From the archive: London's moving

‘London’s Moving’ took a look at all the projects that were in the pipeline in 2006, some under construction, some completed and some still a twinkle in the TfL Commissioner’s eye. The catalogue makes instructive reading for students of the behaviour of Boris Johnson and those who are wondering which of the capital’s future transport projects he will support and those he will bin.

It also gives us an optimistic view of the delivery of infrastructure for a growing city; particularly Crossrail which was going to cost £10 billion to build with a delivery date of 2017. Now its the cost will be nearer £18 billion and delivery, if we’re lucky, will be 2021.

The London Overground was due to be completed in 2007 - this delivered a huge boost to London’s orbital transport links and supported new development in areas like Dalston, Rotherhithe and Peckham. The DLR was being extended from King George V to Woolwich Arsenal. Itopened dead on time at the beginning of 2009.

A further extension to Stratford Internationalwas completed in 2011 for the Olympics. The NLA exhibition claimed that a £250 million eastward extension of the DLR from Gallions Reach to Dagenham Dock would see a new station at Barking Riverside. However, this was one of the first projects Boris Johnson cancelled when he became Mayor in 2008. In 2017, however, Sadiq Khan announced that Barking Riverside would be served by an extension to the Overground Line which is expected to open at the end of 2021.

One of Ken Livingstone’s pet projects was not so lucky. The £650 million Cross River Tram was to be a ‘world-class’ service between Euston and Waterloo, with branches to Camden Town and King's Cross in the north and Brixton and Peckham in the south. The tram would attract 7,000 passengers an hour at peak periods, relieving the overcrowded tube network, and was due to open in 2016. Boris dumped that one too in 2008.

The West London Tram didn’t fare any better. It was planned for the A4020 between Shepherds Bush and Uxbridge Town Centre. This was postponed indefinitely by TfL in August 2007 after local opposition from residents and from Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham Councils. Ken also had a plan for trams serving Oxford Street where buses would have terminated at Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road.Sadly, it never got off the ground.

The NLA exhibition illustrated a planning application for the £400 million restoration of King's Cross, with the 1972 concourse, shopping area and ticket office replaced by a lattice steel and glass semi-circular concourse structure designed by John MacAslan. This striking design was delivered in 2012.

King's Cross's lattice steel and glass concourse by John McAslan

Also shown were the refurbishment plans for St Pancras International stationwhich opened on schedule in November 2009 to great critical acclaim. Next door a £1 billion revamp for Euston Station was on the cards, partly financed by a massive mixed-use redevelopment above the station. No mention of HS2 back then.

Computer-generated images showed Cannon Street station, the first of a series of National Rail station redevelopments in London to be funded by “overhead" development. CannonPlace - in effect a huge bridge across the tracks developed in partnership with developer Hines and designed by Foggo Associates - was completed in 2011.

The show announced that London Underground was being refurbished and upgraded under a 30-year Public-Private Partnership. PPPs were a key plank of Blair Government policy. A deal was signed in 2002 to deliver £16 billion of investment. However, costs skyrocketed between 2003 and 2007, and LUL had to step in and take over thePPPsin 2010.

As part of the new mixed-use development at White City, £170 million was to be contributed by the developer in transport infrastructure improvements to cater for the anticipated surge of visitors to the area. A major new transport interchange at the south-east corner of the development called the Southern Interchange, would include a new Hammersmith & City line station, a remodelled Central line station at Shepherd's Bush, a new West London Railway station, two double bus stops, cycle routes and a taxi stand. This opened in 2008.

The NLA research stated that “London's central congestion charging zone will be extended westwards as far as Kensington in February 2007”. Other plans under consideration include higher charges of up to £25 for vehicles that create higher CO2 emissions.Trials of "tag and beacon" technology, under which transponders in the street communicate with smart cards in the vehicle and charge the vehicle owner automatically, are underway. This could facilitate a London-wide road charging scheme in the future.” The next year Boris Johnson dumped the western extension and over a decade later we are little closer delivering a road charging system.

Under a proposal being worked up for the "museum mile" in Kensington, traffic lights, railings and other street furniture were to be removed from Exhibition Road. The shared space concept, “which is already well established elsewhere in the Netherlands, encourages drivers to behave more responsibly and therefore arguably improves road safety as well as creating a more aesthetically pleasing streetscape”. The scheme was delivered in 2011 although there have been murmurings from RBKC that they want to amend it.

A scheme for Sloane Square featured in the exhibition, where the existing one way roundabout would be reconfigured into a two way crossroads to create two large piazzas one either side was not so lucky and was unceremoniously dumped after lobbying by powerful local residents.

Although not a cyclist himself Ken Livingstone supported the 900km London Cycling Network+. It was hoped the £147 million project would play a major role in meeting Ken Livingstone's aim of a 200 per cent increase in London cycling by 2020. The exhibition did not include anything on the Bikeshare scheme that was then under consideration. Livingstone didn’t manage to get the scheme out of the gates, but Johnson did, thus earning them the sobriquet of Boris Bikes.

The real tragi-comedy is that of London’s river crossings. Ken proposed a new one from Silvertown to the Greenwich Peninsula to ease traffic congestion in the Blackwall Tunnel. Boris binned that one in 2008. The Mayor also proposed a £400 million road bridge to connected Beckton and Thamesmead. Boris cancelled the bridge too, although the crossing has been revived by Sadiq Khan as a twin-bore tunnel which starts on site this year and will be completed in 2025. The road bridge looks as though that will be replaced by an extension of the Overground Line.

In 2006 we commented that after half a century of underinvestment in transport in London it was heartening to see so much happening. Policies were pointing in the right direction, we said - what is missing is the financial support of central Government for major projects which are not only good for London but are essential to the national economy. We wait to see what Boris Johnson as Prime Minister will decide to do about projects like Crossrail 2 and the Bakerloo Line Extension.