Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucky Luke
Well it was a robbery plain and simple, in my view, but this is not really the place to discuss it. I have checked and you are right Westfield did pay for the rebuild. My gripe will remain that the station's air-rights were squandered. I don't know why. 40 or 50 apartments on that site would have probably paid for half the station cost. Regarding wood lane i think it's tremendously exciting that they built that station (on an exisiting line), but a shame they didn't go the extra mile and move the White City platforms for an interchange.
Any idea when the ELL is going to open? I'm really looking forward to that.
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London is looking more carefully at the importance of maximising potential at station sites. Of course it would have been nice to have a tower above the station, but there must have been reasons as to why this never occured.
Wood Lane & White City are indeed close, but I suspect that there would have been little benefit from such an interchange. Remember, Wood Lane is the most convenient station to access the northern entrance to Westfield London and the main BBC HQ building (the station is directly next-door to both). While White City is the most accessible station to serve both sections of the BBC campus (the HQ building to the south, and the media village to the north), as well as QPR's football stadium Loftus Road. The requirement for interchange would be exceptionally limited.
As such I doubt the cost could ever justify an interchange bridge which would run alongside Wood Lane which connects both stations (Google Map:
http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll...9012&t=h&z=18).
Moving the station would involve a complex re-working of lines. White City has three platforms for three tracks; the two outside tracks are for the west and eastbound trains. The central track allows for trains to temrinate and enter the White City depot (under Westfield London). The tunnel portals to these are located inbetween Wood Lane and White City, so such a station would be highly complex and disruptive to train operations. Not to mention White City is a nice station with intricate
Phase I of the East London Line will open around May next year, with an extension to Highbury & Islington opening a year later. Phase II which involves an extension to Clapham Junction will open before the 2012 Olympics.
