Forum topic: Crossrail 2: Councillors urge public to press for route via Alexandra Palace

I agree that Enfield should advocate Alexandra Palace because the Wood Green route removes the interchange Enfield would otherwise receive from the Hertford Loop.

HOWEVER, Wood Green has strong fundamentals and will provide a major regeneration project that Enfield is unlikely to be able to compete with given that the Council has not proactively engaged with the Crossrail 2 process.

A COMPROMISE POSITION would be to state, notwithstanding Enfield's objection to Wood Green, Enfield could be compensated if Crossrail 2 absorbs the four trains per hour presently stopping at all stations from Welwyn Garden City to Moorgate, which would simply require platform extensions along a route that runs in-between the Piccadilly and Northern Lines, thus relieving them.

Cascading this capacity to the Hertford Route and providing Moorgate as a dedicated terminus for it would boost peak services instantly from six to ten trains per hour via Enfield Chase, with potential to expand towards 12 trains per hour to match the branch frequency of Crossrail 2. Frankly, no other infrastructure improvements are capable of delivering a metro service directly to Enfield and this would be a higher capacity provision for the Borough than an interchange at Alexandra Palace for a substandard six trains per hour service. Devolve the route to London Overground and it can land onto the tube map and provide an all day, all weekend metro service.

Also, the interchange at Alexandra Palace could only be immeasurably worse than the perfect existing cross platform interchange at Finsbury Park. Would anybody really take Crossrail 2 to Alexandra Palace to spend five minutes fussing about on escalators to wait possibly 15mins on a cold, dark platform when they can instead take Victoria Line to Finsbury Park, walk 10 yards to the Hertford Loop platform and wait inside out of the rain? Boost that service to 12 trains per hour as per my suggestion above, and you have perfect connections both to the West End and City, right at your fingertips.