London Underground's major £500 million redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Tube station is about to take another major step forward, this time above ground, after TfL built a new road to enable works to continue at the work site.
- Charing Cross Road to be diverted for next four years to enable continued redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Tube station
- New road constructed to join with Charing Cross Road and link with St Giles High Street
- Three station worksites separated by Charing Cross Road to be merged together so that new ticket hall can be excavated
- Major expansion of ticket hall can only be delivered by diverting Charing Cross Road
The new diverted section of Charing Cross Road will enable three Tube station worksites currently separated by the old road to be merged together so that excavation work to increase the size of the station's ticket hall can begin. Charing Cross Road will be restored to its original alignment in 2014. The major redevelopment of the Tube station will be completed by 2016.
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Richard Parry, Strategy and Commercial Director, London Underground said: "Construction for the major redevelopment of Tottenham Court Road Tube station is now well underway. The station is heavily congested and needs additional capacity to accommodate the growing numbers of passengers using the station.
"Charing Cross Road needs to be diverted for the next four years so that excavation work to increase the size of the Tube ticket hall can get underway as it can only be extended into the area currently occupied by the existing road. Without the diversion of Charing Cross Road the expansion of the ticket hall at Tottenham Court Road cannot be delivered.
"This innovative traffic solution at Charing Cross Road will keep traffic moving and deliver a much-needed major capacity boost to Tottenham Court Road station. We have done all we can to keep disruption to a minimum and are confident that the diversion will have little or no impact on traffic flows in the area."
The diversion route provides new lanes for vehicles and a wide footpath for pedestrians. New pedestrian crossings and street lighting have also been installed.
Tottenham Court Road station, which originally opened in 1900, is currently used by 150,000 passengers each day and that number is expected to rise to over 200,000 when Crossrail services commence in 2018.
The existing Tube station is being extensively redeveloped to make the ticket hall around six times larger and the station will have twice the capacity that it does now. The redeveloped Tube station will eventually connect with the new Crossrail station to form one integrated station.
In total, £1 billion is being spent to build a new Crossrail station, upgrade the capacity of the Tube station and create a new piazza outside Centre Point.
(Peter MacLennan)
