Elizabeth line was it worth it?

[cactustwirly]

The Elizabeth Line is great, I'll give you that.

But was £18.8bn worth it when you consider what else could be done for that massive sum? I think it's highly questionable. You could have several regional tram networks for that, benefitting far more people.

You could probably also have done the EL itself for much cheaper if it looked more like a Tube line and less like a vanity project. It's gold plated beyond a railway enthusiast's wildest dreams.

Did you ever take the Central line during the rush hour?
How can you even say that a regional tram line would benefit more people? That's completely ridiculous.

Do you have any evidence that a tube line would have been significantly cheaper? I'm not convinced, slightly cheaper yes but significantly less benefits than a full size line.

 

[Xavi]

Yes, £18.8bn is insignificant capital expenditure given the 2009-2022 construction period and our capital city has a world-class addition with a 120-year design life.

 

[Vespa]

I do think it's worth it for the fact it's quick, very frequent, air conditioned and spacious with good connections.

Not been to Bond Street yet, I will certainly be looking at that during the last weekend of November.

 

[stuu]

I was at Canary Wharf this evening. There was some minor disruption so the next train was 8 minutes away when I got to the platform. By the time it turned up the platform was rammed. Yet everyone who wanted to got on the train, and through central London dwells were quicker than normal despite platforms being very busy.

Its a definite yes from me

 

[AM9]

Did you ever take the Central line during the rush hour?
How can you even say that a regional tram line would benefit more people? That's completely ridiculous.

Do you have any evidence that a tube line would have been significantly cheaper? I'm not convinced, slightly cheaper yes but significantly less benefits than a full size line.

Maybe those asking the question should ask a London resident or employer if it was worth £18.8bn, or failing being able to ask one, ask any UK citizen if the Lizzy was worth £5.64bn.

 

[dk1]

Absolutely worth it.

 

[Bald Rick]

Given that 60m passengers have used it in the first 6 months, I’d say it was…

 

[Hadders]

And it opens up development opportunities - just look at the building work near the western part of the line.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Maybe those asking the question should ask a London resident or employer if it was worth £18.8bn, or failing being able to ask one, ask any UK citizen if the Lizzy was worth £5.64bn.

I'm a London resident and in my opinion the Elizabeth Line is well worth £18.8 billion of London's financial resources. As for the supplementary contribution from general taxation, much of which also came from London, the nation's Capital city is not less worthy than elsewhere of occasional public munificence.

 

[Thirteen]

The fact it's on course to break even next year shows it has surpassed all expectations.

 

[JonathanH]

The fact it's on course to break even next year shows it has surpassed all expectations.

Break even operationally is one thing - doesn't sound like surpassing expections. Recouping the construction cost quite different.

 

[Bald Rick]

The fact it's on course to break even next year shows it has surpassed all expectations.

Not really, AIUI take up has happened a little quicker than expected, but that is fairly common, especially for projects that run late.

 

[AM9]

Break even operationally is one thing - doesn't sound like surpassing expections. Recouping the construction cost quite different.

The construction costs are spread out over the life of the infrastructure, - nominally 120 years.

The rolling stock will probably have at least the life of the previous GE metro stock (class 315) which has lasted 42 years so no quibbles that it displaced stock with much of a useful life in it. The western side stock (class 165) has been redeployed. Clearly the capacity of the class 345s is necessary as demonstrated by the post COVID-19 loadings.

Operation of the line has an overhead cost which has broken even after less than 6 months.

 

[ainsworth74]

The reality is that we need both Crossrail (and now probably Crossrail 2) and the regional tram networks. It cannot (or more accurately shouldn't) be an either/or. London needs the huge investment in it's public transport that it gets but the regions outside of London and the immediate South East also need significant investment in their public transport networks.

So was Crossrail worth it? Absolutely.

 

[cle]

Was Brunel worth it, 3 months after the GWML opened? Are we grumbling about that cost? Get some perspective - it's barely begun. We have all of a week of through running, Sunday and Bond St... OOC and HS2 will come along, air and rail travel will recover further, etc etc...

 

[gmaguire]

For me it’s a solid alternate route when Southeastern are on strike. Certainly much better than squeezing on to the noisy Jubilee line.

 

[davews]

Was the Elizabeth line worth the cost - obviously from its huge success it definitely was. Is it useful to me, marginal. Not living in London and always arriving at Waterloo (or Richmond/Clapham Junction) I am finding very few times when it can be used for my round London journeys and the few times I have used it it meant a significant diversion to get to it. It does very little for us from the Bracknell area. But maybe it is a silly question, I would not be able to use the Manchester trams but that is not to say those weren't a good investment.

 

[Class800]

It's certainly opened up opportunities for those in Woolwich

 

[Xavi]

Anyone who questions the value of £18.3bn (over a 13-year construction period) for a magnificent 120-year asset may want to consider how it compares to the other £1,000 bn spent by government every year.

 

[Nottingham59]

Was the £18bn Elizabeth Line worth it?

Well, only in part. They could have delivered the same East-West connectivity across the capital for much less than they actually spent. The most avoidable error was probably the decision to switch between different automatic signalling systems on the move, which seems to have cost approximately two years and several billion pounds in cost over-runs.

And when you look at the whole scheme, it's quite unbalanced. It provided much needed extra capacity across Zone 2, with two tunnels to the East of London, but these will only ever run at 12 tph each, rather than the 24 tph they could carry.

And not enough extra capacity to the West, which has led to a great lost opportunity with 12 tph having to reverse at Paddington.

 

[py_megapixel]

a magnificent 120-year asset

You're acting as if it's going to last 120 years without further substantial expenditure. That's obviously not the case. The rolling stock will need replacing at least once, maybe twice during that time; the control/signalling electronics will presumably become obsolete at some point and also need replacing and so on.

 

[stuu]

Well, only in part. They could have delivered the same East-West connectivity across the capital for much less than they actually spent. The most avoidable error was probably the decision to switch between different automatic signalling systems on the move, which seems to have cost approximately two years and several billion pounds in cost over-runs.

No it didn't. They were still building the stations and fitting out the tunnels this year. The signalling systems may have taken more resources than a simpler system, but there wasn't any significant delay between physical work finishing and opening to passengers

 

[AM9]

You're acting as if it's going to last 120 years without further substantial expenditure. That's obviously not the case. The rolling stock will need replacing at least once, maybe twice during that time; the control/signalling electronics will presumably become obsolete at some point and also need replacing and so on.

Any transport investment be it train, tram, bus etc., has vehicles with a shorter life than the infrastructure that it runs on. So if the equivalent is spent on E-W lines or similar, tram tracks through for various cities/towns outside the south-east, even busways, the vehicles that run on those wuill also need renewal more than opnce within 120 years of their opening so that is irrelevant in this discussion. As I said in post #13 above:

"The rolling stock will probably have at least the life of the previous GE metro stock (class 315) which has lasted 42 years so no quibbles that it displaced stock with much of a useful life in it. The western side stock (class 165) has been redeployed. Clearly the capacity of the class 345s is necessary as demonstrated by the post COVID-19 loadings."​

Bear in mind that most trains deployed in the London metropolitan area are worked hard, indeed, far harder than rolling stock used in other metropolitan areas in the UK. Yet it is still expected to remain in use for 35-40 years.

 

[JonathanH]

And not enough extra capacity to the West, which has led to a great lost opportunity with 12 tph having to reverse at Paddington.

There isn't a great lost opportunity on the west side - this view seems to come only from viewing a map. Each train carries 1500 people at crush load. Once the 12tph go to Old Oak Common to reverse and HS2 is operational, it will all seem sensible that the trains didn't get projected further west.

 

[Nottingham59]

There isn't a great lost opportunity on the west side - this view seems to come only from viewing a map. Each train carries 1500 people at crush load. Once the 12tph go to Old Oak Common to reverse and HS2 is operational, it will all seem sensible that the trains didn't get projected further west.

hmm. 400m HS2 trains will each have 1100 seats with no standing pax and there will only be 17 per hour. So 18700 max. Given that folks heading for central London can get off at Euston, I'd expect fewer than 9000 in the peak hour at Old Oak Common. The majority of those will be heading North, West, or South, with I guess fewer than 3-4000 heading East. That's three train loads per hour.

 

[MattRat]

Honestly, compared to high speed rail in this country, Crossrail seems like a bargain, and we should really get something like it up North. The commuter distances are actually more similar than you'd think, at least for Manchester.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Its only taken us 40 years to catch up with modern European cities but it was worth the wait. Last week I got on at Stratford at 1530ish going eastbound and it came in rammed like an old rush hour train service wasn't purtubated either and more people got on than off and took till Ilford before a seat became available. Hopefully its the same on the west side.

A lot of the negativity came from quite frankly unforgivable poor behaviour from the original Crossrail Ltd construction executive team who were rewarded bonuses for failure basically and that let the likes of the Standard and other anti public works media entities to run negative stories about it. Fortunately whilst im not HS2 biggest fan at least in the wider context investing in rail infrastructure now has cross party consensus that it is beneficial.

 

[JonathanH]

The majority of those will be heading North, West, or South, with I guess fewer than 3-4000 heading East. That's three train loads per hour

Yes, so haven't you countered your own point - ie that 12tph terminating at Paddington is appropriate.

 

[6Gman]

Break even operationally is one thing - doesn't sound like surpassing expections. Recouping the construction cost quite different.

With a 120+ year life the construction costs will be inflated away.

 

[Nottingham59]

Yes, so haven't you countered your own point - ie that 12tph terminating at Paddington is appropriate.

Not at all. My point is that 12tph terminating at Paddingtion represents unused capacity; and would still be excessive even if/when all 12 are extended to OOC.

(12tph would have been more appropriate if HS2 had terminated at OOC, which would then require 6-9tph on Elizabeth Line to accommodate the HS2 traffic into central London. This would also have saved £2bn rebuilding Euston, and £1.6bn digging two 8km tunnels between OOC and Euston. These tunnels will only ever carry 10,000 passengers an hour each way, compared to 36,000 that can be carried on the Elizabeth. But that's a discussion for another thread.)