WORLDREVIEWS

A global archive of independent reviews of everything happening from the beginning of the millennium

Read our Copyright Notice click here

For publication dates click here

The case for early planning for NP1 and Crossrail 2 remains.

In many ways the first planning proposal should be rejected for projects like this, however much money is spent on them. That way you get a better second proposal.

I was less than excited about the first Crossrail proposals. What is being built is better.

HS2 is getting a rethink. The 250 mph original proposal is off the wall. At those speeds as two trains pass in opposite directions the local demand for power is that of the capacity of a small power station. With 18 trains an hour in either direction - unlikely now - electricity load on the grid would be extortionate. Is this line going to use electricity at peak prices, too?

For most of its history the London Underground had its own power station but you cannot build a new nuclear power station in the west Midlands.

HS2 at the moment is dull stuff compared to the benefits to more rail travellers of NP1 and Crossrail 2. Letting the public see drawings and plans for these two projects would be exciting stuff, allowing it to comment.

Inevitably they would have to be changed but people like to see the future.

24 May 2020

So much now turns on whether a vaccine can be found for Covid-19.

The world will have to standardize on 1 metre social distancing and more frequent air changes in airliners for the passenger airline business to return to viability beforehand.

Failing the emergence of a vaccine, it is possible the third runway at Heathrow may never happen.

If that is so, Gatwick only remains properly viable if a fast rail link between it and Heathrow can be built as both will not be able to be full destination airports at the same time.

Elsewhere, the perennially intellectually underpowered planning authority in Cambridge is chipping away at still leaving the city with a high quality of life. Failure starts with the new townscape as you leave the railway station. 'Student accommodation' hard up against the railway line?

London must avoid the same fate at the hands of bureaucratic planning as increasing densification is not consistent with the transport system being able to cope, not least when temporary measures like social distancing are required.

The time may have come to consider building a small settlement close to the outskirts of London, probably in the Thames estuary, consisting entirely of rental property, let on the basis of the occupants' means rather than a concept of local rental values.

To take the edge off a spiking market, in this case rising rents due to densification, it often just takes a small increase on the supply side.

This detracts a bit from the ideas of community and not being dirigiste, but local authorities can continue with ambitions to provide social housing for decades and fail in their aims because their own policies of densification have pushed up land prices and reduced their prospects of acquiring sites.

19 July 2020

The mystery of why the trains on the Cambridge-Ipswich line appeared to be battery run earlier this year is a little closer to being solved.

The line is not electrified.

The trains probably do run as far as Bury St Edmunds on battery power if this sign at Cambridge station is to be relied on, spelling apart.

If so, such a short line could run on battery power, which would be commendable.

On the next platform, the cross-country trains just idle for 20 minutes after arriving from Birmingham pouring out the most noxious diesel fumes.

Carbon dioxide is like the devil to environmentalists; it is an article of faith that he is evil.

Diesel fumes are like aerial bombardment - a tangible evil that kills in large quantity and can be eliminated from many sources by human decisions now.

Human health matters.

Until environmentalists act to get rid of diesel ahead of petrol it is hard to take them all seriously. Many will have died prematurely of purity of purpose and diesel fume diseases before the devil is abolished.

.

I used to have charge of 5 London Underground stations - Farringdon, Westminster, Barbican, Aldgate and Aldgate East - they do not give a single architect that much responsibility these days and I prefer conceptualising political reality. Potentially you get even more done.

Two of these stations have since become major Transport for London interchanges.

A northern powerhouse rail upgrade linking northern cities really should come first in the queue for major rail projects. Then, if the local economies get a significant boost from it, as is likely, the towns and cities there can collectively decide if they want HS2.

Let us call the project that should go ahead something like NP1 so that the longer line does not get all the acronyms.

I used to do architectural surveys on the line between London and Liverpool, and throughout London and the Midlands, and even if land has been bought along the route for HS2 it can still be used for a choice of purposes later.

After a go ahead for NP1 though, and the completion of Crossrail 1, Crossrail 2 should get the go ahead. It will be mostly underground and business ratepayers along the route will chip in as they have done for Crossrail 1. The overrun costs are essentially the taxpayers' risk as they were in the end for HS1 and all other rail projects.