The disappearing Crossrail opening date

Construction projects still typically employ analogue leaders in a digital age

Mega transport projects are almost always fraught with delays and cost overruns because of the often inappropriate governance and leadership.  Inappropriate leadership – really ? Surely they’re run by Captains of Industry with huge experience and many letters after their names ?  But the leadership is most often bound up with the management of high budget, and perceived high risk items, such as tunnelling with Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) – the so called “bricks and sticks” – often 80%+ of the budget.

Another day at the TBM office (here for the SuperSewer)

Appointments like these often address last century’s problems, a bit like taking over a British Leyland production line, only to discover that it’s now staffed by strike-free 🔗 German-made robots, seemingly little delayed by the pandemic, at least here in Hammersmith. These elements are significantly lower risk than they once were, because of such mechanisation and associated technologies, engineered processes, resulting in tighter controls and more repeatability “at the coalface”, even though still beloved of TV documentaries with some false jeopardy added to spice them up.  Still, documentaries do serve a valuable purpose in illustrating the point – the operator at the controls of the TBM deep underground is using a computer keyboard, mouse, several screens, a desk phone, with not a shovel in sight.

To re-purpose a phrase from the last decade, these projects still typically employ analogue leaders in a digital age.  It’s commonly assumed that the “backroom boys” will sort of the hidden techie stuff – keep out of the detail.  WRONG!  This is where the risks are nowadays, in signalling and other heavily software-based systems, sometimes poorly designed code, frequent legacy issues, often clunky low-performance or de-facto interfaces (sometimes as simple as on/off dry contacts, AKA electromechanical relays, or their software equivalent “control points”), logical “gotchas” and subsequent system integration problems.

The issue is peculiarly amplified in railways, where proven operational safety is expected, yet a lot of what could provide that – 100% reuse of existing proven designs, robot style, ironically more akin to a modern tunnelling process – allowing the project to focus solely on what must be changed, is in this environment, swamped by commercial, time, perceived risk, or political pressures to use this supplier or that solution. This results in yet another bespoke railway with the inelegant compromises that Heath Robinson would recognise.  Amplifying the misconception that the project is some sort of smooth production-line shown in the plans, the term “production design” is regularly misused, whereas the earlier compromises mean the endeavour has unwittingly become a “prototype design” – the approach to building a unique prototype like Crossrail or HS2 vs. a production design for 1000, or 100,000 units a year are rather different – your scribe has done all three.

Future leaders should present their software engineering credentials at the door

Future leaders should present their software engineering credentials at the door, and at interview show an example of their earlier work, with a presentation on how it worked, why it worked, how it was documented, what change controls were used, and what they learnt from all the bugs and incompatibilities they found during test and integration, rather than that tired old question “Give me an example where a project didn’t go so well…”. Not that we expect our infrastructure leaders to cut lines of code – far from it – but they must know the questions to ask, and properly understand just how hard it is, especially when SIL-4 (🔗 safety integrity level) signalling – fully system assured by external auditors – makes it ten times harder.

Hammersmith Bridge underside and steelwork – May 2020

The Society’s committee is of the view that as part of the renovation work, there is a great opportunity to improve the Bridge to make it better suited to future needs, requiring more space for pedestrians and cyclists, as mentioned in our last article.  Our proposal is to widen the pathways to allow safe and satisfactory bidirectional walking on one side, and bidirectional cycling on the other, so that cyclists no longer need to compete with road traffic, significantly improving safety.  Currently, because of the somewhat narrow walkways, it’s not possible to safely cycle or even pass easily when walking, certainly not in a wheelchair or buggy.  We think this can be done both at modest cost (certainly compared with the 🔗Garden Bridge!) and largely independently of the planned repair works, so as not to lengthen the closure.  We have a brief update on repair works at the foot of this article.

The bridge’s narrow pathways for most of the span measure approximately 1.6m, widening at the pillars to approximately 1.8m, but still too narrow for bikes to pass safely (one of the reasons cyclists have to dismount currently), let alone to support social distancing needed now, and possibly in the future.  We’ve now looked at the structure in a little detail, and, as shown on the photos here, the pathways are supported by simple cantilevers, apparently bolted on.

Hammersmith Bridge – historical repairs (photo: Keepingthingslocal)

Steelwork underneath the bridge was repaired section by section in the 1970’s, and a new grid of substantial longitudinal girders replaced the originals (pierced where bridge hangers meet the deck). Historic photos (right) show the original, very much less substantial steelwork.  Given the scope of the repair works, and amount of money and time to be spent on repairs, there seems little reason not to now consider the attached pathways in more detail, especially if the planned temporary bridge removes the need to keep it open during the works.

Old Oak development area

Henry Peterson of the 🔗Old Oak Neighbourhood Forum and Grand Union Alliance – whose planning knowledge has been invaluable to local groups such as our affiliate 🔗St. Helens R.A. in the past – spotted that developers were seeking increases in height to approved planning permissions by means, not of a new planning application, but through a technical route using 🔗Sections 96A and 73 of the Town & Country Planning Act 1990 to seek minor material amendment approval, to “optimise” a planning consent. The amendments in question are often by no means minor and should warrant a new planning application.

This route has been used in a permission for North Kensington Gate (South) on Scrubs Lane where the developers have sought to increase the approved height of the development from 19 to 22 storeys, and the housing units by 20%. The Society and others have opposed the application as the planning context has dramatically changed from the original permission, where  intensive development was envisaged on that side of the area – now no longer part of the development plan following the exclusion of the Car Giant site – and with significant public transport additions planned via a new Overground station at Hythe Road – also no longer on the agenda, partly because of the many pressures on TfL finances.

TfL is planning a temporary footbridge parallel to Hammersmith Bridge at the request of H&F Council, to assure pedestrian and cycle transit throughout the repair programme.  The aim is to give over the entire Bridge space to the continuing works, with the result that the total closure time could be reduced by 9-12 months.

Hammersmith Temporary Bridge

In an online webinar on 3 April (replacing planned exhibitions which had to be cancelled), representatives of TfL and LBHF set out their scheme for a prefabricated steel structure supported by 2 piers in the riverbed, on the downriver side of Hammersmith bridge. It would be the same height as the Bridge and would have no impact on river traffic.   The usable deck would be 5.5m wide and there will be separation of cyclists and pedestrians (no motorbikes allowed).

Access would be via Queen Caroline Street on the Hammersmith side via gradual ramps. It would take 6-7 months to complete, and planning permission would stipulate it being in place for up to 5 years, with the aim of re-using the structure elsewhere afterwards.

Keeping foot and cycle traffic flowing has to be a welcome initiative. The one downside is that the structure would close the Thames Path on either side, meaning a detour – possibly via the rear of Riverside Studios or past the Apollo and round by Fulham Palace Road on the North side, and via Riverview Gardens on the Barnes side.

Meanwhile the pedestals, hangers, chain bearings and hanger connections are being worked on and acoustic monitoring of the Bridge structure continues. A detailed Scope of Works together with costs is expected later in the spring. The new deck will be steel, with resin on top, which will perform far better than the asphalt over boards which were alarmingly visible previously. The repairs will give 60 years of design life. 

Can we make the restored and repaired bridge work better in the future ?

Continued →

Heathrow expansion 2019

There have been many setbacks to the Airport’s expansion plans over the years from Terminal 5 onwards: claims that several top politicians would stop expansion, elongated planning enquiries, and many anti-expansion campaigns, but like the addict it appears to be, suffering Compulsive Shopping Disorder, Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) keeps coming back for just one more hit, claiming that it will then be satisfied.  Like it’s maniacal namesake in the epic film 2001 – a Space Odyssey, to accept this would be to seriously misjudge the machine.

HAL’s public response to the JR is “10,000 quality apprenticeships by 2030, New Routes and 180,000 new Jobs”, plus the inevitable appeal against the judgement.  While new routes could be created easily with a new runway, they could also be created by displacing cargo and short-haul flights onto greener options, such as rail or electric vehicles (remembering that Heathrow is actually the UK’s largest cargo destination, with 1.8 million tons in 2018: up 20%, matching passenger volume increases since T5 opened).  The other two claims stretch credibility beyond reason, given that Heathrow currently employs 76,000, the expansion would represent a more than doubling in size.  Or perhaps that gives a clue as to the full plan ? 

Heathrow doesn’t appear to be addressing the issues that most of us care about – the effect on the environment, surface transport, and the lives of residents in large parts of the South-East – all the more so having recently become used to not being woken at or before 6AM with fewer flights during the Coronavirus pandemic; Heathrow has temporarily reduced to single runway operation.   In the new Greta-inspired world, HAL makes additional claims regarding sustainability, but it again stretches reason that the discredited greenwash baked into last year’s consultation could have been warmed over sufficiently to pass muster this time round.

According to King’s College, the reference for air quality measurements, London is the 2,516th most polluted city in the world

We think that climate change is the key issue here, and which if properly addressed, would deal with many of today’s air quality issues. The reference work ‘Mortality Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution in the United Kingdom’ (A report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants [COMEAP], updated 2018), says clearly in its executive summary ‘As everyone dies eventually no lives are ever saved by reducing environmental exposures – deaths are delayed resulting in increased life expectancy.’

Air quality in London started deteriorating about 400 years ago, and for the entire time the Georgians and Victorians were painting the globe pink, sulphur dioxide was around 40 times the current WHO guideline level of 20 µg/m³. It was in fact raining sulphuric acid AKA ‘acid rain’, the effects of which can be seen on the Palace of Westminster or in Turner’s paintings.  The Great Smog of 1952 that killed perhaps 12,000 appears as a peak on the graph, and created a level over 10 times the level it is now, but our nonagenarian, and in one case centenarian parents survived and are still here with us, begging the question what effect it had on long term life expectancy.

The answer from COMEAP is around six months if you could (unrealistically) remove 100% of all air pollution from all sources, or more realistically 20 days per µg/m³ removed, plus you have to live to those grand old ages otherwise healthy.  Not as much as the headlines or Twitterati would have it.

Of course this isn’t a complete list of pollutants, there’s PM2.5, PM10, NO₂, and Ozone which have differing WHO thresholds as shown here, and those with respiratory conditions are much more affected than others, explaining 🔗most of the 1952 deaths.

Cycling in Copenhagen, 2015

The CS9 saga has been running for a couple of years now, and we’re finally beginning to achieve some clarity in the plans for Hammersmith.

CS9 has been renamed CW9 “CycleWay 9” to distance it from existing Central London Superhighways, and provide a facility serving a wider demographic than 🔗those installed to date.  The image being promoted is shown in TfL’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner’s Tweet, left, although we feel obliged to point out that despite the wording, the photo is not London at all – this was 🔗Copenhagen in 2015.  Nevertheless we believe this more inclusive vision is an appropriate aspiration for our borough’s roads.

Together with other members of the community, we have been successful in persuading H&F Council that TfL’s CS9 plans were flawed, now two different cycle routes are planned:  a fast commuter route using the somewhat underused paths alongside the A4, and something closer to a “🔗Quietway” plus urban realm improvements (greening) in King Street and Hammersmith Road. More 🔗on the council website, where an online debate has started.

We expect to be part of the planned residents consultation as we are concerned about potential negative impacts on pedestrians and retailers, significantly slower buses/traffic/increasing pollution, for which there is evidence from schemes such as 🔗Winchmore Hill and 🔗Waltham Forest.  TfL’s own CS9 Air Quality Report predicts only walking-speed traffic along Hammersmith Road at Olympia, and no overall improvement in air quality.  A 🔗council meeting is planned for 9th Sept, which you should attend if you are interested in this scheme (see our diary)…