The Anonymous Widower

Crossrail 2 And The Angel

My Crossrail alert picked up this article in the Islington Tribune entitled Angel’s landmark Co-op building could go if £20bn Crossrail scheme goes ahead. The article says this.

Cllr Klute, an architect who has studied the plans in detail, said he was concerned that all the buildings on the west side of Upper Street from Angel tube to White Lion Street could be demolished.

The building on the corner might be iconic, as the article says, but it is one of those buildings which probably doesn’t have the dimensions that fit the sort of high-tech businesses, that are being attracted to this area of London and will hopefully come even more, when Crossrail 2 opens. I took these pictures of the area.

The four corners of the Angel junction have.

• The Co-op building or Angel Corner House that Councillor Klute wants to save at the north west.
• The Angel Building which was short-listed for the Stirling Prize in 2011 at the south west.
• Some rather tired low rise buildings at the south east.
• The offices over Angel tube station which was built in the early 1990s at the north east.

I can remember when I lived in London in the 1970s, that there were plans to create a large roundabout here to solve the traffic problems. Obviously you wouldn’t do that now, as it would create all sorts of probems about how to fit in the Crossrail 2 station.

As you can see in the pictures, the buses from Kings Cross cause problems as they turn out left from White Lion Street to go North. Not perhaps today, but the buses do cause problems on days when there is more traffic around.

There is just not enough space in the area to accommodate all of the traffic and the expanded station.

The pressing need is a left turn somewhere to get the buses from Kings Cross onto Upper Street and Essex Road, so the only way is to cut the corner through the Angel Corner Building that Councillor Klute wants to save.

As someone, who catches buses at the Angel to go down the Essex Road, the bottleneck at White Lion Street often means that buses come through rather sporadically.

An improved bus service would mean that I probably spent more of my shopping time at the Angel.

So how will Crossrail 2 affect those who currently get the 38, 56,73 and other buses to the Angel and beyond?

1. Between the Angel and Victoria, Crossrail 2 will take passengers from both the 38 and 73.

2. between the Angel and Seven Sisters, Crossrail 2 will take passengers from the 73.

3. Hopefully as both Kings Cross and Euston will be on Crossrail 2, the need for buses between Kings Cross and the Angel will be greatly reduced.

Looking at that, it says to my simple mind, that building Crossrail 2, might mean that there is less need to demolish the Angel Corner Building, as it might be possible to eliminate the left turn of buses, which creates such a problem.

If the space at the Angel and the buses turning north are one of the problems, then the bizarre design of the new station at the Angel in the early 1990s is another.

Plans for Crossrail 2 in the 1980s went via Angel and Essex Road from Kings Cross to Dalston. A few years later the 1990s route went via Highbury and Islington only.

So was the bizarre layout of Angel tube station down to this uncertainty? Who’d be an architect, when politicians keep changing their minds?

The article also says this.

Cllr Klute said if there is going to be a rail development he’d rather see a tube line running along the Hackney to Chelsea section. “It would probably be cheaper and a lot less disruptive and damaging,” he said. “It could also take in Essex Road and Old Street, which is less well connected.

“A tube train would also be of more use to Londoners. The fact that they want to run regional trains across Islington seems to suggest that they are more interested in shipping ­people from outside London rather than moving people around the capital.”

On the first point it would be madness to bore a tube line from Chelsea to Hackney, as you’d then have to build terminal stations at both ends to turnback the tube trains.

We already have two two different fleets being built for the new lines under London, with Class 700 trains for Thameslink and Class 345 trains for Crossrail. Engineering, operational, economic and political common sense, says that these two trains should have been virtually identical and made in Derby by Bombardier. Logic says that if Crossrail and Crossrail 2 trains are identical, then there should be cost and time savings in both train manufacture of the trains and design and building of the stations.

I would think from reading the second of Councillor Klute statements about regional trains, he tends to have thoughts that would be very much at home in UKIP.

Crossrail 2 isn’t perfect, but it will be needed in the late 2020s.

I think that by the time it is being built, improvements in construction, that in many cases are being used on Crossrail will be used to both save time and money, and build a better railway.

As a simple example, could the techniques used at Whitechapel enable Crossrail 2 stations to be built from the deep rail tunnels upwards, thus creating less disturbance to buildings on the surface.

Perhaps this would enable the Angel Corner Building  to be gutted and left as a shell, in which the escalators could emerge and the new western entrance to Angel station could be built.

So the Angel would have an iconic station entrance on the west side of the main north-south route through the Angel. Hopefully, the new extended station would include a much needed subway across the road.

January 1, 2015 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Crossrail 2, The Angel