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WLB (PDF file) Business group dreams of £2bn robot subway link to Brentford.
The plan is the brainchild of West London Business (WLB), a sub-regional Chamber of Commerce representing the business interests of more than 20,000 companies across the Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham. They claim the new route will potentially save west London from gridlock, economic stagnation and decay, and could be open in just 20 years.
Running between Surbiton and Brent Cross, the proposed West London Orbital would feature driver-less trains and pick up passengers every three minutes from mini underground stations at rush hour.
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Comments
All,
this is one hell of a reason not to develop anything just yet at Surbiton Station carpark.
It has been rumoured that SW Trains have teamed up with a property developer, and are hoping to build hundreds of apartments on the station car park site.
Surely, a stop must be made on developing anything on the carpark site until RBK / Boris / Govt have had time to consider this scheme properly.
Even if this particular scheme is ultimately rejected, by developing on the station site, we would forever lose any other opportunity to get a properly integrated tube and rail service here.
The station car park is of such strategic importance that any plans to use it for just more housing is just plain crazy. And that's without considering the current crisis in providing enough primary school places.
RBK should also push for the scheme to be extended to Tolworth.
Courtesy of Tesco's stupidity and greed, there’s now a very large redundant site that could be used for a terminus, or even a park and ride.
I hope,for once, that all parties at RBK will quit their petty squabbles and get behind this one.
Put your energy into pushing this scheme for the good of all borough residents and forget petty squabbles about renaming carparks.
A bit more vision is required.
Boris should come onside with this as well.
Not only does the scheme reduce congestion, it gives him the opportunity to redress the East /Inner London bias of Ken’s investments. It would be a nice thank you to the voters of the burbs who got him into power.
I agree, this would be a great scheme for the whole of West London, and especially for Surbiton as it is cut off from Tube or Crossrail.
As mentioned in the report, the current transport system assumes that everyone from Surbiton commutes into central London from Monday to Friday, and have no transport requirements at all on the weekend (hence the constant weekend engineering works!)
I went to Wembley Stadium last week, and it took 2.5 hours to get back to Surbiton. Admittedly, one hour of this was due to the appalling transport infrastructure that has been 'designed' around the new Wembley that involves everyone piling onto the Met/Jubilee line at Wembley Park. Ignoring this, it is still a disgrace that it takes over an hour to travel the 12 miles from Wembley to Surbiton. This line would solve both of these problems, by providing another route out of Wembley, as well as one in to Surbiton.
Ideally, this should be the start of an 'outer-London Ring' that would allow residents of Surbiton easy access to work in commercial centres like Croydon and Harrow, which at the moment would involve several changes to different trains trams and buses.
The only possible downside to this may be further increases in house prices relative to other areas. Prices in Surbiton have remained relatively restrained due to one options transport opportunities.
At last,someone with vision that can see the logic of connecting Surbiton to the North via crossrail.At the same time extending the District Line from Wimbledon,overland to Surbiton would complete the picture and ensure this area will prosper despite the appalling road infrastructure.
Without an inner M25 or more bridges crossing the Thames from Kingston westwards this whole Western Hemisphere wil seize up.
The only problem is planning issues and finance,scrap the £20 bn Olympic Games fiasco and get on with something useful and lasting.
South East London needs more transport investment than South West. At least Surbiton has lots of bus services and an excellent, fast service into central London. There are a lot worse off places than here!
True, but Surbiton is very much a 'one trick pony' when it comes to transport. The train service is great. There are plenty of buses, but most of these only go to local places, and the traffic makes it difficult to get too far on them.
Another method of getting to other parts of central London would be excellent for Surbiton.
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