London has a new tube extension and two new tube stations.
This doesn't happen very often.
The last three tube extensions 1) Heathrow Terminal 5 (2008) 2) Jubilee line (1999) 3) Heathrow Terminal 4 (1986)
The last three new tube stations 1) Wood Lane (2008) 2) Heathrow Terminal 5 (2008) 3) Southwark (1999)
It only tends to happen when big business wants it to, which is why Heathrow, Westfield and Canary Wharf helped pay for the last few. And it's only happened this time because a consortium of Malaysian investors were trying to upsell flats around a redeveloped power station, and because money talks.
The diamond geezer editorial position on the Northern Line Extension
A dreadful idea well delivered.
It's miserably depressing that the only tube extension since 2008 has been spurred by the need to flog real estate. Former Mayor Boris Johnson was only too happy to gain a shiny transport bauble by kowtowing to greedy developers, having previously binned several projects which would have benefitted existing Londoners. The power station development is due to deliver less than 10% affordable housing and Nine Elms no more than 20%, and all so that rich residents don't have to grab a taxi or walk a bit further to slum it on National Rail.
When you look at the other places which could have been served by a 3km extension from Kennington they include Camberwell, Burgess Park and the Old Kent Road, areas which have been screaming out for a tube connection for decades, but instead the money magnet yanked the connection west to serve a luxury highrise riverside enclave.
Admittedly the historic power station building might never have been saved were it not for the tube link, and better to have a new tube extension than none at all, and some lucky existing residents of Wandsworth and Lambeth are about to get a local tube connection, so it's not all bad. But when the Bakerloo and Metropolitan extensions have essentially been scrapped, and you could have built three Metropolitans for one Northern, today's link to a deluxe shopping mall in an overpriced housing estate is nothing but a deplorable craven boondoggle.
