Tomorrow's Tube: words about the future (The Guardian)

FWIW my ten penn'orth is to build a completely new deep level system beneath all of existing London infastructure, fit for purpose and designed to last. It matters not how much money is pumped into existing Underground and Overground railways in the capital, it will never be enough and the whole lot should be replaced with a completely new system using infinitely recyclable assets and integrated with a similar brand new national rail network. It would require major investment in other utilities too, communications, water, electricity etc and require new manufacturing facilities. An opportunity to provide full employment for decades and to put the UK at the forefront of technology and innovation once again.

Unfortunately we have a bunch of incompetents fighting to run the country every four of five years and hundreds of local politicians hell bent on playing divisive political games, all of whom apparently have our best interests at heart though in reality that could hardly be farther from the truth for the most part as consensus on any topic is as rare as hen's teeth. Of course this is a simplistic view and there are many more factors to be considered but an excellent start would be made if someone could knock all their heads together to produce a national infrastructure replacement plan for the future that they would all sign up to and abide by.

The problem, though, is that eventually you get so deep that the time taken to get from street to platform is a significant part of the journey, at which time people just take the bus. Indeed, I worry that this might happen with Crossrail as some of those platforms are way away from their surface entrances.