So we have Crossrail at last. It may be somewhat the wrong scheme, not going to the right places - who wants to travel from the wilds of Kent to Maidenhead? - but it is nevertheless an essential part of London’s plans for growth and certainly better than doing nothing. But if anything illustrates the inability of the British planning system to cope with major projects, it is this. It has been so long in gestation that most of those who would have benefitted from the original scheme are dead or retired!
Governments have never recognised the value of the railways to the economy and the Treasury has always been able to ride roughshod over the Department for Transport. So rather than being up and running now, the scheme will not be open until the back end of the next decade. Even now, so little urgency is being shown, with construction not due even to start until 2010.
At least a new method of funding infrastructure through business paying an extra levy, which is a model that should be copied elsewher. Moreover, the scheme is not going to be a crazy PFI project, a recognition that the risks of tunnelling under London are just too great to try to pass on to the private sector. But when costs soar, I bet it will be the public sector that gets the blame, even though it is highly likely that the increase will be a result of the sheer complexity of the task.
It’s amazing what the imminence of an election can do. Perhaps we should have them more often.
Crossrail finally gets the go ahead
Friday, 5 October 2007
posted by Christian Wolmar at 00:21
4 Comments:
Crossrail is essential to London and its position as the world’s financial capital. Funding the scheme via a business levy recognises the uniqueness of the scheme which has been 20 years in the planning; however, to suggest that this should be a model to be copied elsewhere is wrong. Government already takes vast sums in transport taxation, £47 billion from road users alone yet spends only a portion of this back on our infrastructure. The budget for roads is a mere £7 billion. Businesses are also asked to pay for local transport schemes through development taxes such as section 106 agreements and a possible future planning gain tax. We are also expected to pay in the future through congestion charging schemes which if introduced the monies raised must be hypothecated to transport improvements. Adding a further business levy to pay for transport simply adds a further cost to British business which is already burdened by regulations costing £55 billion per year and rising. Transport is critical to our economy and the Government should recognise this in its spending commitments rather than seeking to raise further taxes on Business.
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I am happy it is happening. From my perspective (living at Whitechapel and working at Canary Wharf) it would make my commute shorter (although it is not likely I will still be living where I am in 2015) and it is also going to relieve the interchange between the East London and Jubilee lines at Canada water (which is already horrendous in the morning rush hour with people streaming off the East London line and onto already overcrowded trains heading east to Canary Wharf).
I really wish it was going to on to Ebbsfleet rather than Abbey Wood in the south east and Stansted airport in the north east, as well as Reading in the west though. Then it would be really useful.
As a regular visitor to London, I am in favour of anything that improves the rail travel experience....I really do my best to avoid rush hour on the Tube but sometimes its unavoidable!
Crossrail may be a good thing, and K.L claims that lack of transport capacity is a major factor in stifling London's growth. The question is do we really want London to grow any bigger than it is already??? It cuts the same way as the argument about building more roads. I think there is a risk that provide oodles more rail capacity and more people will move in to the South East to fill it up and soon we'll be right back at square one.
We are already seeing large financial firms set up major satellite offices in other cities such as Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh - simply because they cannot afford to employ junior staff in London - developing local transport systems across the whole country in other major cities is equally as important for those conurbations that aren't as lucky to have the world prestige as the capital.