Waterloo to reach ‘choke point’ says Transport for London boss
Waterloo’s £800m capacity-boosting programme will only keep the station on the tracks until the mid-2020s before reaching a “choke point”, a Transport for London director has admitted.
David McNeill, director of public affairs and external relations, told City A.M. the terminus would reach the point of no return within less than 10 years and warned that the as-yet-unstarted Crossrail 2 project may come too late.
The same is true of Clapham Junction, which he described as “horrific”.
Read more: More Crossrail 2 delays risk heaping pressure on crowded London stations
“Quite simply, Waterloo is running out of capacity,” he said. “It’s just undergone a programme that was really disruptive and that will probably keep it going to mid-2020s, probably. Then after that it will reach choke point.
“We are already seeing the pressure points – as commuters who use Waterloo will notice, it’s really difficult to get from the trains onto the Tube to move onwards from there. The station is just not big enough to deal with the numbers [of commuters], even with high volume Tubes and more platforms.”
He added: “These are real problems that we are seeing now – not in 20 or 30 years. You are seeing them today and they will get worse and in 10 years time it will be too late to do anything about it.”
TfL has previously named Waterloo as one of 17 stations facing chronic overcrowding and measures such as regular closures and one-way systems by the 2030s, should the £30bn Crossrail 2 project fail to go ahead.
Work is ongoing to establish the optimal route and value for money, and City A.M. understands that some stations may have to be dropped in order to secure government approval, with public money covering half the ultimate cost.
It is also thought any go-ahead is also being tied to the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, which is further behind in the planning stages, for fears the government be seen to favour London over the rest of the country.
A DfT spokesperson said: “Crossrail 2 has the potential to unlock new housing, jobs and development and provide London with infrastructure to support its growth.
“It is imperative that, as with major projects like Crossrail and HS2, proposals are subject to detailed external scrutiny to ensure the public gets an affordable scheme that is fair to the UK taxpayer. We are also clear that we must improve transport in lockstep across the whole country.
“We recognise the potential in the funding proposal the Mayor has proposed. Through the independent funding and financing review, we look forward to working with the Mayor to further develop it.”
However McNeill suggested that even if work on the new line started in the 2020s – the earliest expected – it would “probably be too late for the crunch point”.
And there is still no guarantee the project will go ahead. Previous funding packages have been rejected by transport secretary Chris Grayling – although McNeill said he expected “progress” on that front by the end of this year.
“It’s a big sum of money, we recognise that, so we need a clear financial strategy… [but] our case is strong. We can afford it, and London can afford to pay the lion’s share.”
Read more: New Crossrail 2 delays could jeopardise plans for the £31bn project’s route