Oct 05 2007
Questions on Crossrail
A few days before the 2001 Election the government announced design work on Crossrail.
A few weeks before the 2005 Election the government introduced the Crossrail Bill to Parliament.
Now a few days before the start of another possible Election we are told Crossrail is going ahead.
The Press Release I have seen is very short of details. It implies work will not commence until 2010. The questions to ask include:
1. Why such a long delay before the start of the project proper?
2. How firm is the Business Plan and Financing Agreement?
3. Who will be responsible for cost overruns?
4. In what circumstances could any of the parties, including the government, decide not to proceed, or to abort?
5. Why are they using technology that will only allow 24 trains an hour? Given the costs of tunnelling should they not be looking at technology that would allow substantially more than that? Are they aware even Network Rail’s Engineering Director believes more modern lighter weight trains can manage 30 an hour?
6. What impact will there be on the capacity of existing routes using the same feeder lines as Crossrail?
7. Why did this announcement fall to be made today?
8. Will Parliament have available on Monday the text of any Agreement which has now been entered into, binding the taxpayer?
9. What annual budget provision is going to be made?
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Cross rail. Such a disaster.
The DLR extension cost 140 million on completion, not the budget.
For the same cost as cross rail, London could have 114 DLR extensions, and that is without any economy of scale.
Do they really think they are going to get 200 million passengers a year?
Are they going to be charged the full cost of the tickets, or are some other suckers going to have to pay for the massive subsidy.
The intestest is 1 billion a year. Add on travel costs. Divide it by a number similar to the JLE actual figures, and we are talking serious costs for a ticket.
Are you going to pay 20 pounds a day to use it? 100 a week? 5,000 a year?
Disaster
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