London’s economy in 2012 depended heavily on the city’s transport infrastructure.

  Transport improvements changed perceptions about London’s boundaries. Shortened journey times to and from central London allowed populations in outlying suburbs to access jobs, services and leisure activities in the city’s ‘core activity zone’. 

   The challenge remained to find affordable ways to increase air, rail, road and underground capacity without damaging neighbourhoods and destroying natural habitats.

   Delayed decisions, funding problems and construction also seemed to be a thing of the past. The High Speed One rail link to London was built 13 years after the Anglo-French Channel Tunnel was opened. Crossrail - an east-west London rail link - only began construction after decades of delay. Crossrail 2 - a north-south London rail link - also appeared on the political agenda in 2012.

  Notably, the Olympic Games and Arsenal Football Club’s Emirates stadiums were built relatively quickly compared to England’s impressive but much-delayed national Wembley Stadium.  

London’s Heathrow Airport to the west of the city typified the traditional piecemeal approach taken to transport improvements.

  The airport underwent ad hoc improvements since its first major expansion in the 1950s. Queen Elizabeth II opened Terminal 5 in March 2008 – complete with a Piccadilly Line underground extension. Heathrow in  2012 handled 14.5 million passengers but many insisted Heathrow was ‘not fit for purpose’ as London’s premier international airport.

  In 2010 the coalition government ruled out adding a third runway at Heathrow and additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted airports. Residents and environmentalists had strongly opposed new runway plans. But a third runway came back strongly on the political agenda in the second half of 2012.

Thames Hub

In 2012, the government announced it would also formally consult people on “a sustainable framework for UK aviation”. A proposal for a ‘Thames Hub’ – a new international airport and high-speed rail terminal in the Thames Estuary, east of London – also featured strongly.

  Advocates claimed a £50 billion Thames Hub could be powered by electricity generated by a second Thames Barrier that could be built nearby. A passenger rail line would link to High Speed 1. A new freight rail line would link the hub to the new London Gateway port.

   The freight line would avoid central London by tracking the orbital M25 motorway route. But, controversially, this would involve building on legally protected ‘Green Belt’ land.

High speed

The government already said High Speed 2 – a ‘Y’-shaped network linking London with other UK cities – would be built with services operating by 2026. But, just like extra airport capacity, controversy already raged over HS2’s cost benefits and environmental impacts. (See RAIL).

  New railway lines - Crossrail and Thameslink - also offered Londoners hope that their morning commutes would be shorter, more efficient and less congested.

  Upgrades to London’s underground signalling and rolling stock - and extensions to the Docklands Light Railway -  began to deliver long-awaited relief to passengers enduring peak-hour commutes. These measures proved critically beneficial to the smooth running of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Dreaded M25

Despite political wrangling and funding uncertainty, London had benefited enormously from infrastructure improvements: the Docklands Light Railway, the London Overground network, Jubilee Line Extension, City Airport, express trains to Heathrow, high speed Eurostar links to continental Europe, greater use of the Thames as a passenger waterway and even improvements to the dreaded orbital M25 motorway. It was hard to imagine how London would function without them.

  But the demands on London’s infrastructure remained never-ending as the city constantly grew and changed n

© LONDON INTELLIGENCE All Rights Reserved 2012

Right: London’s natural piece of infrastructure, the River Thames. Barges moored in the Pool of London between Tower Bridge and London Bridge overlooked by the Tower of London and the Gherkin