London Crossrail
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RAILWAY ȴSTATION ȴMEGA-PROJECTS ȴAND ȴTHE ȴRE-MAKING ȴOF ȴINNER ȴCITIES ȴIN ȴEUROPE Gibbons, S. and Machin, S. (2005) Valuing rail access using transport innovations. Journal of Urban Economics , 57 (1), pp. 148–169. Hasselmann, J. (2005) Proteste blieben erfolglos – am Zoo hält kein ICE mehr . Der Tagesspiegel , 7 July. Hops, B. and Kurpjuweit, K. (2007) Hauptbahnhof noch teurer als bekannt . Der Tagesspiegel , 13 January. Statistisches Amt der Stadt Berlin (1970, 1988) Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Berlin . Berlin. 88 BUILT ȹȹ ENVIRONMENT ȹȹȹ VOL ȹȹ 38 ȹȹȹ NO ȹȹ 1 MEGAPROJECT ȴAS ȴKEYHOLE ȴSURGERY: ȴLONDON ȴCROSSRAIL Megaproject as Keyhole Surgery: London Crossrail MICHAEL HEBBERT London’s east–west Crossrail is a civil engineering megaproject designed to produce a minimum of visible change at surface level. The paper explains the origins of Crossrail’s ‘keyhole surgery’ approach, describes the station design process and considers its outcomes in a review of all eight subterranean stations with their twelve surface ticket halls along the central London section between Canary Wharf and Paddington. The strategy is compared and contrasted with Frank Pick’s design thinking for London Underground and with the closer precedents of Paris’s RER Ligne A. We show how the discreet keyhole concept has to be balanced against the requirements of (a) glazed façades to bring daylight into interior circulation spaces, and (b) design and management of exterior circulation spaces, given the increases in footfall anticipated around each ticket hall when Crossrail opens in 2018. Urban design of station se Ĵ ings remains un Q nished business. Construction of London Crossrail began in investment ever, this is a mega-project by any May 2009 and is scheduled to last 8 years, standard. But it is a moot question how it fits creating an east–west National Rail line in a special issue on rail stations as prime running 118 kilometres though central movers of urban redevelopment. Planning London between Heathrow Airport and and property factors never figured much Maidenhead in the Thames Valley, and in the case for Crossrail (CRL, 2003; 2007; Kent, Essex and the growth corridor of the Montague, 2004). In the four sites where it Thames estuary ( Q gure 1). Crossrail uses coincides with major development areas – at existing trackbeds in the suburbs but dives Paddington, Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf deep underneath the central area for a 10 and Stratford – the line is being fitted in as kilometre stretch that includes major new an afterthought. Most of its stations have station interchanges at Paddington, Bond been designed to minimize redevelopment Street, To Ĵ enham Court Road, Farringdon, impacts. So this mega-project earns its place Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Stratford, the in the ‘Railways, Real Estate and Re-Making Isle of Dogs, Custom House and Woolwich. of Cities’ issue of Built Environment as a The ten-coach trains have capacity for 1,500 counter-example, a railway whose stations passengers, double that of Jubilee Line trains, have been designed as a series of keyhole and will achieve peak frequencies of two or operations. three minutes. Carrying 78,000 passengers per hour, Crossrail will boost London’s rail Background to Crossrail transport capacity by 10 per cent (Mayor of London, 2009, p. 113). London never had a Hauptbahnhof . Its With a cost of £15.9 billion, Europe’s national rail termini are located in a ring largest current contract and the UK’s largest around the central area and passengers walk BUILT ȹȹ ENVIRONMENT ȹȹȹ VOL ȹȹ 37 ȹȹȹ NO ȹȹ 1 89 RAILWAY ȴSTATION ȴMEGA-PROJECTS ȴAND ȴTHE ȴRE-MAKING ȴOF ȴINNER ȴCITIES ȴIN ȴEUROPE Figure 1. ȲCrossrail – the route in its regional se Ĵ ing. ( Source : Courtesy of CLRL) or transfer to underground, bus or taxi to (Mayor of London, 2004, p. 115). Steeply their Q nal destinations. Plans to extend rail rising passenger numbers and overcrowding services through the heart of the metropolis encouraged the Department for Transport have been on drawing boards since at least to revive the project in 2003. To promote it, 1948 and the bene Q ts identi Q ed in successive the Strategic Rail Authority and Transport strategies for the London region (Bolden for London formed a partnership under and Harman, 2008). In the 1980s new tracks the name of Cross London Rail Links Ltd were laid through the derelict Snow Hill (CLRL). Thanks to the work done ten years tunnel in the City of London, linking the previously CLRL rapidly brought the design terminals of King’s Cross and Blackfriars to a su Ĝ cient level of detail to prepare an and opening the way for Thameslink (1988), Environmental Statement and submit it to the 225 km north–south connection between Parliament as the London Crossrail Bill in Bedford and Brighton via central London February 2005. As a ‘hybrid’ bill – legislation and Gatwick Airport. The Central London of general interest that could signi Q cantly Rail Study of 1989 highlighted the even aě ect the interests of speci Q c individuals or greater need for improved rail connection organizations – it had a special procedure between the west side of London and the allowing objectors to represent their interests emerging employment areas of Docklands through petitions for scrutiny by commi Ĵ ees and the regenerating east (DoT, 1989). So the of the House of Commons and House of government launched the Crossrail project. Lords (HoC, 2005). Four hundred and sixty- A Q rst version was rejected by Parliament in six petitions were received, many withdrawn 1994 but the concept continued to reappear aĞ er negotiation, 205 heard by the Commons in spatial strategies for London and the Select Commi Ĵ ee and forty- Q ve by the Lords metropolitan region. The London Plan of Select Commi Ĵ ee. This process of legislative 2004 stated that an infrastructure linking scrutiny lasted three and a half years and West End, City and Docklands into a ‘virtual resulted in several modi Q cations, including uni Q ed economic and business core’ was changes in the strategy for tunnelling and essential for London’s global business success spoil removal, and a revised ventilation 90 BUILT ȹȹ ENVIRONMENT ȹȹȹ VOL ȹȹ 37 ȹȹȹ NO ȹȹ 8 MEGAPROJECT ȴAS ȴKEYHOLE ȴSURGERY: ȴLONDON ȴCROSSRAIL system requiring fewer sha Ğ s. The bill and private sector parties, including Heath- received Royal Assent in July 2008. row owner BAA, businesses based in the Through all this time the design team had City of London, Canary Wharf Group and continued, with government support, to Berkeley Homes (£3.5bn). The corporate prepare the way for construction. Work was leadership group London First, headed by inaugurated at Canary Wharf in May 2009 Lady Jo Valentine, lobbied strenuously to by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the dispel business doubts (figure 2) and keep the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. By now project on track. In July 2010, the Transport the financial services sector was in crisis, Minister Theresa Villiers declared that the putting in question the optimistic financial- government still supported Crossrail as ‘high sector growth projections on which Crossrail value for money’. It was duly confirmed in was based. In a context of deep spending the Comprehensive Spending Review of cuts after the 2010 election, rumours October 2010, and the main station designs abounded that the megaproject would be were unveiled with a fanfare by Mayor Boris scaled down or mothballed. The Mayor of Johnson the following month. London vowed to stage a Stalingrad defence on its behalf (Crerar, 2010). Fortunately its The Design Philosophy funding model was broadly-based: half the Department for Transport’s contribution of Decision-making for Crossrail was framed £5bn had been spent up-front in the design around two basic considerations: on the posi- and parliamentary approval process, and tive side, the agglomeration bene Q ts of en- the balance would come from Transport for hanced productivity for the London economy, London (£2.7bn from fare revenues); Network particularly its Q nancial services cluster; on Rail (£2.3bn); the Mayor and Greater London the negative, the environmental costs of Authority (£3.5bn through supplementary noise, vibration, dust, ground se Ĵ lement, business rates and levies on new develop- tra Ĝ c disruption, and ‘impacts on townscape, ment); the European Investment Bank (£1bn); landscape, visual amenity, heritage and Figure 2. ȲPrivate Eye , 4 September 2009. ( Source : Reproduced by kind permission of Private Eye / P. Dredge and P. Rigg) BUILT ȹȹ ENVIRONMENT ȹȹȹ VOL ȹȹ 37 ȹȹȹ NO ȹȹ 1 91 RAILWAY ȴSTATION ȴMEGA-PROJECTS ȴAND ȴTHE ȴRE-MAKING ȴOF ȴINNER ȴCITIES ȴIN ȴEUROPE archaeology’ (HMG, 2007). Assessing these eě ects to be mitigated for the sake of a wide impacts for an ancient, complex city such economic good. Demands of local impact- as London was a monumental task: the mitigation discouraged consideration of Crossrail Act documentation included an new stations as nodes with positive place- Environmental Statement running to nine making potential. The tabulation of costs volumes, nine additional ES documents and bene Q ts set out in the UK Government’s to cover amendments to the scheme, and oĜ cial Overview of the Case for Crossrail and its a further nine Non-Technical Summaries. Environmental Impacts (HMG, 2007) (table 1) Thanks to the Hybrid Bill procedure, the covered the transformative impact of stations project took shape in a calculus which on their se Ĵ ings in one word – ‘regeneration’. required particular and localized