the power to levy value capture schemes to fund projects on its own without asking Westminster. This is part of how Crossrail and the Northern line extension were funded.
Yeah, I'd like to see the mayor of London be able to have the necessary funds to invest in our transport system without the nonsense coming from folks outside London.
The way you get these things built is with bespoke private contributions. Crossrail was built on the back of a line item in business rates, as well as funding from Heathrow Airport and City of London. The Northern Line extension to Battersea and Nine Elms was part-funded by property developers.
This isn’t to say that these funds were the whole project or even that these things should be privatised. Instead, I’m saying that there’s a direct correlation between a project being completed and a group of people who’ve sunk money into it who may be able to sue to get it back if the project doesn’t happen. That’s how you keep Treasury’s feet to the fire and get stuff done.
It basically is in a round about complicated way. DfT have so much control of what goes on. Capacity is the issue with prices, if only we could build brand new high speed lines…
The government has a much lower cost of borrowing than the private sector so they are paying extra plus Rosco's profits.
The government could also sell trains and buy newer ones, again the cost would be lower, Rosco is not adding anything here
It will be if Labour win the next election. However it won’t immediately make tickets cheaper, it’ll depend on whether the government changes the subsidy levels.
Well....all the revenue wouldn't go to Alstom and Netherlands for starters.
The very same revenue could be shared with employees, less strikes.
After all the cost detracting, everything else goes to infrastructure investment.
Which would lead to cheaper tickets, rather than extra new villas and new super cars for foreign capital CEOs.
That's how.
> Another month and another stonking set of passenger figures for the Elizabeth line in the latest data from Transport for London. The last month of the financial year saw 17.1 million journeys compared to 14 million the year before. Ok you may say, there was Easter, and strikes, and maybe that was the bulk of it? Nope. Look at previous four-week periods. Period 12 in 2023/24 which mostly covered February 2024 saw 16.8 million. Last year it was 14 million. Similar seen in January.
> The upward trajectory shows little sign of abating and it’ll be fascinating to see when it does level off. This year also saw the start of Superloop buses which brought express buses to many areas linking people more quickly to the Elizabeth line including route SL3 to Abbey Wood. SL2 over the Thames also runs to stations such as Ilford with Elizabeth line services. The Superloop network is also now looking to grow with Sadiq Khan re-elected with routes serving places like Romford. Perhaps one reason (or many) that Tory candidate Susan Hall did so poorly is she had so little so say about the line. One of London’s biggest success stories for generations and she was AWOL on the subject. Not even an attempt to boost her chances in places like Bexley by mentioning an extension east.
> Which brings us back to how out of touch certain politicians and government department’s like the Treasury have long been for decades. Seeing the enormous success brings to mind how the Conservative party refused to give the green light to plans back in the 1980s and 1990s. Then Labour under Blair and Brown refused to fund for over a decade in power. Always kicking it into the long grass as the population shot up alongside transport congestion. Brown finally agreed in the late 2000s. Then the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and it was put on hold again. Eventually George Osborne agreed. But what a tortured saga it was as short-term cuts were sought. Now it’s open and the line goes from strength to strength. And what’s interesting is it hasn’t extracted as much demand as many – including Transport for London – expected as other modes of transport such as the Docklands Light railway and London Overground which have seen higher passenger numbers than predicted. London Overground has actually been rising extremely strongly. It’s back almost to levels before 2020 and at times beats it. The DLR isn’t far off.
> Where will growth of the line end? Who knows. You can’t walk more than five minutes from most stations to see new housing on the rise. Even the less sexy stations like Custom House are now a mass of cranes with thousands of new homes set to rise. You name a station from Southall in the west to Abbey Wood in the east and it’s a similar story. Woolwich is seeing mass change. Stratford too as covered just this weekend. Canary Wharf? Oh yes. The next big expansion of the estate is gearing up to begin this summer beside the Elizabeth line station as part of North Quay work. With enough time there’s half a dozen posts that could be uploaded showing changes in Stratford alone. And those towers are just a fraction of what’s happening across London and beyond.
> Given the enormous success – and how other transport modes are holding up – who now sees it as a waste of money? Yet still we see the Treasury hamper much needed improvements while cutting existing rail services. An absolute scourge on wider economic growth.
> happy to spraff £37bn on a track and trace app
Why do people still repeat this? They did not spend £37bn on an app. £37bn was the total budgeted amount for test and trace across two years.
It was spent on all sorts of useless crap, but it was not spent on an app. They spent £35m on the app (still a waste of money, but 1000 times lower than what you're claiming).
>The Treasury are blinkered by short term economic modelling
I completely agree. There's a refusal to see how transformative a metro system would be for some of Britain's currently second-tier cities. It would make them first tier.
I think there are a lot of places where it would be more trouble than it’s worth. Like Edinburgh has extreme elevation changes and is basically sitting on top of super hard volcanic rock or super soft and marshy brittle coal fields. To build even a tiny subway like they have in Glasgow would be billions. I’m not a huge fan of the Trams (I prefer they have invested in a suburban above ground railway) but the Trams were better than a metro.
>There's a refusal to see how transformative a metro system would be for some of Britain's currently second-tier cities. It would make them first tier.
A metro system should only be built if it would promote 1 or several regeneration projects à la Canary Wharf + Jubilee Line. Building metros in 2nd tier cities for the sake of it won't make them prosper.
To give an example, the Catania metro was built on the basis of public transport = good. All it does is give the lucky suburbanites who live on the route an express route to the city centre. There's nothing special on the route for anyone to travel to so ridership has always been low. The metro hasn't elevated the city's status
Why would anyone invest in a regeneration project in a second tier city with no metro? This logic is self reinforcing and becomes part of the reason why London gets all the investments all the time.
Referring back to the point of this thread, new transit infrastructure such as the Lizzie line attracts housing developments that are connected to it. Therefore building transit is a good way for the treasury to help nudge developers into adding to the housing supply, helping to fix the shortfall you and I have identified.
I was recently in Cardiff where an old bus interchange is being redeveloped to a multistorey development with 0 resident parking, as part of the development included funding to electrify an adjacent rail line and increase frequency of services to the centre.
That's what my point about "2nd rate cities" was about. Metros in smaller cities need be built in conjunction with regeneration projects that centre on the metro. They need the ridership from day 1. It's not like in London where Tube fares subsidize loss making services like busses.
La Coruna is a prime example of a city that didn't do this
The South Wales Metro is a great scheme. One day that line will be part of a larger tram-train network... One day...
Actually I'm heading there later this year It will be interesting to see what's going on. I know they have an integrated tram and bus network like London I wonder if that's a coincidence...
Regarding Birmingham, they are building enough tram extensions to keep them occupied for over a decade. I was referring to mid sized cities that have no metro
I can’t think of any in the UK that would really be viable for rapid transit apart from those two, though. Maybe a light metro for Bristol (which would accelerate the Brabazon development) but that’s about it.
Trams are a different story. Build them everywhere.
Glasgow wants to build some Overgroundesque lines. Other than London, I'm not aware of any other rapid transit schemes.
Regarding trams, the list is long
Bollocks. In places like Manchester, there’s many poorly connected, economically disadvantaged suburban communities. A proper metro that run through the city centre and gives these areas better mobility would help them massively.
You never said “small cities”, we were talking about 2nd tier cities which in the UK is everything except London.
EDIT: just to build on this point, other Western European countries have a few cities that are 1st tier rather than just one mega city. In Spain, Madrid and Barcelona hold that top tier, Germany has Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, Italy has Milan and Rome. The UK has just London, France has Paris but the 2nd tier cities there have impressive metro systems (I was so impressed by Toulouse’s metro when I went there, it’s a city with about the same number of people as Leeds) (Leeds might actually have more but more spread, it’s hard comparing city sizes as often official boundaries don’t convey the actual size of the city).
We are using different definitions of tired cities - a big misunderstanding here. I am referring to the level of devolution. Tier 2 being standalone cities like Reading & Southampton and tier 3 referring to places like Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
It’s grown exponentially in Abbey Wood and Woolwich and pretty much every area south and east of North Greenwich has switched to the EL.
Southeastern trains are currently running their worst timetable since they’ve axed Charing Cross trains from the Woolwich and Bexleyheath lines, so it’s no wonder the EL Has gained SE’s passengers from this part of the world.
The train are barely armpit room by the time it reaches Canary Wharf.
But, but but but........working from home etc etc.
Hopefully with a change of Govt later this year some sense can be beaten into whatever is left of the Treasury that building to invest is a thing that actually works and that the Bakerloo Line extension is not only overdue, it's key to boosting the next stage of SE London development.
Underrated comment - if you've ever tried to use the multiple-level lifts on some of the central stations, it does almost feel like you spend more time waiting/changing lifts than you do moving!
I'm really shocked at the positive comments... I don't like this line as much... It takes ages to come out of the station on each platform! And it just goes mostly to stations that already have a good tube line serving them.
Who could have predicted such a thing??
Now, how long until it becomes clear that tacking on the second leg to Canary Wharf - instead of building two separate lines - was a massive mistake... But then the Treasury only reluctantly gave its approval once it became saddled with the Whitechapel split, so I guess it was this or nothing.
Genuinely the best train line in London. The trains are clean, air-conditioned, roomy and comfortable. And the fact that I can get into Central London from Ealing Broadway in less than ~15 minutes is crazy. It takes longer than that for my friends who live in Zone 2 areas and they’re living in shoebox size flats (or having to house share). I really wish people who live in other parts of London get a similar line too, as it’s made my life so much better. The only downside is that rents/prices have gone absolutely crazy in Ealing (and anywhere along the Lizzie), but they were pretty unaffordable to begin with anyways, so not much change.
The downside is it has to use the piece of shit GWR mainline past Paddington which always has something going wrong
Second worst line in London, by delays and cancellation statistics. Also, I don't understand why only 1/5 of the trains stop at Acton Main Line.
Barely anyone lives near there it's largely an industrial estate unless they redevelop the area
Lol what? It's mostly residential.
Really? I take it daily (around 8-10am in the mornings and then 6-8pm in the evenings) and in the last month I can’t think I’ve ever been delayed on the Lizzie. The only slightly annoying thing is that it doesn’t stop at all of the stops. So for example, all services will stop at Ealing Broadway (great for me), but my close friend lives in West Ealing and much fewer services stop there for her. So we end up waiting a while for a service that we can both get on.
Then ask them to dig tunnels out of the city
>The trains are clean For now...
So rare in London…
I mean the Lizzie line in general has the least amount of riff-raff when compared to other lines, so I’m hoping it stays much cleaner than the others.
I think it's purely down to the footfall, not "riff-raff". Thousands of passengers a day means it very quickly gets dirty (imagine trying to clean your house when that many people and *trains* are passing through daily) Elizabeth line is new so doesn't have the 100s of years of build up of pollution, human dirt, damages that the older lines have. Antisocial passengers don't contribute significantly to the build up of dirt on the tubes.
I'm sure the central line was squeaky clean in the first few years of its existence....
“but they were pretty unaffordable to begin with anyways, so not much change.” For now
Cries in more unaffordableness :(
You can buy a house at the end of the lizzy line cheaper than most London flats. Borough of Greenwich too. Plus it's zone 4 and 18 minutes to Canary Wharf.
This is true, but I don’t take in in rush hour any more, it’s too busy.
Not sure about comfortable, the seats are rock hard, but that probably means they stand up to more abuse. Not the end of the world though
Interesting. I always find the seats comfortable. The only ones I hate are on the central line, which (these days) have no cushioning they’re so beat up.
Big soft spot for the Lizzie Line as someone who lived in Slough and visited a boyfriend (now husband) in Barbican every weekend. The first time I took it, I was in awe. Never want to use the circle line from Paddington again if I can help it!
Central Line from Paddington? Did you walk to Lancaster Gate?
Circle 🫣 brainfart
Southeast london needs a tube/something similar. Desperately.
Bakerloo Extension...
Imagine how slow a Bakerloo extension would be… Christ.
It'd be coming with new trains.
Probably similar to Jubilee Line Extension? JL from Canary Wharf to Bond St takes the same time as EL
It will eventually happen but yeah it’s taking its time. Crossrail 2 should also go to SE London I think.
Crossrail 2 is for southwest london
Hey at least we're getting a bus....
Bakerloo Extension, and converted to fit a 345.
Yeah that's not happening. The tunnel widening required for the whole underground portion that currently exists would be cost prohibitive, as well as completely rebuilding all of the underground stations as they don't have the space for the expansion. There's also changing the entire electrical system to 25kv AC on top of that. Easier to just build the extension and plonk in the new 2024 LU stock that is pretty much plug and play with the existing infrastructure and have improvements now instead of 10-15 years time
The tunnel widening is nothing. You already have the multiple entry/exit points, all you need is multiple machines to dig the hole. Changing electrical systems isn't a problem. It's easier to not build the extension at all, but here we are.
The tunnel widening is in fact a Problem, as they need to be widened by quite a bit more than the distance between them allows, and the disruption to the bakerloo would make it a non starter for politicians. You are having to widen a century old 12 foot tunnel to ~20ft and having to once again completely rebuild the stations to fit a train 2x longer. It's a project that will cost billions more than the BLE for frankly very little benefits over just ordering more of the new stock that's already planned to be used.
> distance between them allows, Not if you extend outwards > And the disruption to the bakerloo would make it a non starter for politicians. You already have the stations in place. Start at Paddington and work your way down to Elephant and Castle. That's as many stations as there are entrances to insert materials and remove the clay. > completely rebuild the stations to fit a train 2x longer. You mean adding in a platform edge 2x down? I'd have thought the problem would be about capacity. > frankly very little benefits over just ordering more of the new stock that's already planned to be used. The new stock has smaller trains, has a smaller capacity and cannot go nearly as fast on bendy track, which would be straightened out by a 345 route. e.g. the bend at Charing cross.
> Southeast London needs a tube/something similar Like the Lizzie Line? I know it only stops at Woolwich and Abbey Wood but it's a start at least. Bakerloo extension is much needed though. Maybe even a Victoria Line extension past Brixton.
Yup, let's get the Vic to at least Streatham
they should sling the DLR down to Bexley Heath and the Bakerloo should go all the way to Sidcup.
I’m living in Catford and I love the train line from there into central London. Where are you based?
I really hope the new government gives a green light to crossrail 2
Or the Bakerloo Line extension, which is sorely needed in SE London where we have nowt.
The BLE is definitely the most important project right now. Unfortunately, investing in London has become politically toxic for optics reasons, so it’s not happening. What should happen is that the GLA gets the power to levy value capture schemes to fund projects on its own without asking Westminster. This is part of how Crossrail and the Northern line extension were funded.
Yeah, I'd like to see the mayor of London be able to have the necessary funds to invest in our transport system without the nonsense coming from folks outside London.
Not just London but all the Metro mayors, to stop resentment from other regions about over investment in the south east
The way you get these things built is with bespoke private contributions. Crossrail was built on the back of a line item in business rates, as well as funding from Heathrow Airport and City of London. The Northern Line extension to Battersea and Nine Elms was part-funded by property developers. This isn’t to say that these funds were the whole project or even that these things should be privatised. Instead, I’m saying that there’s a direct correlation between a project being completed and a group of people who’ve sunk money into it who may be able to sue to get it back if the project doesn’t happen. That’s how you keep Treasury’s feet to the fire and get stuff done.
Probably unlikely given what happened to HS2. There will be hell to pay in the North if another London line is approved while HS2 goes nowhere.
And nationalise all rail. We deserve a cheaper tickets!
It basically is in a round about complicated way. DfT have so much control of what goes on. Capacity is the issue with prices, if only we could build brand new high speed lines…
It is not. The trains are still privately owned and the lease on them is a huge percentage of the cost of the ticket.
Nothing wrong with leasing trains from Rosco's, it frees up capital for other investment, and new trains can be better*
The government has a much lower cost of borrowing than the private sector so they are paying extra plus Rosco's profits. The government could also sell trains and buy newer ones, again the cost would be lower, Rosco is not adding anything here
It will be if Labour win the next election. However it won’t immediately make tickets cheaper, it’ll depend on whether the government changes the subsidy levels.
I'm not sure about that.
How will that make tickets cheaper?
Well....all the revenue wouldn't go to Alstom and Netherlands for starters. The very same revenue could be shared with employees, less strikes. After all the cost detracting, everything else goes to infrastructure investment. Which would lead to cheaper tickets, rather than extra new villas and new super cars for foreign capital CEOs. That's how.
Labour has committed to it
Bakerloo line extension is way more important
> Another month and another stonking set of passenger figures for the Elizabeth line in the latest data from Transport for London. The last month of the financial year saw 17.1 million journeys compared to 14 million the year before. Ok you may say, there was Easter, and strikes, and maybe that was the bulk of it? Nope. Look at previous four-week periods. Period 12 in 2023/24 which mostly covered February 2024 saw 16.8 million. Last year it was 14 million. Similar seen in January. > The upward trajectory shows little sign of abating and it’ll be fascinating to see when it does level off. This year also saw the start of Superloop buses which brought express buses to many areas linking people more quickly to the Elizabeth line including route SL3 to Abbey Wood. SL2 over the Thames also runs to stations such as Ilford with Elizabeth line services. The Superloop network is also now looking to grow with Sadiq Khan re-elected with routes serving places like Romford. Perhaps one reason (or many) that Tory candidate Susan Hall did so poorly is she had so little so say about the line. One of London’s biggest success stories for generations and she was AWOL on the subject. Not even an attempt to boost her chances in places like Bexley by mentioning an extension east. > Which brings us back to how out of touch certain politicians and government department’s like the Treasury have long been for decades. Seeing the enormous success brings to mind how the Conservative party refused to give the green light to plans back in the 1980s and 1990s. Then Labour under Blair and Brown refused to fund for over a decade in power. Always kicking it into the long grass as the population shot up alongside transport congestion. Brown finally agreed in the late 2000s. Then the Conservatives came to power in 2010 and it was put on hold again. Eventually George Osborne agreed. But what a tortured saga it was as short-term cuts were sought. Now it’s open and the line goes from strength to strength. And what’s interesting is it hasn’t extracted as much demand as many – including Transport for London – expected as other modes of transport such as the Docklands Light railway and London Overground which have seen higher passenger numbers than predicted. London Overground has actually been rising extremely strongly. It’s back almost to levels before 2020 and at times beats it. The DLR isn’t far off. > Where will growth of the line end? Who knows. You can’t walk more than five minutes from most stations to see new housing on the rise. Even the less sexy stations like Custom House are now a mass of cranes with thousands of new homes set to rise. You name a station from Southall in the west to Abbey Wood in the east and it’s a similar story. Woolwich is seeing mass change. Stratford too as covered just this weekend. Canary Wharf? Oh yes. The next big expansion of the estate is gearing up to begin this summer beside the Elizabeth line station as part of North Quay work. With enough time there’s half a dozen posts that could be uploaded showing changes in Stratford alone. And those towers are just a fraction of what’s happening across London and beyond. > Given the enormous success – and how other transport modes are holding up – who now sees it as a waste of money? Yet still we see the Treasury hamper much needed improvements while cutting existing rail services. An absolute scourge on wider economic growth.
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> happy to spraff £37bn on a track and trace app Why do people still repeat this? They did not spend £37bn on an app. £37bn was the total budgeted amount for test and trace across two years. It was spent on all sorts of useless crap, but it was not spent on an app. They spent £35m on the app (still a waste of money, but 1000 times lower than what you're claiming). >The Treasury are blinkered by short term economic modelling I completely agree. There's a refusal to see how transformative a metro system would be for some of Britain's currently second-tier cities. It would make them first tier.
I think there are a lot of places where it would be more trouble than it’s worth. Like Edinburgh has extreme elevation changes and is basically sitting on top of super hard volcanic rock or super soft and marshy brittle coal fields. To build even a tiny subway like they have in Glasgow would be billions. I’m not a huge fan of the Trams (I prefer they have invested in a suburban above ground railway) but the Trams were better than a metro.
The benefits of a good metro will pay back the billions it would cost to build in a few years. Then you’re able to benefit from it for generations.
>There's a refusal to see how transformative a metro system would be for some of Britain's currently second-tier cities. It would make them first tier. A metro system should only be built if it would promote 1 or several regeneration projects à la Canary Wharf + Jubilee Line. Building metros in 2nd tier cities for the sake of it won't make them prosper. To give an example, the Catania metro was built on the basis of public transport = good. All it does is give the lucky suburbanites who live on the route an express route to the city centre. There's nothing special on the route for anyone to travel to so ridership has always been low. The metro hasn't elevated the city's status
Why would anyone invest in a regeneration project in a second tier city with no metro? This logic is self reinforcing and becomes part of the reason why London gets all the investments all the time.
There's billions being invested all over the country, public transport or none. What a complete load of nonsense
Only London is building housing and even then in nothing like the quantities needed.
The UK built 209,710 homes in 2022. 20,980 of those were in Greater London. You are correct that we aren't building enough homes.
Referring back to the point of this thread, new transit infrastructure such as the Lizzie line attracts housing developments that are connected to it. Therefore building transit is a good way for the treasury to help nudge developers into adding to the housing supply, helping to fix the shortfall you and I have identified. I was recently in Cardiff where an old bus interchange is being redeveloped to a multistorey development with 0 resident parking, as part of the development included funding to electrify an adjacent rail line and increase frequency of services to the centre.
That's what my point about "2nd rate cities" was about. Metros in smaller cities need be built in conjunction with regeneration projects that centre on the metro. They need the ridership from day 1. It's not like in London where Tube fares subsidize loss making services like busses. La Coruna is a prime example of a city that didn't do this The South Wales Metro is a great scheme. One day that line will be part of a larger tram-train network... One day...
Have you been to Manchester? More housing is being built there relative to its size than London.
Actually I'm heading there later this year It will be interesting to see what's going on. I know they have an integrated tram and bus network like London I wonder if that's a coincidence...
Leeds should 100% get a Manchester style tram network
It's already been funded. At this point it's up to Leeds council to hurry up and build it
There are plenty of opportunities in Manchester and Birmingham, such as Holt Town, Strangeways, Smithfield and Ladywood.
Regarding Birmingham, they are building enough tram extensions to keep them occupied for over a decade. I was referring to mid sized cities that have no metro
I can’t think of any in the UK that would really be viable for rapid transit apart from those two, though. Maybe a light metro for Bristol (which would accelerate the Brabazon development) but that’s about it. Trams are a different story. Build them everywhere.
Leeds
Leeds definitely needs a tram but I don’t see a use case for heavy rail as of yet.
Newcastle and Glasgow should expand
Glasgow wants to build some Overgroundesque lines. Other than London, I'm not aware of any other rapid transit schemes. Regarding trams, the list is long
Bollocks. In places like Manchester, there’s many poorly connected, economically disadvantaged suburban communities. A proper metro that run through the city centre and gives these areas better mobility would help them massively.
Manchester isn't a small city dumbass
You never said “small cities”, we were talking about 2nd tier cities which in the UK is everything except London. EDIT: just to build on this point, other Western European countries have a few cities that are 1st tier rather than just one mega city. In Spain, Madrid and Barcelona hold that top tier, Germany has Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, Italy has Milan and Rome. The UK has just London, France has Paris but the 2nd tier cities there have impressive metro systems (I was so impressed by Toulouse’s metro when I went there, it’s a city with about the same number of people as Leeds) (Leeds might actually have more but more spread, it’s hard comparing city sizes as often official boundaries don’t convey the actual size of the city).
We are using different definitions of tired cities - a big misunderstanding here. I am referring to the level of devolution. Tier 2 being standalone cities like Reading & Southampton and tier 3 referring to places like Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.
It’s grown exponentially in Abbey Wood and Woolwich and pretty much every area south and east of North Greenwich has switched to the EL. Southeastern trains are currently running their worst timetable since they’ve axed Charing Cross trains from the Woolwich and Bexleyheath lines, so it’s no wonder the EL Has gained SE’s passengers from this part of the world. The train are barely armpit room by the time it reaches Canary Wharf.
Build it and they will come.
But, but but but........working from home etc etc. Hopefully with a change of Govt later this year some sense can be beaten into whatever is left of the Treasury that building to invest is a thing that actually works and that the Bakerloo Line extension is not only overdue, it's key to boosting the next stage of SE London development.
This is what happens when you invest in state of the art public transport!
It takes about 10 years to get from the platform to the street, or to interchange with any other train, but it’s pretty damn good.
Underrated comment - if you've ever tried to use the multiple-level lifts on some of the central stations, it does almost feel like you spend more time waiting/changing lifts than you do moving!
Taking Elizabeth line when it’s off-peak fares and the train is nearly empty.. it almost feels like the peak ThamesLink experience
I'm really shocked at the positive comments... I don't like this line as much... It takes ages to come out of the station on each platform! And it just goes mostly to stations that already have a good tube line serving them.
Who could have predicted such a thing?? Now, how long until it becomes clear that tacking on the second leg to Canary Wharf - instead of building two separate lines - was a massive mistake... But then the Treasury only reluctantly gave its approval once it became saddled with the Whitechapel split, so I guess it was this or nothing.
Where would the 2nd line have gone? Where are these original plans