One is still on the cards as part of a wider West London orbital route.
"Planning", yes, but there seems to be no money, and the new ideas about OOC being the HS2 terminus for many years don't seem to have made the Overground stations any more likely.
The Old Oak Common Lane site has potential. It could have independent platforms for NLL, Dudding Hill (WLO), even WLL. It's not a crazy distance from the HS2/GWR/EL concourse, with fairly level pavement likely alongside the station access road following the EL Depot boundary fence. Maybe 200 - 300m. Perhaps they could put a canopy roof over it.
The redevelopment a few years back did improve the connection a bit, but you share the access road onto the South Circular with any cars/lorries that are using it. Originally, the development plan from Lewisham council did propose a central ticket office building in between the two stations, to be shared by both, but that got dropped in later iterations. Widening the plaza outside Sainsbury’s over the Ravensbourne to provide easier pedestrian access from Catford Bridge side entrance towards Catford would be a possibility, but there’s not much you could do beyond that without major reconstruction.
Wonderful for rail users. Crap for local bus services and residents. Expect opposition from the local MP, one Sir Keir Starmer.Do yo mean just Pancras Road, or as far as the junction? Any tunnel would need to be quite deep because of the larger vehicles that pass through the area, and you couldn't sink a tunnel anywhere near Euston Road, for obvious reasons
But yes; if you could pedestrianise the whole area between the two stations (or at least as far north as Battle Bridge Place, with pedestrian priority and only taxi access to/from the south) it would link them better above ground as well as below.
Indeed it might, but my idea was in part keeping the station to station bridge inside the barrier line which increases the sense of safety as you are not walking out on to unfamiliar streets. Hackney Downs to Central is an excellent example of this.
This would not work for taxis, which need separate drop off and pick up ranks at both stations.Do yo mean just Pancras Road, or as far as the junction? Any tunnel would need to be quite deep because of the larger vehicles that pass through the area, and you couldn't sink a tunnel anywhere near Euston Road, for obvious reasons
But yes; if you could pedestrianise the whole area between the two stations (or at least as far north as Battle Bridge Place, with pedestrian priority and only taxi access to/from the south) it would link them better above ground as well as below.
I'm not convinced there are overwhelming benefits containing a long walkway between combined station facilities behind a barrier line. A good well-signposted walkway between separate station entrances can be 99% as good and actually might feel more secure to customers with visibility by other locals in the area rather than a long winding passageway at a quiet time that might not be being monitored as closely as it should.
Between Euston and St Pancras/Kings Cross, significant pedestrian improvements have been proposed by TfL along Phoenix Rd - Brill Place, connecting directly with a new east side entrance at Euston. This would have facilities constructed on and platform access via the redundant parcels deck.
This. Accepting that '99%' may be hyperbole, it seems to me that signing and so on will cost some thousands of pounds and get most of the benefits of a separate bridge/subway/whatever that would cost some hundreds of thousands of pounds. So the signing would be much better value for money.
I suppose there are some streetside inter-station links that are beyond hope in terms of making them feel hospitable and safe, where no amount of signage and lighting is going to convince people that secluded alleyway is a viable way to interchange or indeed stay alive and well, but I suspect these are in a fairly small minority in reality. Ebbsfleet-Northfleet is an example where adequate walking provision has been actively resisted by one of the station operators for years in fear of their customers' posh cars being damaged, because of course criminals intent on stealing cars or doing damage to them are known to absolutely never arrive in their own motor vehicle (or someone else's, previously nicked!). A covered direct walkway bridge could reduce the connecting distance significantly and remove all at grade traffic conflictions and dodgy alleyway elements. It would likely not be behind the gate-line, but would be a dramatic improvement if developers, who still haven't started any constructions in the immediate vicinity, would remove their objections about being 'overlooked' by the bridge that has been proposed in the past.
While we're there we could connect Upper Tyndrum and Tyndrum Lower with a short funicular.
What - as well as the railway between them?
Not a risk to security, but an annoying nuisance. Not the best welcome to the city for any visitors who might be heading for Northern Line destinations. Yes there is a rail link, but usually more hassle than it's worth.
A few years back, most of the Nottingham-Lincoln trains used to reverse into and out of Newark Northgate for ECML connections. However the advent of the more frequent LNER Lincoln-KingsCross service has largely made that manoeuvre redundant and the time saved by not doing so is considered to be more important
As London Northwestern's stopped calling at Wembley Central (except I think for the current few weeks due to Watford DC / Bakerloo engineering works) I'm not sure how likely that is that all services passing through calling there is, although of course having the HS2 interchange at OOC doesn't make it directly comparable. I don't think there's enough demand around OOC for it to have all bar one trains per hour there calling as Stratford does, but a majority of services (eg all Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes terminators and one or two long-distance services) at least.
But most people that know it dont bother with the pedestrian tunnel, level access out the west side of Kings Cross, cross the road and straight into St Pancras or vica-versa. If you are loaded with luggage much easier. I notice that there tends to be a lot of luggage trolleys from the other station at both places. If in a hurry 5 minutes will do it.
Moving the station from Central to Lime Street would have been worse for access to the city centre, though. So a lot of cost for not a huge amount of benefit, given the arrangement utilised the existing underground station at Central.
It’ll depend what the post-HS2 WCML timetable looks like as much as anything. If everything is semi-fast at best out of London then it makes sense to stop everything, but otherwise it won’t make much sense. Realistically you wouldn’t use HS2 if you were heading to anywhere north of Tring, you’d use a legacy WCML service from Birmingham.
The EL station for Liverpool Street is basically a moorgate EL at the same time
In reality Kings Cross and St Pancras ARE integrated, with one low speed road running between them. 99% of people just cross the road, especially as there's a large public area between the stations next to the pedestrian crossing.
You do also need to watch out now for speeding cyclists coming down Kings Boulevard, as well as taxis and cars on Pancras Road. Not too bad when crossing STP->KGX but you can get a crick in your neck checking when you cross the other way!
If you were linking them you could probably incorporate Barbican too.
