Unlocking Herne Hill and the Kent route to the City
From London Reconnections, 9 November 2012 by Lemmo
The extensive RUS process has already yielded a long shopping list of potential projects, including some big ticket items such as Crossrail 2. We are more likely, however, to see a package of more modest investments in CP5 (Control Period 5, 2014-2019) which will pave the way for more ambitious projects in CP6.
Following the government’s recent High Level Output Statement (HLOS), the “rail industry” will need to prioritise the key problem areas around the London network that need to be resolved in order to release capacity, and to identify where infrastructure can be better used.
This analysis will be challenging, because resolving one problem tends to push the stress down the line to the next pinch-point. An integrated assessment needs to look at the network as a whole rather than looking at each area in isolation, and analyse alternate portfolios of investments in order to define which package has greatest merit. Here we explore one key bottleneck: at Herne Hill, where the Wimbledon-Blackfriars route crosses the busy Kent Mainline on the flat. Read more...