Any new London Underground lines?

Given the inevitable growth of London, and the expensive of tunneling for smaller Tube size trains, it makes sense to borrow tunnels of mainline gauge, and connect any new line to suburban lines as a Crossrail. Whilst there was considerable consensus on the Crossrail 1 route, Crossrail 2 proposed branches had numerous detractors. Perhaps a simplified, cheaper version could be put forth?

And whilst not an 'Underground' or underground line, the West London Orbital Overground proposal appears eminently sensible, and mostly new stations.

Crossrail 2, the Chelsea-Hackney Line, has been on foot since the 60s, maybe opening in 2030s? So don't expect to see any new lines that are not being talked of now!

Until TFL funding is put onto a sustainable footing - I doubt there is any chance of any new lines or major line upgrades in the coming decade (excluding the unavoidable replacement of clapped out rolling stock).

Whilst planners might point to the long lead time for all new line projects and projected population growth in London adding as much as 1 million residents by 2035 already makes a strong case for work now to identify where a new line would have the most positive effect. That seems a highly unlikely development in the current finacial circumstances where feeder bus services and other TFL services are being "right sized".

Sadly the current national and mayoral election cycles provide no great incentive to actually pay for stuff which will not come to fruition until well after our political masters have moved onto pastures new.

Perversely the reverse applies, as in the run up to any election, the spin doctors tend to start seeding the media with all manner of "projects" which will be "possible" (but not actually garanteed to happen) if you vote for them.

Time and again TFL money is spent on drawing up detailed plans to meet the latest "politicians" wish list of what is likely to benefit their supporters - rather than actually focus on best meeting the needs of Londoners as a whole.

It is likely that someone at LU Towers already has dusty plans showing what and where the Capital should be investing in next. Indeed only recently one of the "secrets of the underground" episodes briefly showed the presence of historic plans for new routes etc lurking in the Acton archive. Clearly this is not a new conumdrum.

Sadly time and again money gets thrown by the latest politicians at their pet project instead. Does anyone really think HM Treasury will step forward and fund extension of the Bakerloo any time soon?

Just like the Croxley rail link (which seems primarily to benefit Home Counties voters - NOT Londoners) TFL have ended up spending scare funds on a potential rail link which will probably never get built, meanwhile the systems which Londoners are actually using on a daily basis are being given minimal investment and indeed progressively thinned down ("managed decline") despite the inevitable consquence of people switching to private cars instead - probably never to return to regular public transport use. This is all so sad.

Why would you need a direct link from Victoria to Waterloo?
Anyone wanting the other would change at Clapham Junction on the way into London

Chris M, another suggestion that is not quite what you asked for:

If and when Camden Town station is expanded, that would allow proper splitting of the Northern line into two lines, with improved frequency. And one would presume, greater reliability. So technically a brand new line, albeit one that's been operating for about a century...

Going back to Chris M's original request, I'd suggest any new line is still going to have to go through the Central Area & preferably the West End as well.

So, diagrammatically, it might look like:

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Sorry that's not more state-of-the-art, but going on from that, missing (possibly in a perfect world only) from the Underground are a NW-SE Connection, ditto NE-SW & one right through the middle top to bottom.

Can't comment on the viability of any of these but NW-SE, say Cricklewood to Bromley, NE-SW, say Chingford to Twickenham & Centralish Cheshunt to Croydon.

That's rough & ready & if none of that's realistic, fine;I've chosen those names as places without a present Tube station to run with the idea of new lines bringing new places on to the Tube-as per Reading & Thamesmead.

If & only if the whole package were realistic, then add a loop between Croydon & Bromley, because it's difficult to think of two bigger places in South London which, from a connectivity point of view, might as well be on Phobos & DEmos respectively.

That DLR extension west from Bank was just one of many DLR Horizons 2020 studied. A map of some of the extensions can be found at www.londonreconnections.com/2011/extending-the-dlr/. Unfortunately, the link to the previous LondonReconnections article summarising the more likely routes is currently dead.

From what I recall, none of the proposed extensions or routes were built. However, I stand to be corrected.