Unsure whether tunnels were a serious suggestion, but they’d be great for Forest Hill (if we have a few hundred million pounds to spend from the appropriate transport budgets - which seems unlikely unfortunately)
Unlike LTN blockages/disruption, tunnels would bring benefits to all residents.
Perhaps if the bypass is built largely under existing roads, it could be constructed using cut-and-cover, which would be cheaper?
Cut and cover wouldn’t be entirely appropriate as part of the design needs to remove the London Road / Devonshire Road junction and straighten the road, and it needs to go under Sydenham Woods, which would have plenty of protests if cut and cover was attempted (but it would be pretty cheap if you didn’t mind the environmental damage and were prepared to reforest the area that was not entirely woodland 150 years ago). Probably better just to spend a few extra 100s of millions.
Given the popularity of LTNs, massive government debts, ultra-low interest rates, and a desire for infrastructure investment, this isn’t as mad an idea as it seems. If the government can reduce interest rates by a few more tenths of a percent, then they can borrow money and make a profit on the negative interest rate - the money money they borrow, the more money they make. But something tells me this is a recipe for long-term economic disaster.
The other problem with cut and cover is that it would result in months/years of massive disruption to the high street, which would probably kill off any businesses that weren’t already finished off by Covid lockdowns
Without wishing to dive too far down this rabbit hole, a negative base rate would only be used by the Bank of England to encourage consumer spending. I don’t think negative base rates imply the government would be able to borrow money at negative interest rates (i.e. issue bonds with negative coupons). Bonds with negative coupons are an anomaly that only exists in the rare case that investors think prevaling rates will fall further (and that’s unlikely to happen, as any government foray into a negative base rate is likely to be shortlived)
Quite. A negative base rate would mean The Bank would be willing to pay to lend money in the overnight market.
There are several reasons cut-and-cover wouldn’t work:
(i) it would destroy the road it’s intended to replace, before the replacement is ready for use (goodbye South Circular and all who use her: through traffic, local traffic, bus routes, emergency services, local businesses’ stock deliveries; pedestrians);
(ii) the tunnel would be wider than the existing road, so the construction trench would necessitate the demolition of all the buildings alongside the road;
(iii) to build the tunnel at roughly the same level of the road at the tunnel entrance/exit, the trenches through any hills would have to be, what, 20-30 metres deep?
Unfortunately we don’t have a public champion of the idea yet. I’m not sure why not, except maybe the general lack of vision and leadership from our political representatives whose best offer is hand-wringing. The channel tunnel was regarded as crazy but now no-one remembers life without it. If Forest Hill was a town centre out of London, there would have been a by-pass built decades ago. In urban areas, you have elevated sections or tunnels to choose from.
Private transport is not going away, even if electric vehicles become the standard.