An updated version of this article was published on the Croydon Citizen - Is the Dingwall Road loop a loopy idea? - on 05/11/15.
TFL are planning to put in additional tram track in Central Croydon. The proposal is to install new track along Dingwall Road and Lansdowne Road. Some trams running from East Croydon towards the town centre would instead turn right into Dingwall Road and then left into Lansdowne Road. They would then turn left again to join the existing tram track along Wellesley Road and travel back up to East Croydon. There would be a new platform installed near Emerald House in Lansdowne Road.
The estimated cost of this construction is £27 million, of this £15 million would come from the Westfield and Hammerson redevelopment of the Whitgift Shopping Centre.
A public consultation is taking place between 18 May and 28 June 2015.
TfL staff involved in the project will be at Croydon Central Library to discuss the scheme and answer questions on Wednesday 10 June between 3pm and 7pm and on Saturday 20 June between 1pm and 5pm.
Assuming the consultation is successful, construction is expected to take at least two years between spring 2017 and the middle of 2019.
There is opposition to the plans and a petition has been set up here -
I have tried to summarise the objections below:
The loop is being proposed to increase the carrying capacity of the tram system. But surely it will only increase capacity between East Croydon and Wellesley Road - I don’t see how it will provide more capacity on the tram system as whole? An alternative proposal is to run more trams either by ‘bunching up’ or coupling two trams together. Bunching up would involve running two trams close together, so that they could share the same green light phase at the traffic lights, and thereby more trams could be run on the existing track. It does need to be considered how safe this would be if the first tram had to stop suddenly for some reason? Coupling two trams together is a solution often used in Cologne and the trams currently being used in Croydon are capable of this, but it would require the building of longer platforms.
The position of the new stop has been chosen to provide access to the Whitgift Centre development, Lansdowne Walk and East Croydon train station - although if you wanted to go to the station presumably you would simply get off at the existing stop at East Croydon... ?
There would be some disruption to the bus network as buses that currently go east along Lansdowne Road would need to be re-routed.
The new loop is supposed to help minimise disruption in the event that the existing town centre loop became impassable. At the moment, any incident on the town centre track means that passengers have to walk between East Croydon and Reeves Corner and it is difficult to see how the new loop would make any difference to this.
As part of TFLs strategy for 2030 they are also proposing the construction of another new loop on the west side of the town centre at Reeves Corner - so far, no details are available on this. The proposals would mean that there would be two loops on either side of the town centre. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the focus of the new work is simply to deposit people in Croydon. The movement of passengers through the town centre or to areas not currently served by the network has not been addressed.
Comments
Post a Comment