The density of residential buildings along old Kent road all the way to Lewisham (and beyond) is abysmal tbh.
Probably keeps property prices down though.
It’s got decent train coverage, though. My understanding is that the nature of the soil in southeast London makes tunnelling difficult and expensive.
Now why the Crossrail 2 trajectory is laid out in the way it is, that’s what I really don’t understand.
Agreed – the Bakerloop proposals totally miss the point. Horizontal travel is woefully lacking, which investment in more than just SL5 should fix. The proposed extension covers pre-existing routes and at best would just be a bit faster – same as the SL4, which is functionally the 261 by the time it crosses the river.
buses are pretty good though. except when they don’t come and you’ve no way of knowing there’s been an accident (happened when trying to get from putney to peckham the other day). then it’s an arse
Growing up there, I would not describe it as a ‘transport blackhole’. You can get to the centre of London by National Rail very quickly. Getting to the other side of South London was the annoying bit.
People say this only considering the Tube, but the rail density in South London is very high and some routes are very quick into central London (quicker than a tube would be). You also get a choice of terminus depending on where you’re going. For example the same train into London Bridge also calls at Waterloo East and Charing Cross which means you don’t need an onward tube for e.g. the City, south bank, west end etc. You can just walk to most places from those stations.
Run it through Crystal Palace, there is already underground networks set up via Dulwich and Sydenham.
what I really want to do is get from Deptford to Richmond without having to go to Waterloo but the good (rich) people of Richmond wouldn’t want our type getting there so easily
Orbital capacity is needed. We just add congestion on radial routes for no good reason. Don’t say buses as the bottlenecks on the surface are a joke. It needs TRAMS ASAP
What we really need is a borough-to-borough network, the national rail services into the centre are generally pretty good. But getting from Orpington to Croydon takes 2-3x as long by public transport than driving
If only we had trains
Oh wait… we do
Why I’m thankful for the Elizabeth line and DLR poking its way down to Woolwich.
Why does anyone criticising London have to insist it’s the best city in the world before they do lol
A circle from harrow to hayes would be op
It’s fine if you want to get into central London. We’ve got plenty of rail connections. Where it’s shitty is if you want to go across south London.
The transport is like the spokes of a wheel, designed to ferry people into jobs in the city centre efficiently. It’s not designed with people living their lives doing things like going to school, or the doctor, or visiting people locally in mind. Bit of an oversight.
Alternatively….I like that we don’t have a tube! Living so close to London but also having it feel distinct from many of the more urban areas makes SE London unique. The buses are fine. Lewisham has good connections and the trains (when all is well) are fast. I do feel like if you can’t cycle then you’re a bit stuck and generally it’s a car first area with pretty limited safe cycling.
There’s loads of trains already to the centre. It’s kinda suburban so a lot of people have cars. And the population density is quite low. Never the greatest combination to make an economic argument for a metro system.
There needs to be a circle line that works for zones 5/6
Because like 5 people will say ‘i don’t like construction noises’ so nothing will be allowed to get built
The lacking infrastructure extends past the boundaries of south-east London into Kent/Surrey/Sussex. Quite a lot of train journeys from one part of south-east England to another involve going into central London and coming out again.
Getting from south east to south west is such an annoying hassle. It’s ridiculous.
SE London. S London. SW London.
Lol yeah we’d all like some of that tube.
Or even a tram/Overground line.
One of the quickest, easiest ways to boost growth in this country is to build this in full with bells on.
The political problem is that because transport infrastructure has been so neglected in the rest of the country for so long, it’s awkward for any government to approve billions of spending on it while simultaneously stripping back elsewhere.
The government needs to get creative. Enable big cities like London, Leeds or Manchester to have fundraising powers & access to borrowing. Link new housing to these infrastructure projects via land value capture.
despite not having the tube transport in SE london is underrated. Camberwell, peckham and east dulwich type areas are 1-3 stops from victoria, blackfriars/farringdon or london bridge. also well served by buses, and if you cycle you can get into central london in 25/30 mins. it’s harder if you go further south or east of course but no worse than travelling in from west london IMHO
There already are plenty of stations in SE, largely national rail ones. The problem is more that trains at these stations are infrequent and unreliable, and so are the buses to reach these stations. I would rather have investnent going to improve existing services – the cost would likely be lower, and the benefits would be more diffused. Another thing that would be relatively cheap but would have massive real life benefits would be improved interchanges at stations – reducing walking times within stations through new pedestrian tunnels and conveyor belts. These would shave off precious minutes off commutes for everyone.
Extending underground lines is definitely the right thing to do, especially in areas that have no coverage whatsoever. But they cost exorbitant amounts of money and they take decades to be completed. In areas like the ones proposed for the extension, there already are stations. Much of the benefits would be for the lucky few who can afford to live near the station (obviously prices are going to rise there), everyone else would have smaller benefits and would have still have to pay for the investment.
If extension needs be, I’d rather have it in a suburb that has nothing now – cheaper to build, and more potential to unlock housing.
If you think that is bad try the rest of the country
No it isn’t. It just doesn’t have a tube line. The train connections in south east London are fantastic.
Lewisham to deptford, Lewisham to Brockley and Lewisham to Peckham are all trains to London bridge and back out.
Give me an overground that goes Woolwich, Lewisham, Peckham, Clapham, Richmond. Those lines already exist. It’s just like 4-5 different trains
29 comments
The density of residential buildings along old Kent road all the way to Lewisham (and beyond) is abysmal tbh.
Probably keeps property prices down though.
It’s got decent train coverage, though. My understanding is that the nature of the soil in southeast London makes tunnelling difficult and expensive.
Now why the Crossrail 2 trajectory is laid out in the way it is, that’s what I really don’t understand.
Agreed – the Bakerloop proposals totally miss the point. Horizontal travel is woefully lacking, which investment in more than just SL5 should fix. The proposed extension covers pre-existing routes and at best would just be a bit faster – same as the SL4, which is functionally the 261 by the time it crosses the river.
buses are pretty good though. except when they don’t come and you’ve no way of knowing there’s been an accident (happened when trying to get from putney to peckham the other day). then it’s an arse
Growing up there, I would not describe it as a ‘transport blackhole’. You can get to the centre of London by National Rail very quickly. Getting to the other side of South London was the annoying bit.
People say this only considering the Tube, but the rail density in South London is very high and some routes are very quick into central London (quicker than a tube would be). You also get a choice of terminus depending on where you’re going. For example the same train into London Bridge also calls at Waterloo East and Charing Cross which means you don’t need an onward tube for e.g. the City, south bank, west end etc. You can just walk to most places from those stations.
Run it through Crystal Palace, there is already underground networks set up via Dulwich and Sydenham.
what I really want to do is get from Deptford to Richmond without having to go to Waterloo but the good (rich) people of Richmond wouldn’t want our type getting there so easily
Orbital capacity is needed. We just add congestion on radial routes for no good reason. Don’t say buses as the bottlenecks on the surface are a joke. It needs TRAMS ASAP
What we really need is a borough-to-borough network, the national rail services into the centre are generally pretty good. But getting from Orpington to Croydon takes 2-3x as long by public transport than driving
If only we had trains
Oh wait… we do
Why I’m thankful for the Elizabeth line and DLR poking its way down to Woolwich.
Why does anyone criticising London have to insist it’s the best city in the world before they do lol
A circle from harrow to hayes would be op
It’s fine if you want to get into central London. We’ve got plenty of rail connections. Where it’s shitty is if you want to go across south London.
The transport is like the spokes of a wheel, designed to ferry people into jobs in the city centre efficiently. It’s not designed with people living their lives doing things like going to school, or the doctor, or visiting people locally in mind. Bit of an oversight.
Alternatively….I like that we don’t have a tube! Living so close to London but also having it feel distinct from many of the more urban areas makes SE London unique. The buses are fine. Lewisham has good connections and the trains (when all is well) are fast. I do feel like if you can’t cycle then you’re a bit stuck and generally it’s a car first area with pretty limited safe cycling.
There’s loads of trains already to the centre. It’s kinda suburban so a lot of people have cars. And the population density is quite low. Never the greatest combination to make an economic argument for a metro system.
There needs to be a circle line that works for zones 5/6
Because like 5 people will say ‘i don’t like construction noises’ so nothing will be allowed to get built
The lacking infrastructure extends past the boundaries of south-east London into Kent/Surrey/Sussex. Quite a lot of train journeys from one part of south-east England to another involve going into central London and coming out again.
Getting from south east to south west is such an annoying hassle. It’s ridiculous.
SE London. S London. SW London.
Lol yeah we’d all like some of that tube.
Or even a tram/Overground line.
One of the quickest, easiest ways to boost growth in this country is to build this in full with bells on.
The political problem is that because transport infrastructure has been so neglected in the rest of the country for so long, it’s awkward for any government to approve billions of spending on it while simultaneously stripping back elsewhere.
The government needs to get creative. Enable big cities like London, Leeds or Manchester to have fundraising powers & access to borrowing. Link new housing to these infrastructure projects via land value capture.
despite not having the tube transport in SE london is underrated. Camberwell, peckham and east dulwich type areas are 1-3 stops from victoria, blackfriars/farringdon or london bridge. also well served by buses, and if you cycle you can get into central london in 25/30 mins. it’s harder if you go further south or east of course but no worse than travelling in from west london IMHO
There already are plenty of stations in SE, largely national rail ones. The problem is more that trains at these stations are infrequent and unreliable, and so are the buses to reach these stations. I would rather have investnent going to improve existing services – the cost would likely be lower, and the benefits would be more diffused. Another thing that would be relatively cheap but would have massive real life benefits would be improved interchanges at stations – reducing walking times within stations through new pedestrian tunnels and conveyor belts. These would shave off precious minutes off commutes for everyone.
Extending underground lines is definitely the right thing to do, especially in areas that have no coverage whatsoever. But they cost exorbitant amounts of money and they take decades to be completed. In areas like the ones proposed for the extension, there already are stations. Much of the benefits would be for the lucky few who can afford to live near the station (obviously prices are going to rise there), everyone else would have smaller benefits and would have still have to pay for the investment.
If extension needs be, I’d rather have it in a suburb that has nothing now – cheaper to build, and more potential to unlock housing.
If you think that is bad try the rest of the country
No it isn’t. It just doesn’t have a tube line. The train connections in south east London are fantastic.
Lewisham to deptford, Lewisham to Brockley and Lewisham to Peckham are all trains to London bridge and back out.
Give me an overground that goes Woolwich, Lewisham, Peckham, Clapham, Richmond. Those lines already exist. It’s just like 4-5 different trains
Comments are closed.