Transport Update

It has been a busy few months for the Transport Sub-Committee with the East London Line Extension at the top of the agenda. But road transport isn't far behind on our list of concerns.

ELL/London Overground
It has not been easy pinning down the facts! What we do know is that there will be 8 x 4-coach trains per hour in both directions, passing through Forest Hill and Honor Oak Park on their way to / from Dalston Junction and Crystal Palace / West Croydon. These trains will be similar to Suburban Rail stock but will have fewer seats so that more passengers can be carried during the Morning and Evening rush hours. The station at Canada Water will become a major interchange for passengers travelling to Canary Wharf. There is also an Interchange with Docklands Light Railway at Shadwell.

We also know that the current East London line will close on 23 December 2007 for rebuilding and upgrading.

But the big issue for us is that we believe that Southern trains to/from London Bridge station will be cut. We do not know by how many, but from conversations with Transport for London and documents available deep inside the Network Rail web site, we believe that the cuts will be by 2 or 3 trains per hour in the morning and evening rush hours as well as all day long.

A lot of lobbying has gone on. Len Duvall, London Assembly Member, Jim Dowd MP and Joan Ruddock MP are all well briefed as the result of much communication from us. At first, we were not certain they believed the facts and figures we were presenting them with. But we were able to prove that all our information came from reliable sources, using the Freedom of Information Act as well as thorough research of available public domain information.

We have also raised public awareness by distributing 2,500 leaflets at Honor Oak Park and Forest Hill stations in the run-up to Christmas, urging people to sign our online petition to Save our Train Service. More than 800 of you signed (thank you!) and we presented the petition to Transport for London at the end of January.

20 Questions for Transport for London

Below is a list of questions submitted by the Forest Hill and Sydenham Societies to Transport for London following a meeting with them on 31st January 2007. We hope that when the answers come they will clarify the situation.

1. What cuts in services to and from London Bridge does the feasibility timetable envisage?

2. Is the feasibility timetable, one that TfL broadly supports?

3. Will the London Bridge to Victoria via FH service continue to run and if so what will be the frequency of this service in each direction?

4. What will be the time of the last train from LB and the last train running on the ELL?

5. Before the East London line closes for construction, what can be done to ensure that all peak hour trains in operation to and from LB are a minimum of 8 carriages long?

6. What can be done in the future to increase the length of trains to and from London Bridge, beyond 8 carriages? What is the minimum timescale that such changes can be made if government investment is forthcoming?

7. What are your estimates of the percentage of passengers who will use the ELL as opposed to LB services in 2011?

8. Taking into account growth in passenger numbers by 2010 plus the additional commuters who will be attracted by the new service, can you be sure that the ELL and LB service will be able to operate without overcrowding?

9. What reduction in demand for London Bridge services through FH do you expect in 2010 during the morning peak period?

10. What reduction in demand for London Bridge services through FH do you expect in 2010 during the evening peak period, both in total and per train?

11. What is the capacity of each new ELL train carriage, including standing and seated?

12. What is the capacity of an 8 carriage train on the existing Southern Service, including standing and seated?

13. Based on the capacity figures above what is the total increase in capacity to services through FH during the morning peak and off-peak?

14. Will there be any through services to Charing Cross from FH (a service currently available in evenings and weekends)?

15. What is the percentage increase in customers from FH travelling to Canary Wharf and Docklands in 2011?

16. What proportion of passengers from FH will experience a faster journey in 2011?

17. What proportion of passengers from FH will experience fewer interchanges in 2011?

18. Given the introduction of zonal fares, introduction of Oyster will a ticket to London Bridge cost the same as a ticket to Paddington? Will this be more than the current cost of a single ticket to London Bridge?

19. Will any fast trains stop at New Cross Gate in 2010 to allow for interchange?

20. When do TfL expect to begin running FH station and when does TfL plan to upgrade the station to tube standards (manned when open and able to accept Oyster Cards)?

Sydenham Society Public Meeting - Wednesday 14th March

THE EAST LONDON RAILWAY HOW WILL THE NEW LINE AFFECT ME?

Peter Field, Director of London Rail Development (the man in charge of ELR) will explain the new line and answer your questions.

Michael Abrahams, Chair of the Forest Hill Society, will be presenting the findings of the Forest Hill Society survey and petition.

Naborhood Centre (next to the post office), Sydenham Road, Wednesday 14th March 7.30pm

Organised by the Sydenham Society & supported by the London Borough of Lewisham.

Area Forum last night, TfL this afternoon

Darien Goodwin, Head of Transport for Lewisham Council, last night told hundreds of people at the area forum that there will be six trains per hour throughout the day going to London Bridge from Forest Hill. Everybody was pleased to hear this reassurance that the services would not be cut to 4 tph at off-peak times (including the evening services from London Bridge to Forest Hill).

Jim Dowd MP gave further information, predicting that the rumours of cuts in the service would be proved to be unfounded when the official consultation is published later in the year.

The news today was less promising. First we got a copy of the letter from Ian Brown (Managing Director or London Rail) to Deputy Mayor, Councillor Heidi Alexander. I will quote a couple of paragraphs:
"This service frequency [the East London Railway] combined with 6 trains per hour to London Bridge will provide passengers with a total of 14 trains per hour between Sydenham and New Cross Gate"

"TfL's analysis of the demand shows that the East London Railway will:

• generate 21% boarding increase in the northbound direction, whilst the most significant growth rate of 31% will be in the southbound direction;

• attract over 55% of passengers currently travelling in a northbound direction will use East London Railway services, compared to 44% using the Southern railway services to London Bridge. In the Southbound direction, 54% of passengers are predicted to use the East London Railway, whilst 46% will use Southern services."

"The level of boarding at Forest Hill station is expected to increase by approximately 27% in the morning peak, with a significant increase of trips to Canary Wharf via Canada Water. Therefore, there will be less congestion at London Bridge station, due to the direct connection on the Jubilee Line at Canada Water station."

Importantly this letter does not claim the 14 trains per hour will continue throughout the day, and current proposals only show 14 tph at peak times, with just 4 tph travelling between London Bridge and Forest Hill at off-peak times (including the evening peak).

TfL analysis suggests that ELR will be preferable for 55% of passenger in Forest Hill. Our own survey suggests that currently only 35% of passengers would benefit from the improved connections with the Jubilee Line, while the remaining 65% of passengers need to use the connections at London Bridge. While it is inevitable that there will be more passengers travelling to Canary Wharf and other areas of growth in East London, these growth predictions are quite remarkable considering new office space is still being built, and is still popular, in the centre of London and this does not look like changing in the next three years.

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At the meeting with TfL this afternoon we handed over the petition with 700 signatures and 30 pages of comments! (Many thanks to everybody who signed the on-line petition)
TfL were adamant that their modelling of travel patterns are accurate and have undertaken to give us more details on the results of the models.

They support plans to increase the length of trains to 10 carriages per train on Southern services on our line. This project would apparently cost £12million and is one of the best value for money transport projects in London! They are still waiting for approval of funding from the DfT / Treasury later this year but expect this to go ahead. This is good news. The bad news is that we will have to wait until 2016, six years after the reduction in Southern service trains on our line.

Despite a clear difference of opinion between Forest Hill/Sydenham Societies and TfL there were some interesting options that we hope TfL will consider further:

• Longer trains by 2010, with at least 8 carriages per train on all Southern services through Forest Hill
• Increasing the number of Southern service trains in the evening peak to match the morning peak of 6 tph (no reduction from current levels)
• Implementation of the increase to 10 carriages per train earlier than 2016 and preferably by 2010. This would make sense if TfL is taking ownership of the stations in 2009/2010 and need to bring them up to London Underground standard
• We continue to oppose cuts to both our peak and non-peak services to London Bridge and believe that TfL modelling does not take full account of customer preferences for an interchange at London Bridge (to any transport service other than Jubilee Line) rather than the slow train to Bishopsgate or an extra interchange at Canada Water.
  

More on the Trains

Below are some extracts from documents obtained by a member of the Forest Hill Society under the Freedom of Information Act from Transport for London:

Covering letting in response to the FOI request:

"By introducing eight East London Line trains per hour (tph) to the Slow Lines, it is anticipated that the current service to London Bridge will reduce by two tph all day, i.e. from eight tph in the peak and from six tph to four tph off-peak. Thus, the number of trains running on the Slow Lines increases by six tph all day. The final train service specification will be dictated by the outcome of Network Rail’s South London Route Utilisation Strategy which goes out for formal consultation between May 2007 and August 2007."


Letter from Peter Foot (Department for Transport) dated 15 June 2006 to Alison Clarke at Network Rail:

"We understand that Network Rail remains 'uncomfortable' with the intensity of the service foreseen though the combination of ELL and South Central franchise trains. Whilst DfT acknowledges these concerns, the Department is very aware that passenger demand forecasts indicate that the number of passengers using the rail network, particularly in the commuting peaks, will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. This, in turn, is likely to drive the need for more trains to operate on the network. Some of the increased capacity benefits deriving from the introduction of ELL services would be lost if there were to be a significant reduction in South Central franchise service. The level of franchised service has already been reduced in order to arrive at the specification that was agreed on 19/8/05, and it is doubtful whether a lower level of peak direction service is sustainable."


I believe that these two quotes demonstrate:

a) That although a reduction is services by 2 tph is not necessarily the final outcome, it is what is anticipated by TfL.

b) Network Rail may wish to further reduce service through Forest Hill, either by further cuts to existing services or by a reduction in the ELL use of the line. DfT believe that further cuts would negate any benefits derived from the ELL extension.

c) DfT forecast that the current planned capacity will not be sufficient in the foreseeable future (the italics for more were in the original letter not added by me). This means that cutting any services to London Bridge in 2010 will lead to overcrowding in the short term on the route to London Bridge (our projection), and major problems in the medium term as demand increases according to DfT projections.

Answers to ELL questions from the AGM

For answers from Nigel D'Souza from Tranport for London to a number of questions that were outstanding from the forest Hill Society AGM, please click here

Minutes from First AGM

Click here to view the minutes from the first AGM of the Forest Hill Society held on 25th September.

Below the minutes are open questions which are being followed up by TfL regarding the East London Line Extension.

We had 150 people at this meeting, demonstrating the demand for such a Society in the local area.