A few more West Hampstead Interchange details

In recent months plans have emerged to improve the interchange at West Hampstead in conjunction with the upgrading of the Thameslink station that will be done for the Thameslink Programme.

The various parties actually held a meeting last October but minutes have only just been made available, with lots of new details. The proposals are:

Thameslink Station – a new entrance on Iverson Road and new footbridge to west where platforms are wider to allow lifts. Existing entrance would remain open for people to/from the north. This will reduce pressure on West End Lane (WEL) pinch point.
NLL station – saw off front with a modest development to south at the same scale as current buildings.
West End Lane (WEL) – Make carriageway a uniform 7 metres all the way through and improve the public realm (footways on the west side) and crossings. Fully signalled junction with pedestrian crossing at WEL/Blackburn Road and widened footway between there and to beyond the NLL station would be provided.

The new crossing provides access to the tube station, which will remain on the other side of West End Lane. I've made a quick mockup of the changes in Google Maps. One victim of the scheme - and likely source of contention - is the trees between Iverson Road and the Thameslink station, because at least some of which will need to be removed to make way for the new entrance.

West Hampstead Interchange: It's back

Following a tip-off from reader THC that First Capital Connect are reviving the West Hampstead Interchange plans, I've spent the last couple of weeks bugging First Capital Connect's press office, and today they came through with some details:

• West Hampstead station will be rebuilt with lifts, a new entrance, ticket gates and cycle parking. I'd think the entrance will be further south.
• The pavement on the west side of West End Lane will be widened and the road crossing to the Jubilee Line will be improved.
• The North London Line station will get a "modified entrance" and lifts.
• There will be two "associated mixed use developments" to pay for it, which they also say will "improve the public realm".

The timescale given is 2011. In the mean time, they plan platform canopy renewals, extra information screens and and canopies over the ticket machines (and one extra) during this year.

This is far less ambitious then the previous plans, which were championed by Chiltern Railways, and potentially included a rebuilt tube station with Chiltern and Metropolitan Line platforms, relocating the NLL and Thameslink stations to the east side of the road, and an off-street interchange bridge between them.

February Board Papers: Miscellaneous notes

I've already posted separately about ELL Phase 2, the Southern franchise takeover and Shepherd's Bush Overground but there are a lot of other things worth noting:

• Another follow-on order for new London Overground Electrostars is planned for this month.
• Roll out of Oyster PAYG to the whole London rail network is still pencilled in for next January.
• The renaming of Shepherd's Bush (H&C) to Shepherd's Bush Market will happen when Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) reopens, not when Wood Lane opens (which may be earlier) as previously announced. There's likely only weeks in it.
• The King's Cross St Pancras tmporary tunnel is known as the 'Hockey stick'.
• Royal assent for the Crossrail Bill is expected by the end of July. A Lords committee will consider petitions from 19 Feb until mid May.
• Purchase time at tube ticket machines is down to "0.28 minutes".
• The East London Line officially ceased to be a London Underground line on 22 January, when they finished clearing their things and handed it over to contractors.
• Replacement signalling (and ultimately Automatic Train Operation) is due on the Jubilee and Northern Lines by December 2009 and September 2011 respectively, with the first part of the Jubilee commissioned this October.
• A tender for new Piccadilly Line trains has just been issued.
• The first S-Stock train is due for delivery for testing in January 2009.
• The first new DLR train was delivered on 22 December. The whole first 'Woolwich Arsenal' batch is due in service by September, with a follow-on 'Olympic' batch coming next.
• They're still deciding how to progress the Cross River Tram scheme.
• They're pressing on with Greenwich Waterfront Transit and East London Transit, and are due to start October 2009 and July 2011 respectively,

You can read more in the board papers PDF.

How Green Park works

"What on earth is this horrendous tunnel for?" you sigh to yourself, as you once again make the mistake of changing between lines at Green Park. In an effort to figure out exactly how bad interchange here is, I've done a few laps of the station and come up with this diagram.

It turns out interchange between the Jubilee and Victoria is perfectly reasonable, but anything involving the Piccadilly Line sends you down one of the long tunnels. Changing between the Victoria and the Piccadilly you can avoid a long walk by going up to the ticket hall and back. But between the Jubilee and the Piccadilly a long walk is inevitable and you should avoid journeys that need it (unless you need to use lifts, because then it's the only interchange you can do here). The Jubilee Line is also long trek from the street.

A few notes: I used the Green Park drawing from here as a starting point, so while the Piccadilly and Victoria lines are likely to be accurate the Jubilee Line location is pure guesswork. The parallel grey lines are escalators, the stripey bits are stairs and the black squares are lifts. If it isn't obvious, all escalators go down in the direction away from the ticket hall.

The Millennium Busway

The latest Smoke has a write-up of London's only subaquatic bus route, the 108 (Stratford-North Greenwich-Lewisham), and by my reckoning one of very few that pass the same point 3 times during their run. Anyway, the article briefly mentions the Millennium Busway, built to speed passengers from Charlton station to the Dome. Having no recollection of what this engineering marvel amounts to and finding little online, I decided to take a look while I was in East London yesterday.

The answer: not much. Here it is on a map. Very nearly three quarters of a mile of, well, bus lane, stretching all the way from North Greenwich station to North Greenwich Odeon.

The northern half runs adjacent to one of the Dome's gridlocked access roads and has no stops - the only building it passes is this isolated pub with a terrace of houses behind it.

The southern half runs around the back of Greenwich Millennium Village (where there are two lonely stops), then terminates at a junction with Bugsby's Way (pictured). Buses cross from here into the retail park with that Millennium eco-Sainsbury's. Then it's out onto normal streets.

Under the "Millennium Transit" plans it was intended that buses on the route would be guided electronically, following a buried cable, but the technology was abandoned before public service commenced, partly because of safety concerns. The busway is now used by ordinary buses to get passengers to North Greenwich station slightly quicker, but one day will be part of Greenwich Waterfront Transit, and far in the future that could be converted to trams, finally fulfilling the busway's destiny.