(Bloomberg Opinion) — It’s an engineering marvel that has transformed the experience of traveling in London, created jobs, spurred urban regeneration, supported office rents, encouraged housebuilding and helped the climate by getting more people to leave their cars at home. But what has it done for us lately?
The Elizabeth Line celebrated the milestone of transporting 500 million passenger journeys last month. The east-west project — known initially as Crossrail before being renamed after the late monarch — has become Britain’s most-used railway since starting services in May 2022, accounting for 13% of all trips taken nationally. The “Lizzie Line,” as it’s known colloquially, has the highest satisfaction ratings of all public-transport modes in the capital, outscoring the London Underground and buses (which, unlike in most of the UK, are pretty good in the capital). Passenger growth continues to track above post-pandemic expectations and revenue is on budget. For all that, not everyone is happy.
Glitches and breakdowns have taken the gloss off a £19 billion ($24 billion) venture that was Britain’s biggest infrastructure project in a generation when work started in 2009. Failures with signals, points, electricity cables and flooding have all caused delays and suspensions. In the worst incident, about 4,000 travelers on seven trains (four of them Elizabeth Line services) were stranded for four hours in December 2023 after damage to overhead lines caused a power outage. Network Rail, which is responsible for maintaining the track, apologized after London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the performance was “not good enough.”
Peruse online reviews or social media and the signs of frustration are evident. A succession of recent one-star reviews on Tripadvisor includes the judgments “avoid at all costs,” “disgraceful” and “terrible service.” Some passengers lost their footing when a train traveling at almost twice the speed limit jolted, after passing a sign that was covered in dirt and incorrectly placed, a report by the rail accident investigator said last week. News reports of service disruptions are commonplace.
We should keep some perspective. I don’t mean to trivialize the experience of people who have suffered from unacceptable lapses; being trapped in a carriage without light or heat for hours in December weather certainly doesn’t sound like fun. But the bigger picture, which may not be apparent through the skewed lens of online complaints, is that the Elizabeth Line has been an enormous success. Online postings are no substitute for data — and the data are clear.
It matters that this is recognized and appreciated. For one thing, it shows that Britain can still plan and execute large-scale and complex engineering projects. This wasn’t guaranteed. Crossrail went £4 billion over budget and took longer than planned, as is the fate for most infrastructure developments, prompting doubters to question the wisdom and cost-effectiveness of the project. Covid-19 in particular was a blow, forcing the company to push back the opening while also depressing forecasts for post-pandemic railway demand.
So for the Elizabeth Line to have been embraced so enthusiastically by commuters is a triumph. That’s because, to return to a more personal rather than data-driven perspective, it’s beautiful. Your correspondent lives in North London so doesn’t have occasion to ride the line every day, but it’s always a pleasure. The carriages are spacious, the station halls cavernous, the platforms wide, the escalators generous.
The contrast to the 19th century rabbit tunnels and cramped, antiquated cars of the standard underground is immense. Passengers get to sit on seats that don’t look like they bear the congealed and fossilized remains of 1970s meals. Although integrated with the underground and also run by state-owned Transport for London, the Elizabeth Line is treated as separate. It feels more like being in the ultra-modern metro systems of Hong Kong or Shanghai. In October, the line won the Stirling Prize, the UK’s most prestigious architecture award.
The Elizabeth Line extends to Reading and Heathrow in the west, and Abbey Wood in southeast London and Shenfield in Essex on the east side. By boring two tunnels through 21 kilometers of central London and creating 10 new stations, Crossrail connected existing rail lines on each side of the capital. For someone who grew up west of London, the thrill of a seamless through train is hard to overstate. Going into London meant disembarking at Paddington, walking 5 or 10 minutes into the underground with its separate ticketing system, and waiting for another service. For those used to that journey, I can’t imagine the novelty and convenience of the Elizabeth Line wearing off easily.
But it’s the connection to the legacy railways that is the line’s Achilles’ heel. The central section of the Elizabeth Line may be sleek and state-of-the-art, but it was born into a bad neighborhood, umbilically linked to the frailties of aging and inadequately maintained infrastructure at its outer limbs. Network Rail has begun a remedial program to address these flaws called Project Brunel (named after Britain’s most famous Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed Paddington station).
The line is also getting a new manager. Having been operated by Hong Kong’s MTR Corp. since launch, the contract will move in May to a consortium led by Tokyo Metro Co., which has promised to bring Japanese reliability and punctuality to the service. Good luck with that. Is Tokyo Metro ready for British standards of reliability and punctuality? Public performance measure, or PPM, the industry standard, counts trains as on time if they arrive within 5 or 10 minutes of the scheduled time depending on the type of operator. In Japan, punctuality is measured in seconds rather than minutes.
But in the kingdom of the habitually tardy, the almost on-time train is queen. The Elizabeth Line is justifying its price tag, even if its performance isn’t perfect. Housing growth within one kilometer of a station was 14% higher in east London and 8% higher in west London between 2017 and 2022, according to Transport for London. Job growth and office deals have also been higher in areas around stations, according to its analysis.
The lesson for a government keen to spur economic growth through increased building is clear. Well-conceived infrastructure projects will pay their way. Britain should do more of them.
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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Matthew Brooker is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business and infrastructure. Formerly, he was an editor for Bloomberg News and the South China Morning Post.
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