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One of the things you need to remember when thinking about the London Underground, is that it was a scheme that was ultimately unfinished. There were great plan
by nickdothutton 5y ago
One of the things you need to remember when thinking about the London Underground, is that it was a scheme that was ultimately unfinished. There were great plans between the world wars to extend it in size and functionality but ultimately these were all stopped by WW2 and an impoverished UK couldn’t afford to do them afterwards. It was planned to extend the network well into Surrey, Kent and other places.
- Ichthypresbyter 5y agoThey also chose not to build many of the suburbs that the extended lines would have served, and instead to keep those areas rural as the Metropolitan Green Belt and to build new towns further away from London.
- tialaramex 5y agoI grew up in the resulting green belt with restricted residential development of Metroland. Of course in practice what happens is that many people who "must" work in the City but have the salaries that come with that, choose to move, especially when they have young families, out to "the countryside" where the Metropolitan Line ends at e.g. Amersham. There you can walk from your house (with a view of woodland and fields across the valley) to a London Underground station (you probably don't actually catch an Underground train, even the express takes too long, you catch a "normal" commuter train serving the same station but these days it's the same price because it's the same system) in the morning and the reverse even evening. And your children grow up away from the noisy polluted city, but not so far away that you can't take them to see a stage show or one of the museums on a whim. Which is nice for them, but hardly screams "sustainable" as a society.