THE LIVERPOOL GAPS MAP

Following an idea from here:

London Connections

Here is a map displaying catchment circles and gaps in Merseyside's Merseyrail system. The catchment circles are of 600m and 1000m radius.

Note the close spacing of stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead city centres and large areas around Liverpool city centre which have no station. Is this where planners perceive the distance into town is too short to warrant a train journey? Note also the various agglomerations of closely located stations with overlapping catchments.

Merseyrail is a perplexing beast. Neither true metro, nor true suburban network, somewhere in between. In the centre it displays characteristics of any classical metro system, with frequent train spacings; further out it is a suburban/provincial commuter railway like any other. Its stock is electric, but of a regular type 508 found all over Britain's provincial and suburban railways.

Particularly, the neglect of inner city Liverpool in its catchment rather rules out its usefulness as a metro to a large extent. Particularly this bias toward the outer extremities means it might best be compared to the RER routes in France or the S-bahn systems in Germany and elsewhere.

What could make Merseyrail a true metro?

1. Lighter rolling stock. I don't mean lower capacity but a 'light rail' rolling stock, say like DLR, with faster acceleration and braking. would give a different image to the network and define it as separate.

2. More lines. There is potential to reopen sections of tunnel and surface line in Liverpool. Around the inner city this could provide a more metro-type service.

3. More stations. As the gaps map shows, there are plenty of spots that might benefit from a station.

4. Segregation. Various sections of Merseyrail currently use shared track and overlap with mainline services.  The distinction needs to be made.

5. Autonomy. Complete autonomy of operation and ticketing, under the control of Merseyside Council.

GREEN BELTS UNDER THREAT - WHAT TO DO?

'Green belts' seemed to be a good idea, to prevent the inexorable outward sprawl of our cities, particularly the so-called 'ribbon' developments that began in the '30s. In the UK, with our propensity for low-density, low-rise housing, our already very sprawling cities would have been even more flacid. We may have the greenbelt policy to thank that we still have countryside within easy reach of our cities.

However the very idea of the greenbelt is not seen as all that expedient any more, since we have a need for many thousands of new homes, according to government figures. Many areas of greenbelt are being designated as essentially 'up for grabs', around London, Nottingham, West Midlands and northern cities.

Read about it here:
http://www.cpre.org.uk/campaigns/pla...-cpre-is-doing

This is not good news. We cherish our green and pleasant land, or what is left of it. General concensus is that vast sprawling suburbs do not make such wonderful places to live anyway. So couldn't our cities absorb the extra housing need and grow 'from within'? Well the government is saying that even if we do use all the 'brownfield' sites in our cities we would still not have enough room for the needed housing.

New long distance transport schemes are not going to help the situation either. London's Crossrail, for instance will make Maidenhead and Shenfield relatively more attractive to live in than Wandsworth or Homerton. Ironically outlying suburbs and domitories will have better transport than many parts of inner city London, a stone's throw from the commercial centres, especially south London as we all know. Should our transport policy not be contributing to encouraging the 're-habitation' of our inner cities and discouraging the 'flight to the suburbs' as started in the early decades of the 20th century?

Suburban Leeds: this is what city-living currently means for most English. An unsustainable dream?

Schemes such as extending the tube lines south of the river (but not too far out), reopening some of the closed inner city stations, such as have been discussed on other threads (York Road, South Kentish Town among them); or capitalising on some of the existing lines that have low station densities (the JLE for example) could all make the inner city more accessible and attractive to residents. Why live in Camberwell when you can get to work quicker from Maidenhead? Maidenhead is currently experiencing a building boom in anticipation of this. Camberwell, to my knowledge, is not. Something our new subterranean stations need not do is take up surface space. New stations at Shepherd's Bush, Canada Water, Bermondsey and Wood Lane wantonly waste their 'air-rights' on fairly unnecessary station buildings. Land that could be used for residential dwellings.

Another aspect of the problem is that England has never had much of a civic culture. I say England, not the UK, because it can be argued that Scotland has. With some exceptions our cities have been founded on rapid industrialisation, with an ungainly mass urbanisation of a predominantly rural people who were fond of their privacy. The English are best at relating to the village, not so much the city. The village is somewhere to live, the city somewhere to work. And our settlements reflect that. Extensive village-like residential suburbs surround compact, self-conscious city centres. We have some truly wonderful villages in England, and some truly appalling cities. The 'we don't do cities' problem is a paradox. The more reluctant we are to engage in the urban, the more unpleasant our cities become, which fuels an exodus, which feeds back to greater neglect. Large villages do not great cities make. If we take the example of Paris, the RER (Crossrail equivalent) was intended precisely to allow Paris to grow. It achieved this, but it never led to a depopulation of Paris, because it's just a nice place to live. Such a scenario in London is harder to imagine.

Many recent attempts at urban residential spaces have been ungainly, crippled by the privacy expedient, retiring just before becoming truly part of the urban fabric, behind some 'semi-private space', a hedge, wall, a cul-de-sac or some pastiche pastoral architecture that just doesn't wash, conscious of the unpleasant side of 1960s high-density development and keen to avoid any association. Our suburbs were the attempt to reconstruct the village in the town, and our inner city developments have attempted to reconstruct the suburb in the city centre. 

Nottingham terrace houses: high-density housing (compared to a country lane)

Our aristocracy is one of the sectors of our class-ridden (yes, it is) society that is different. Perhaps spoiled by magnificent country retreats, perhaps just wealthy enough to obtain any comfort, their approach to city life is rather different, and some of the more salubrious areas of west London reflect this. Here, London meets Paris, Vienna and St. Petersburg on their own terms. But the elegant Victorian pied-a-terre is the legacy of the bourgeois flanneur, not the mainstay of the proletariat. To the aristocracy, as with most things, the normal rules do not apply. At the other extreme is the low-income council tenant. Shoved onto cheap, avant-garde or just downright experimental estates after slum clearances and nazi bombs, theirs have become amongst the most detested housing schemes in all our history. The two experiences are utterly different, the one too often used to discredit the other.


Things have been changing. Richard Rogers coined the term 'densification' way back, as the new expedient for urban planning. New schemes tend to be more mature, oftentimes contributing contextually to the urban space. Principles such as building up to the pavement, continuing frontages, shared gardens, underground parking and decent heights (4, 5, 6 storey) make for a truly urban residential environment, as has been commonplace on the continent for a long time, where the idea of the city is much more naturally accepted. Even our provincial towns are following suit, with Manchester leading the way in mill and warehouse conversions. Such schemes remain popular with 30-somethings, singles and childless couples. They have yet to wholly win over the core unit of society, the middle-income family.

Modern mid-rise apartment building in Manchester: it meets the pavement, continues the street frontage, is on a human scale and has fairly attractive design. It contributes to the urban space and houses lots of people...

Compare some approximate population densities of cities abroad and in England:

Manhattan 27,500/km2
L.A. (city) 3,200/km2
Paris 25,000/km2 (including bois de boulogne and bois de vincennes)
Barcelona 16,500/km2
Stockholm 4,400/km2
Brussels 6,700/km2
Athens 7,600/km2
Naples 8,200/km2
Berlin 3,850/km2
Moscow 9,700/km2
Melbourne 1,600/km2 

Greater London 4,800/km2
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea 13,000/km2 (highest in UK)
Borough of Brent 6,300/km2
City of Westminster 11,000/km2
City of Nottingham 3,700/km2
City Borough of Salford 2,200/km2
Metropolitan Borough of Manchester 3,800/km2
Bristol 3,600/km2
Newcastle on Tyne 2,400/km2
Liverpool (Borough & City) 4,200/km2

What is clear is that many of our cities have densities that hover a little over that of L.A. - i.e. not dense at all. The most densely inhabited piece of Gt. Britain is Kensington and Chelsea which is approaching comparison with some of the denser world cities, such as Paris and Manhattan, although these in turn will have neighbourhoods of even greater density. The 11th arrondissement of Paris, for example, achieves a staggering 41,600/km2. Melbourne seems downright negligent by comparison but the Australians do enjoy the one luxury we can't afford - space!

A typical Parisian street: high density and high desirability

What is the point of all this? Well, that we do have legroom. Our cities are not overcrowded. Anyone who tells you otherwise needs to spend less time in Chipping Sodbury and more time in Chicago. But how can we roll up acres of old low-rise and start again at higher densities? It doesn't seem that simple, especially since mostly these properties are privately-owned and the owners are quite happy. What is worth keeping and what isn't will have us divided. The horror estates can disappear and not be missed but some streets, no matter how derelict, will accrue sentimental value amongst their residents and they will be kicking and screaming to keep them. Such is the case in Salford, where decaying terraces are the subject of a rescue-or-raze debate, even though the type is extremely common, and was never wonderful in its prime. Add to this an element of suspicion. Quite understandably really, since the last time someone came along promising a bright new future all they got were monstrous windswept tower blocks. With the lessons of the 60s learned, however, we are hopefully ready to come up with decent solutions. Let us not swing the pendulum back the other way and replace these mistakes with suburbanised versions of the same thing. We can avoid the mistakes of the past, build on the successes and not have to produce schemes that pretend to be what they are not.

Amsterdam's Scheepstimmermanstraat: mid-rise, quasi-organic, probably more appealing to the English palate...

It needs to be organic. The conditions have to be right. i.e. for your roses to grow big and tall you need to water them regularly, leave them against a sunny south facing wall, in fertile compost, sheltered from breeze, give them a dose of horse manure every winter, and trim off the dead heads.

...and a similar idea in Copenhagen.

The equivalent in building terms is going to be: service provision (schools, hospitals, roads, play space for the kids, integrated off-street parking etc.); transport - it has to be feasible to get to work quickly; economic incentives (we can't cripple people with council tax and water rates), and some sort of tax exemption for improving/making best use of a site; great architecture (makes great places to live - let's throw open competitions); law (a last resort - but to make sure opportunities are not wasted, eg. in Salford (population density lower than Los Angeles!), derelict terraces should be bulldozed, not restored; place a moratorium on 'suburban' style development in inner cities. Simply, we have to make our cities so darn appealing to live in that people will literally be climbing over themselves to live in them.

And how to avoid that perennial bugbear in urban design, bland uniformity? In Amsterdam, the architect Adriaan Geuze demonstrated a promising principle with Scheepstimmermanstraat. He divided the street into 60 plots and then allowed (admittedly well-heeled) residents to design their own homes. The only constraints were the dimensions. If you can allow complete freedom within certain rigid boundaries the overall effect - harmony with diversity creates an engaging, pleasant urban space. How to extrapolate that principle over a large scale and with a lower budget? Well, you just have to set the parameters, and give various portions of a brief to different contractors to interpret, and insist on an architect being involved - the same one who submitted the brief for approval in the first place! A modicum of good taste in the planning departments would be no bad thing either.

The final, and perhaps greatest hurdle is the British people themselves, and particularly the middle-income family who traditionally inhabit the semis and terraces of suburbia and dormitory towns and whose aspiration is nothing more (nothing less) than a two-floor house with a private garden. Currently they are badly let down. Our new housing stock is the pokiest in Europe and prices are overinflated by the shortage of available land, itself partly a product of greenbelt policy. In these conditions construction quality is poor and builders are only employing architects as a last resort. Anything sells! The same applies to new city centre apartments.


Until this changes convincing them that an urban lifestyle can fulfill their aspirations will be hard. Ironically, it may be tearing up the green belt rules and ending the 'land shortage' which will do it, leading to lower house prices, greater competition among builders, and an increase in both size and quality, in both city and suburb. But balancing that with the pressure to sprawl outwards is going to be a challenge. The suburban aspiration is pretty much hard-wired.

Approximately 1.7m new Londoners are expected to arrive in the coming years, many from abroad. It may be these immigrants who lead the way in our urban renaissance, with a greater cultural appreciation of the city life. They may even teach us that  final goal - civic pride - for people to love their city as much as the Parisians do, and want to live there, rather than continue the inexorable chain of exodus, new development and exodus again. We will know we have achieved this when the Maidenheads stagnate and the Camberwells boom.

CITY HALL FINALLY CALLS IN THE SPANIARDS

Well, someone did hear my prayers. The London Assembly has finally eaten humble pie and admitted it needs help. They also followed some of my advice and went to the Managing Director of Madrid Metro. Just the man. Read about it here.

The problem is the Jubilee line closures which have been plaguing weekend services for months. Need new glasses - go to Specsavers; chipped windscreen - ask Autoglass. Subway not working - ask a Spaniard. They really do know...

NEW "CITY LINE" PROPOSAL

The City Line would be a new line created by joining two existing ones: the Waterloo & City line and the Northern City Line; and one closed line - the Great Northern section between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace.


The idea is not new. In 1913, the Metropolitan Railway (MR) purchased the GN&CR (Great Northern and City Railway) and revived a plan to extend the Northern City Line southward to a terminus at Lothbury in the City as part of a number of plans to connect the GN&CR to the Waterloo & City Railway (W&CR) and the Metropolitan Railway itself. When the Metropolitan Railway Act, 1913 was passed neither of the proposals for connections were permitted, but Lothbury station was allowed, as the terminus station. In 1914, The MR introduced revised proposals for its connections between the GN&CR and the MR and W&CR which removed the need for a station at Lothbury. Although these connections were never made, the Lothbury station idea was not revived again.

In the 1930s London Underground unveiled an ambitious scheme of new projects called the New Works Programme. Amongst several new routes was an extension to the Northern City Line from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace. The track already existed and operated a steam driven service. The existing line from Moorgate  to Finsbury Park was integrated into the Northern Line and preliminary work began but post-war austerity eventually led to the scheme being scrapped in the 1950s. The track was torn up and the service dropped altogether.

More recently the Green Party has proposed that the Northern City Line be connected to the Waterloo & City line to create a new cross-London heavy rail route, something akin to the Crossrail scheme. The core section of the route would be from Finsbury Park to Clapham Junction via Moorgate, Bank and Waterloo, with a new connection at Blackfriars. Through services could then run from Welwyn Garden City and Hertford North to destinations like Hounslow, Richmond, Shepperton, Kingston and Weybridge. It would retain the aspect of a mainline railway.

 Existing infrastructure for this proposal was clearly evident on 1946 tube maps.

This proposal is to, similarly, link up the two lines as proposed by the Metropolitan Railway, Lothbury station notwithstanding,  and in addition connect to the Great Northern stretch from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace. However, in this instance it would be a  "tube" line, operated by London Underground.  It would certainly be preferrable to expand the bore of the tunnels  to allow larger  than standard profile trains, however the cost of such an undertaking might well rule it out.

Extensions northward and southward are envisaged. In the north, to run from the original terminator tunnels at Finsbury Park (not the surface platforms currently being used) via the old 'Northern Heights' route (which is mostly in cutting and unobstructed), through rebuilt station sites at Stroud Green and Crouch End, interchange at Highgate, before plunging into tunnel under Queens Wood to a new underground station at Muswell Hill and on to Alexandra Palace for interchange with National Rail.

The southward section from  Waterloo would require a substantial new tunnel via Battersea, Clapham Junction, Wandsworth and Roehampton, all areas never reached by the Underground before. New stations could be incorporated on the existing stretches, at the South bank/Tate Modern and at New North Road.

View City Line (Waterloo & City - Northern City Line integration) in a larger map

The scheme does of course require alternative routing for mainline services from Hertfordshire currently terminating at Moorgate. The surface platforms at Finsbury Park would still be usable and Kings Cross or St. Pancras would seem to be the logical alternative.

What this proposal would give would be a very useful link through the City of London, connecting many 'new' neighbourhoods screaming for tube services, such as  Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Battersea, Wandsworth, Roehampton University, with the added bonus of serving entertainment venues on the South Bank, Battersea Power Station and the new Arsenal football stadium.

Of the 25 envisaged stations, interchange would be achieved at:


- Alexandra Palace (National Rail)
- Highgate (Northern Line)
- Finsbury Park (Piccadilly, Victoria, National Rail)
- Highbury & Islington (Victoria, Overground)
- Old Street (Northern)
- Moorgate (Circle, H&C, Metropolitan, Northern)
- Bank (Central, DLR, Northern)
- Waterloo (Jubilee, Northern, Bakerloo, National Rail)
- Vauxhall (Victoria, National Rail)
- Battersea Park (National Rail)
- Clapham Junction (Overground, National Rail)
- East Putney (District)

Development phases are envisaged thus:

1. Tunneling of new link between Moorgate and Bank, incorporating new N-S aligned Bank platforms.
2. Tunnel widening, Waterloo-Bank.
3. Platform lengthening, Waterloo.
4. Exit tunnel from Finsbury Park northbound onto the disused Northern Heights route.
5. Construction of stations: Stroud Green, Crouch End, New North road, South Bank/Tate Modern
6. Rerouting mainline trains from NCL to Kings Cross/St. Pancras.
7. City Line opens, Highgate high level - Waterloo.
8. Northbound tunnel to Muswell Hill and Alexandra Palace.
9. South west extension to Roehampton via Battersea.

And if it all looks too expensive, I would ask this guy how to do it...

ADDENDUM: this scheme currently extending the Northern Line to Battersea would conflict with this plan. Appetite for another line through this part of Battersea is likely to be very low. The Northern Line plan does miss an opportunity however, in stopping the line at BPS. A relatively simple extension of the line a couple of stops west would carry it to Clapham Junction. Experience shows that short and simple extensions of this type are rarely carried out afterwards and of course, cost far more to do in two phases.

THE CASE FOR YORK ROAD

If you have ever taken the Piccadilly Line north from King's Cross you may have noticed the lengthy interval before you arrive at the next station (Caledonian Road). It's almost a mile and a half. A similar distance on the parallel Northern Line (Mornington Crescent branch) has two intermediate stations. Leaving such a gap in inner London seems like an odd planning decision. But it was not always thus.

York Road is a disused station on London Underground's Piccadilly Line. It opened in 1906 but never saw a high volume of traffic. Eventually Sunday services were withdrawn and it closed completely in 1932. The station catchment suffered due to being on the edge of a large area of goods depots and marshalling yards behind King's Cross station with no habitation and little commuter traffic. This despite being about 1km from the adjacent stations on the line (King's Cross and Caledonian Road) and on the edge of central London.

How York Road appeared on the Tube Map in the 1920s.

To the east of the station is the run-down residential neighbourhood of West Barnsbury, in the Borough of Islington. This neighbourhood is an excellent example of an area that fails to thrive precisely because of poor transport links. It would benefit greatly in prestige and development by having a local tube station.

York Road station on the Piccadilly Line. Closed since 1932, current evidence suggests it would now be very useful.

The case for reopening the station has not previously been strong. That is until the King's Cross Railway Lands Development scheme was announced (now called King's Cross Central). This scheme involves the mixed-use development of 65 acres of land to the north of King's Cross station - precisely the area of depots that have been the vacuum in York Road's catchment until now. This should bring thousands of new jobs and residents to the area. Preliminary work has begun.

A 1930s map of the area, showing the location of Maiden Lane station (1) and York Road (2)

The reopening of York Road and also the construction of a new York Way station on the North London Line (London Oveground) close to the site of the former Maiden Lane station a little way to the north, have already been suggested by concerned parties (see map) though both Islington and Camden councils would seem to be in favour of the latter option.

View Larger Map

As is clear from the map, the York Road station is ideally placed for the northernmost part of the King's Cross central development (bound by Wharf Road). Pedestrian distances from the nodal centre of the site are far shorter than walking to King's Cross (250m as opposed to 808m). A viability study performed by London Underground found the station would attract about 3.2m passenger journeys/year.

However on a cost:benefit analysis the idea was rejected for two reasons:

1. Inconvenience of longer journey times for the 38.4m through journeys/year

2. Station refurbishment would be too expensive

Let us investigate the evidence for this:

1. The extra station would add around 30 seconds to through journeys in standing time and deceleration/acceleration. Multiplied by 38.4m this is a total time loss of 320,000 hours/year.

Now, analysing the mean walking distances of passengers on the northern sector of Kings Cross central we see that the absence of York Road means average additional walking distances of 558m to reach the next nearest station (King's Cross St. Pancras) instead (808m-250m). At a walking speed of 4.5 km/h this is a 7.4 minute walk. Let us take this as the average additional distance for all passengers on our notional York Road station. Extrapolated over 3.2m passengers this represents a loss of 395,000 hours/year - 75,000 hours more than the delay to through passengers.

Furthermore if we compare the station usage of adjacent stations:

Kings X/St Pancras 66.36m/year on 6 lines
York Road (projected) 3.2m/year on 1 line
Caledonian Road (actual) 5.33m/year on 1 line
Holloway Road (actual) 7.49m/year on 1 line
Arsenal 2.73m/year on 1 line
Finsbury Park 24.8m/year on 2 lines

* Tube entry and exit statistics 2007

what is clear is that York Road, although not on the scale of King's Cross or Finsbury Park would have a passenger traffic comparable to the next three stations on the line, and indeed greater than Arsenal station. In fact it would have passenger figures higher than 17 other stations that uniquely serve the Piccadilly Line. By London Underground's logic shouldn't they be all closed down?

2. York Road is a station already constructed. Lift shafts, ticket office etc. exist already. The station would need major refurbishment and new platforms, but minor structural works. London Underground has the money to rebuild Shepherd's Bush (£65m) and Camden Town (£135m), compared to which the refit of York Road would be pocket change (LUL estimates for reopening South Kentish Town are £12m). King's Cross Central is a multi-billion pound development and the developers ought to be able to contribute. Reopening York Road would be in their interests. Long-term, running costs of the station would be no more than any other small Piccadilly line station though York Road would generate more revenue than many.

The reasoning against reopening the station appears to be very weak.

The advantages would be:

• Convenience to King's Cross Central development
• Relief of congestion at King's Cross
• Revitalisation of a forgotten corner of Islington, very close to central London.

The alternative

The alternative proposal - to construct a York Way North London Line Overground Station near the site of the former station called Maiden Lane, has the backing of Islington and Camden councils. Being around 350m metres apart there would be no practical interchange component if the two stations were open. Whilst on its own Maiden Lane would undoubtedly be advantageous, it suffers compared to York Road on six counts:

1. It is further from the King's Cross Central development
2. It is further from the unserved catchment of West Barnsbury
3. It is located in an industrial area with low passenger demand
4. Services on the North London Line are oriented East-West and are not convenient for services to or via central London
5. Lower train frequencies

The other alternative

There is a further, more costly option. That is to leave York Road abandoned, and York Way/Maiden Lane forgotten, and instead create a new interchange station between the NLL and Piccadilly Lines. This would be somewhere towards the back of Bunning Way, alongside the Eurostar Tracks out of St Pancras. As it currently stands station access to this site would be poor and would require major works. Further, the station would impact the viability of Caledonian Road & Barnsbury Station, 400m along the line to the east. The interchange component of such a station would be extremely useful however.

TRANSPORT SOLUTIONS FOR CAMDEN TOWN - The good, the bad and the costly

Camden's market area in north London is immensely popular. At weekends upwards of 100,000 shoppers and tourists congregate on its 3 major market sites to search for clothes, jewellery and brik-a-brak. The majority of them arrive at Camden Town station.

The station is important also as a major interchange between the two branches of the Northern Line (Edgware-Kennington and High Barnet-Morden). Despite mixed train routing on the two branches passengers frequently have to change at Camden to reach their destination. This leads to significantly more congestion across its four platforms than would otherwise be the case. Added to this, Camden Town itself is a well-populated area close to central London.

These three factors make it one of the busiest stations on the network and mean that at some periods on weekends access to the 101 year-old station is limited to set-down only, so as to avoid dangerously congesting the platforms. i.e. during these periods no-one may enter the station. This is obviously inconvenient for shoppers wishing to return home as well as locals wishing to make regular journeys. Through passengers, transfer passengers and those arriving are not disrupted.

Camden's agglomeration of street and alternative markets attract enormous crowds, especially at weekends.

London Underground project a 20% increase over the next 20 years. Furthermore, in the near future the line will be defnitively split into two routes, further increasing the demand for interchange at the station. London Underground quite rightly wishes to remedy the situation so that Camden Town can meet the demands placed on it. They hired Ove Arup to design an entirely new Camden Town station, from the bottom up.

At an estimated cost of £135m (these things always overrun), the design requires the demolition of a whole city block, including certain local landmarks of sentimental significance. Among them, the listed Electric Ballroom, one of London's oldest nightclubs; Buck Street market, one of the smaller markets in Camden; and a church. The resulting plan would incorporate new accommodations for the Electric Ballroom and the church as well as commercial office space and would take seven years to construct but significant opposition from residents and Camden Borough Council has led to over 16 versions of these plans being rejected over the last few years. Currently plans are at an impasse, with no adequate solution to satisfy both London Underground's needs below ground and local interests above ground. Allegedly, however, in 2007 the government declared that the Electric Ballroom is a dilapidated building, which could swing the tide in the favour of LU's ambitions.

The proposed £135m overhaul of Camden Town would look like this. Demolition of a whole city block has led to enormous local opposition.

A cursory glance at the plans reveals many of the hallmarks of modern LU station planning.  I hesitate to mention words like waste and vanity, in what is merely a rebuild. Including commercial development is undoubtedly part of the business model and it is not clear what long-term income TfL might extract from its tenants. Whilst Ove Arup are an extremely well thought of company, their inclusion may be what the bosses of Madrid Metro warn precisely against in metro construction. Prestige architecture is a luxury that the taxpayer cannot afford and requires cost-cutting in other more essential areas, such as reaching neighbourhoods where there is no service at all. Lottie gets new ballet shoes while Tom and Charlie go barefoot. At £135m it's an expensive enlargement.

There are currently three other stations in the vicinity of Camden's markets other than Camden Town: Chalk Farm, on the Northern Line Edgware branch, Kentish Town West (KTW) and Camden Road, both on the Overground North London Line. (see map)

View Larger Map

For the sake of simplified analysis let us take the junction of Camden High Street and Castlehaven Road as the nodal centre of the principal market area of Camden Town. The station resources relative to this point are as follows:

1. Camden Town 350m (all destinations on Northern Line, central and south London)
   
2. Chalk Farm 600m (Edgware branch destinations only)
   
3. Camden Road 600m (East London destinations only)
   
4. KTW 715m. (West London destinations only)
   

Factoring in the route connections of each station tilts the bias towards Camden Town for passenger uptake. Furthermore, train frequencies on 3. and 4. are typically only 4tph, as opposed to Northern Line frequencies around 20tph/branch. N.b. Northern Line frequencies are projected to increase to over 30tph once the line is split in two.). Chalk Farm can serve central and south London but requires counter-intuitive strategy on the part of the passenger as it is:

a) almost twice as far to walk as Camden Town
b) in the opposite direction to central/south London
c) has half as many train services as Camden Town
d) may require a change at Camden Town anyway

Even without detailed statistical data it can be seen that stations 2, 3 and 4 cannot significantly reduce passenger demand for Camden Town station. The same conclusion has been reached by London Underground and Camden Borough Council. Doing nothing is not an option. But with the redevelopment plans on the buffers, are there any other alternatives? Here I shall briefly put forward some new scenarios.

Option 1 - Rebuild Camden Town station in a different place.

Pros:

• The existing station could operate mostly unimpeded whilst works progress.
• Sensitive conservation sites and landmarks need not be disturbed as in the current plans, or at worse, less sensitive ones demolished.
• New ticket halls and escalators can be excavated directly under the street.
• Would be cheaper than the current scheme
• All the capacity and facility improvements of the Ove Arup scheme would be achieved, albeit in a slightly different place
  

Cons:

• Some more serious excavation would be required to bore the four tunnels to platform gauge on the existing route
• Tube traffic disruption during tunnel boring
  
• Serious traffic disruption on Camden High Street
• The new station would necessarily be marginally further away from Camden markets
• Would probably still take 3-4 years

Guesstimated congestion relief at Camden Town - 0% (but all the capacity to contain it)

Option 2 - Build a new Overground station next to Camden Market

Two railway lines pass very close to Camden Market. One is the North London Line, with stations already at Camden Road and Kentish Town West. The other is a link between the NLL and the Watford-Euston Line. This line is not currently an Overground route though maps of the network's future do display it offering through services between the two lines. Station construction on this stretch would be relatively straightforward and inexpensive as there is plenty of elbow room around the site. The main problem with this idea would be the need to rethink Overground routings and the issue of train frequency (which currently stands at 4tph on the NLL).

To be viable the station would have to offer through services between Willesden Green (or even Watford) and Stratford thus allowing useful interchange at Dalston (ELL), Highbury and Islington (Victoria) and Queen's Park (Bakerloo), as well as the termini; and increased train frequencies to say 8tph. It would replace the function of Camden Road and KTW relative to this site.

Pros:

• Relatively cheap, quick and easy construction (18 months?)
• On the site of the markets themselves
• No local heritage damaged
• If option 3 were to be pursued in tandem this could become an important Underground/Overground interchange

Cons:

• Would require adaptation of LO's long-term strategy to be viable.
• London Overground does not yet have the image of "convenience" that would attract passengers in the same way that an Underground station would. That may change.
• Interchange on LO is limited and the east-west axis of the line would not necessarily be conducive for journeys to or through central London.

N.B. There is also space to locate a station directly on the NLL, thus not impacting Overground routings. Once again  train frequency would have to improve and the station itself would be marginally further from the markets. In effect, this would be a replacement for Camden Road station which would likely become unviable.

Guesstimated congestion relief at Camden Town - 0-15% (dependent on routings and frequencies)


Option 3 - Refit Camden Town to a basic level and provide extra capacity in a new station nearby.

A "Camden Market" underground station halfway up Chalk Farm Road (see map), close to the nodal centre of the markets would attract significant shopper traffic away from Camden Town (and also Chalk Farm). Being at only 150m from the nodal point, the station would undoubtedly attract the majority of passengers from south, central London and the Edgware branch wishing to visit the market. Camden Town would be left to cope with predominantly High Barnet traffic, regular local catchment and transfer passengers - well within its capacity.

How big would Camden Market station have to be? Well, on a rough assumption, around 50-75% of all market traffic would alight here. Once the Northern Line's running is definitively split passengers on the High Barnet-Morden branch would still use Camden Town as changing to the Edgware branch for one station would be inefficient. However since most journeys will not originate on the Northern Line, many passengers would be expected to reroute their journeys to interchange onto the Edgware-Kennington line at Euston, Tottenham Court Road and Embankment, etc. Add to this the residential catchment but remember it would not have the interchange problems that Camden Town does. It would likely have to be no significantly bigger than any of the other Edgware branch stations e.g. Chalk Farm, although weekend demand spikes would be very marked, so wider platforms would be an asset.

As to construction sites, this proposal is in the vicinity of Camden's stable market. This large site still contains semi-permanent structures and could feasibly be excavated for construction of an Underground station, without major planning issues. Some local protest would undoubtedly be stirred because of disruption during works, but upon completion the market could return to normality, barring one or two well-located station entrances.

Try to see this as an enlargement of Camden Town with an extra pair of platforms up the road.

Pros:

• Minimal disruption to Camden Town station during works and all buildings remain.
  
• Could be done relatively quickly (2-3 years, as opposed to seven at Camden Town)
  
• Free up capacity at Camden Town by removing a large proportion of market traffic
• In effect, an enlargement of Camden Town with extra platforms
  
• Improved general catchment on the line hence increased fare revenues
• As a single line station it would be far cheaper than rebuilding Camden Town interchange
• More convenient access for market shoppers
• Easy planning due to semi-permanent structures in the vicinity
  

Cons:

• Slight increase in journey times on the Edgware branch
• Extra operating costs of a new station
• Some disruption to traffic on Chalk Farm Road and possibly demolitions during works.
• Disruption to stable market could stir some protest
  
• Not useful to High Barnet branch passengers

Guesstimated congestion relief at Camden Town - 20-50%

Option 4 - Reopen South Kentish Town Station

South Kentish Town station lies about 600m north of Camden Town up the Kentish Town road. It was one of the original stations on High Barnet branch of the Northern Line. It closed during a strike in 1924 but was never reopened as passenger demand was never very high. The station structures remain in place and the station building is now a commercial outlet. The walking distance from the nodal point is 570m. It would therefore be the second closest station to the market area, but still generally less convenient than Camden Town (depending on which side of the markets you are on).

It could be expected to divert a major chunk of northbound High Barnet branch passengers even if the doors are open at Camden Town. The natural incentive of escaping the crowded area around Camden Town might contribute to this organically. As the sole improvement in the area it would be a great convenience to many more passengers (south and northbound) whilst Camden Town remains set-down only, although obviously not ideal. As in the case of Chalk Farm, the use of the station for south and central London would mostly be counter-intuitive for reasons listed earlier. However, the pedestrian route from Camden Market doglegs and there may be ways to improve passenger access with a more direct right of way, possibly incorporating a subway, and any feasibility study should investigate this.

The great attraction of this scheme is that in Underground terms it would be extremely good value for money. No excavation is required, just a refurbishment. The short timescales involved would make it a "quick fix" solution, if not a comprehensive one.

Leslie Green's original South Kentish Town station. Being less than 600m walk from Camden's principal markets makes it a viable alternative to Camden Town, and extremely good value for money.

Pros:

• Could be done very quickly (18 months?)
• Extra capacity and catchment on the line, hence more fare revenues
• Likely to naturally divert most of High Barnet passenger traffic from Camden Town
• Highly cost effective as the station structure is already in place. It would require minimal structural works and refitting - a small fraction of Camden Town redevelopment (£135m)
• No demolition/controversy required and Camden Town's buildings undisturbed.
  
• With adequate passenger encouragement could remove traffic for central/south London routes away from Camden Town also

Cons:

• Slight increase in journey times on the High Barnet branch
• Extra operating costs of a new station
• Some disruption to traffic on Kentish Town Road during works.
• Not useful to Edgware branch passengers, nor central/south London passengers without adequate encouragement to walk slightly further

Guesstimated congestion relief at Camden Town - 2-10%

Option 5 - Option 3 + Option 4

Creating a new "Camden Market" station on Chalk Farm Road and reopening the disused South Kentish Town Station in combination would add significant station capacity to both the Edgware and High Barnet branches in the Camden market vicinity. This would negate the need for expansion works at Camden Town. A simple refit would suffice. Additionally passenger convenience is increased for the local catchment area by providing journeys closer to origin and destination.

Returning to our nodal point analysis, the station resource list for the Camden Market area in this scenario would then look like this:

1. Camden Market 150m (Northern Line Edgware Branch, central and south London)
2. Camden Town 350m (all destinations on Northern Line, central and south London)
3. South Kentish Town 570m (improved access notwithstanding, Northern Line High Barnet branch)
4. Camden Road 600m (East London destinations only)
5. KTW 715m. (West London destinations only)

A reduction in pedestrian congestion is also likely in the crowded streets as pedestrian journeys would be cut. Most significantly of all, the two station projects in combination would likely cost far less than the £135m Camden Town projection, could be completed within three years and would not cause the upheaval amongst local residents that demolition of such local icons as the Electric Ballroom can cause.

Guesstimated congestion relief at Camden Town - 22-60%

How station and platform layout of these two new stations would appear (Mapping courtesy of carto metro)

SAMPLE ANALYSIS

Taking 30 random stations on the Underground or Overground and planning the most convenient route to visit Camden Markets shows the following changes in station usage. Preferred station currently is listed first, preferred station with the 3 notional stations (Camden Market Underground CMU, Camden Market Overground CMO, South Kentish Town SKT) available is listed second.

ORIGIN Actual Notional

Embankment Camden Town CMU
Roding Valley Camden Road CMO
Upminster Bridge Camden Town CMU
Tooting Bec Camden Town CMU
Ladbroke Grove Camden Town Camden Town
Highgate Camden Town SKT
Surrey Quays Camden Road CMO
Cal. Rd & Barnsbury Camden Road CMO
Arsenal Camden Town Camden Town
Baker St. Camden Town Camden Town
Acton Central Kentish Town West CMO
Hendon Central Chalk Farm CMU
Bank Camden Town Camden Town
Bond St. Camden Town CMU
South Harrow Camden Town Camden Town
Tottenham Hale Camden Road CMO
Fulham Broadway Camden Town CMU
London Bridge Camden Town Camden Town
Canary Wharf Camden Town CMU
Victoria Camden Town CMU
Brixton Camden Town CMU
Shadwell Camden Road CMO
K'ton (Olympia) Kentish Town West CMO
Osterley Camden Town CMU
Hillingdon Camden Town Camden Town
Holborn Camden Town CMU
West Ruisip Camden Town CMU
Clapham Junction Kentish Town West CMO
Lambeth North Camden Town CMU
South Kensington Camden Town CMU
Euston Camden Town CMU
Finsbury Park Camden Town CMO
Covent Garden Camden Town CMU
Southfields Camden Town CMU
Edgware Chalk Farm CMU

In this sample 21 of the journeys (70%) currently terminate at Camden Town. 7 of the Camden Town journeys are unaffected (33%), 12 change to CMU (57%), 1 changes to CMO (5%) and 1 changes to SKT (5%). i.e. the new stations divert 67% of journeys away from Camden Town.

5 journeys (17%) terminate at Camden Road. Of these, all 5 (100%) would prefer CMO.

2 journeys (7%) terminates at Kentish Town West and would also prefer CMO (100%).

2 journeys (7%) terminates at Chalk Farm and would prefer CMU (100%).

CONCLUSION

Camden Town receives the bulk of traffic for Camden Markets. Camden Market Underground station would have the potential to remove around 50% of Market passenger traffic from Camden Town. What proportion of Camden Town's total traffic that would be (including interchange passengers, and normal catchment) is not clear but it is undoubtedly very significant. It would also take traffic away from Chalk Farm, although the volume is less significant there.

South Kentish Town would displace far fewer passengers, but, again a 5-10% reduction may be highly useful considering the modest cost of refurbishing that station.

The case for an Overground station at Camden Market looks weak as it does not displace many journeys from Camden Town in this sampling (just the one from Finsbury Park). It is undoubtedly preferable to Camden Road, or Kentish Town West, however, for Overground journeys.

RECOMMENDATION

Barring laws, bills, acts of parliament, public enquiries, planning permission and of course, the money to do it this might be a good solution to remove 20,000+ passenger journeys to and from Camden Town per weekend, and much cheaper than the reconstruction of Camden Town (£135m):

1. Reopen South Kentish Town for some very cost effective immediate light relief. estimate 18 months, £12m
2. Construct Camden Market Underground Station for a very significant diversion in passengers from Camden Town. estimate 2 years, £30m
3. If necessary refurbish Camden Town with some platform widening works, estimate 2 years, £20m

ON AIR-RIGHTS, FOOTPRINTS AND DENSIFICATION, or How we're running out of space and shouldn't be wasting it

We're running out of space. In 2000 the government told us the UK would be needing 3.8m new homes by 2016 and may have to start tearing up greenbelt policy to meet demand. Our cities simply don't have room to grow any more. Even if every brownfield site were built on, we'd still need heaps of greenfields to meet demand for new single-occupant properties. (Great article about this here.)

Well, that sounds kind of serious, doesn't it? We don't want to ruin our countryside. It's a small, overcrowded country we live in and we want to keep our green and pleasant land, thank you very much. Sounds like something should be done about this. Something that will allow us to keep our gentle suburbs, keep our countryside and provide all these much-needed new homes. "Densification" (to quote Richard Rogers) was the answer. i.e. to pile in higher-densities of occupancy into our towns and cities and in so doing create more viable, efficient and pleasant urban environments. Kind of like Paris...

Abbesses Metro station in Paris. A classic piece of Hector Guimard art nouveau. Like almost all Paris stations, there is no surface building. It's infrastructure that gets out of your way, and feels kinda sexy at the same time...

Paris, for example, does everything London does in half the space, with the same number of people (to quote Ken Livingstone). Which is a good thing in terms of urban viability and countryside protection. Problem's always been, us Brits just love to stretch out. We love our suburbs, our low-rise and our open skies. We're going to need some tough love from our politicians, quangos and planners if we're going to get in line.

The kind of people that politicise, quang and plan our public transport, for example. They ought to know that one of the unique marvels of an underground rail station is that it needn't occupy any surface space at all. All you need is a hole in the ground with a wrought iron awning (a la Hector Guimard), or perhaps an elegant little building, tucked neatly under a bigger one, a la Leslie Green or Harry Bell Measures. They knew all about "air-rights" 100 years ago! The station buildings were constructed with flat roofs and reinforced steel frames with the deliberate aim of selling off that valuable skyward square footage.

Leslie Green's classic Oxford Circus station: classy burnt russett tiles - check!; reinforced steel structure - check!; sufficient contextuality affording a neat contribution to the density of the metropolis and urban viability - check!!!

So what's the current deal? Take a look at London's newer stations on the Jubilee Line. Southwark follows this same principle, but has so far not attracted an air-rights tennant. Points for trying. Further east though, Bermondsey, Canada Water and North Greenwich all have big monumental surface buildings with no prospect of air-rights development. You kind of start to forgive. They seem to look at you, wink and whisper "it were a bit shit round 'ere before we come along like". You nod back and force a smile. Another 150 single mums out in the farmyard...

Station with attitude: Canada Water. It knows it's the most important building around here...

It gets worse though. Out west and as I write this, Harry Bell Measures' dear old Shepherd's Bush station is being replaced with an even bigger monster. The new Central Line station sits like some genetically-modified conservatory that couldn't make it round Holland Park Roundabout on its way to the Chelsea Flower Show. Gone is the human scale of the hole in the pavement as is the pragmatic capitalisation of what is prime central London real estate. It has what planners call a large "footprint". You can't miss it and it ain't gonna get out of your way. Its' a huge glass atrium, has no internal access to the new Overground station next door, is costing around £65m and is totally...empty! "Nul points" Shepherd's Bush.

Artist's impression of the new Shepherd's Bush Central Line station. As you can see, it's space well-used. It contains, erm... nothing.

It looks unlikely that London will ever discover the charms of Hector Guimard's discreet human-scale chic but the contextual pragmatism of the Central and Northern line pioneers may have a future. The proposed Camden Town redevelopment features a steel and glass office building incorporated into the original design. But at a price. So far more than 16 plans have been rejected for the £135m (!), seven year project, mainly on the grounds of conservation as several Camden landmarks would be demolished.

Camden Town's latest proposal (rejected): points for using the space, shame about the landmarks (and the price!). You can't have it all.

What seems clear is that if we are serious about combating the problem of suburban sprawl and "densifying" our inner cities our planners need to reconsider their priorities. Whilst schemes like Crossrail are beneficial in some ways (although vastly expensive), who will want to stay in inner London if it's quicker to commute from the home counties? This is going to require some hefty transport improvements for inner (and especially south) London. Whilst perhaps insignificant in the larger scheme of things, wasted space above underground stations demonstrates how seriously the issue is being taken.

Assuming it can't keep the Electric Ballroom et al intact, the Camden scheme is right about one thing - incorporating its new tenants from the start. That way the space does get used, and presumably London Underground will make a buck or two as the landlords. That's the lesson from Southwark and others. In 108 years no-one ever did build on top of Harry Bell Measures' dear old Shepherd's Bush.