A blank cheque for Transport for London

What would you do to TfL if money and logic were no object?

I have gripes, I have such gripes. Gripes about London’s transport system. 

I have guilt, too. Guilt, because London’s transport system is one of the best in the world and those of us who live in London are, on the whole, very lucky to have it. I shouldn’t have gripes with a system this good, but here we are.

Recently, on my regular walk to Mile End station from Victoria Park, my gripes won out. WHAT A NIGHTMARE it is to have to walk a whole FIFTEEN MINUTES to reach the Central line to start a journey across London. WHAT A MISTAKE, I thought to myself, made by London’s transport authorities when Victoria Park had both its tram connectivity and railway station cruelly taken from it in the name of reform and improvement. I had all of this fury to handle on top of my bitterness around the Mayor of Tower Hamlets’ perpetual quest to make transport in the borough worse for the people here.

We’re just over a year out from the next London mayoral election which means there is plenty of time for us all to put forward ideas to be included in the manifestos of each candidate. When Sadiq Khan wins, he’ll have no money to spend but it’s nice to have fun and speculate, isn’t it? I decided to channel my gripes into some blue sky thinking about what I might do to London’s transport system if money was no object. The ~majority~ of my ideas relate to making transport better for me specifically and boil down to the resurrection of trams for all of London.

Before I go into all the new ideas, here's a quick recap of projects that TfL is currently pursuing or has planned for but are currently on hold:

Actually happening:

• After years of lobbying by all sorts of people, the many strands of the Overground are finally being named. It’ll cost 4 million pounds, apparently. Jonn Elledge runs through it all in his newsletter.

Maybe happening:

• TfL are considering extending the Bakerloo line at the south end from Elephant and Castle and along the Old Kent Road, possibly as far as Lewisham. There’s an even dreamier suggestion of going even further than that to Hayes and Beckenham. Lots of people want this to happen.

• TfL wants to expand the Overground network even further with the addition of the West London Orbital. This would involve using existing track to connect Hounslow in the south with Hendon and Hampstead in the north, via the HS2 hub at Old Oak Common.

• Extensions of the DLR and Overground across the Thames to give the much neglected Thamesmead a bit of love (and connectivity). 

• A whole load of new cycleways across the city.

Currently on ice:

• Crossrail 2: another Elizabeth line style project to add a new railway line from north to south. This one was ultimately frozen by TfL’s lockdown era funding agreement with the government. If it does ever go ahead, it will take ages to build, but once finished would see a train line run on existing track in South London, through Central London linking to Crossrail 1 at Tottenham Court Road and HS2 at Euston. It would then lurch north east and could go as far as Ally Pally or Broxbourne. My favourite part of the project would see Dalston’s two Overground stations linked under Kingsland Road into one big Dalston Superstore-station.

Now, if the actual plans above are not blue sky thinking enough, it’s time to go further with the help of the good people of various London transport subreddits.

My question to the people of Reddit’s r/LondonUnderground and r/TransportforLondon:

I want to know: What addition (or subtraction!) you would make to any part of the TfL network, big or small, costly or cheap? It could be a new line, system, mode, initiative, piece of infrastructure, or connection that would only benefit you and maybe a handful of others. It could be as wacky or as sensible as you like.

God tier

Make it all cheaper/free

Not a novel idea. But it would be nice if the time came in which TfL no longer has to rely on revenue to survive. u/Hyhoops suggests changes to pricing:

Since money isn’t an issue, I would make buses free and slash all Underground/Overground/trams/DLR/lizzie line prices in half and make travelling within zones free.

Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, is the classic example of a city that has made its transport system completely free, trains and trams included. While it hasn’t yet led to a dramatic reduction in car use, it has led to more investment in the transport system there as the system is now funded directly through taxation. The system is only free for Tallinn residents and so tourists are still required to buy tickets or tap in. Making inter-zone travel free, however, may lead to a decrease in journeys taken by foot which dropped by 40% (!) in Tallinn. 

A new Tube line for South London

The poor people of South London, they’re awash with national rail links but remain neglected by the London Underground. The aforementioned Bakerloo extension might help things, but one Reddit response proposes a new ‘Meridian line’ running from Greenwich:

u/Party-Olive8370: Just to piggyback off of the idea of service for SE London, I've definitely had a pub convo about building an entirely new tube line originating from Greenwich serving South London and naming it the Meridian Line.

u/sclerae adds: The Jubilee Line extension was actually built so it could have a spur from North Greenwich continuing South or East.

I’m sold on that. Get it done, Sadiq.

For the love of god, build more trams

The disgraced former Mayor of London, not Boris, but Ken, had a dream for trams in London. After the opening of a new tram line in South London, Ken wanted trams to replace bus links all over the city. This might have included a cross-river tram from Kings Cross to Peckham, but the plans were scrapped by Sadiq in favour of the Bakerloo extension. This is a shame. 

The people of Edinburgh are still traumatised by the ordeal that was the construction of their tram system (2007-2014) which was completed late and over budget. But in other cases, like in Manchester and Nottingham (& South London), they can be a great success. As Christian Wolmar highlights in this Wired piece, if trams have the right route and have priority over road traffic, they can prove to be superior to buses. Let’s have that cross-river tram in the manifesto, Sadiq, and while you’re at it, please also reinstate trams from the Isle of Dogs up to Victoria Park and on to Hackney replacing the 277 bus, thx.

Make Oyster a digital card, like in San Francisco

We all know TfL want us to use our debit cards to travel instead of the Oyster card. They don’t want to act like a bank and hold all the funds, not knowing when or if they will ever be spent. But people do like the Oyster system; it’s good for budgeting and it still seems to be the only way to redeem Railcard discounts on TfL trains. It would all be easier if TfL did a deal with Apple and Google and put Oyster in our digital wallets. In big tech’s homeland of San Francisco, the Clipper card can be added to and topped up from your digital wallet and works really well. Apple and Google have glitzy new offices in London now too, so now could be a good time for a conversation.

Sensible tier

More free toilets

Thanks to u/eulerup, I discovered that TfL maintain a toilet map (PDF) marking out all of the toilets and baby changing facilities at stations across their network. It’s handy. But even handier would be more toilets, as u/London-Lass suggests. “No wonder there are so many coded spillages that need mopping up on platforms”, they said. TfL, spend 10 billion pounds on this, please. 

TOP TIP FROM ASHLEY! If you have a multi-gym pass for Puregym or one of the other chains, you’re never far from a readily available toilet.

Time to join up all the ends of Underground lines

What about an ‘outer circle line’ joining up all of the ends of the Underground lines, suggests u/Cazman555. I’ve put this in the sensible category because it’s not as batshit as the batshit ideas below. Redditor u/Nielips also made the case for concentric ring railways so we aren’t all forced to go into Central London to get out the other side, which is fair enough. I’m assuming it’s unworkable but it’s fun and so should absolutely happen.

Separate the Northern line into two lines

This really does make a lot of sense and it feels like it could happen at some point. As u/darthwhy says, the Northern line is confusing and now it has yet another spur off to Battersea Power Station Station. TfL should make good on its 2015 aspiration to go ahead with splitting the lines: with one running from Edgware to Battersea and the other running from Barnet, via Bank, down to Morden. Here’s a 2016 article from the Londonist explaining more.

Honourable mentions: Rebuild Highbury and Islington station (it was only meant to be temporary in the 1960s, apparently), extend the Victoria line to Leytonstone, rename Bethnal Green Overground Station as ‘Weavers Fields’ to stop people going there expecting to find the Central line.

Batshit tier

Put a travelator in the Greenwich Foot Tunnel

God, that tunnel’s long. It’s crying out for a travelator. Not a job for TfL, really, as the tunnel management is a tug-of-war between various councils but TfL do know a thing or two about travelators so worth a shout here.

Sleeping carriages

Thanks to u/Mountain-Jicana-6354 who suggested sleeping carriages on trains within London which could enable “an extra half-hour nap in the morning or a place to pass out when drunk”. In my experience, Londoners don’t struggle to do either of these things in the current carriages, but I do like this idea which instantly conjured images of the beds fitted on the Knight Bus. Not sure Sadiq will go for this one.

Regent’s Canal? Fill it with concrete and make it a tram line.

This is a bit silly and wasn’t actually mentioned by anyone on Reddit but look, Regent’s Canal is an unimpeded stretch of clear space that tears right through some very populous parts of the city. You could argue that it’s a bit underused as a space by only letting canal boats use it. Why not fill it with concrete and let trams go along it? Okay, okay. We all know concrete is being rightly cancelled for being an environmental disaster and the Canal and River Trust also might not be keen, not to mention the hundreds (thousands?) of people for whom the canal is their home. Fine, perhaps just a waterbus from Limehouse to Kings Cross then?

Extend the Cable Car to Brighton

Ah, the OG Meridian Line: the Cable Car from the Royal Docks to Greenwich. It’s famously been a huge success and is not at all a white elephant, so why not extend it? Pessimists would suggest a feeble extension as far as the new IKEA. I say go one small step further and extend it through South London, past Biggin Hill, over the M25, through the South Downs National Park, past the ASDA at Hollingbury and into Brighton and Hove. This would be a wonderful commute to work for Caroline Lucas and no doubt several other people. Are there any technical challenges with this idea that I’ve missed?

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So there you have it. In ~2000 words, a new transport manifesto for London. Over to you, Sadiq, and miscellaneous candidates for Mayor from the other parties. How bold are you willing to be? 

Here’s a link to the original thread I started on Reddit, where you can read more ideas for TfL, many of which are very good and written by people who know a lot more than me about these sorts of things. That said, some people were very modest with their suggestions considering they had a free rein to do what they whatever they wanted. Oh well.

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That’s all for The Mosaic this week. Maybe I’ll do some more transport content at some point. In the meantime, tell your friends!