Engineers today need to replicate Crossrail’s bold thinking

Cast your mind back to 2008: Slumdog Millionaire had just hit cinemas, Amy Winehouse swept up at the Grammys for her song Rehab, England missed the Euros – and Crossrail got the green light.

As the Elizabeth Line prepares to open, the benefits it will bring are not only a mark of the journey the Crossrail project team and its supply chain has been on, but they demonstrate just how far civil engineering has evolved since those initial designs were produced.

Back then, I started what would come to be one of the most exciting projects I’ve ever worked on: Farringdon’s Elizabeth Line Station. We would be involved in elements of the scheme including architecture with Aedas, civil and structural engineering and project management, which was led by Crossrail.

But when the ink was drying on the original contracts, phrases such as net zero, social value or even the concept of equity were barely on the edges civil engineering’s lexicon, let alone a standard procurement requirement. That’s why, at the time, the thinking of both Crossrail and Farringdon Station’s design was so bold.

Take accessibility and equity of journey. Farringdon Station has been designed so that someone who can’t use escalators will have the same user journey as someone who can, thanks to the installation of inclined lifts adjacent to the escalators.

Farringdon Station is a hub, connecting airports, Thameslink and the wider London Underground and rail routes, improving transportation for millions across London and the capital region. Back in 2008, the design was all about improving connectivity, with the West Ticket Hall integrated with the new Thameslink station entrance. It was already clear the benefit this would have on the outlying communities who would use this station to reach places faster, bringing them closer to the economic opportunities and cultural possibilities offered by London.

Decarbonisation and air quality are fundamental to London transportation schemes today, but back in 2008, the scale of the climate emergency was not as fully understood. Crossrail has always had a strong sustainability vision and the completed Farringdon station will incorporate a number of environmental features such as LEDs, ground source heat pumps, and strict materials sourcing and will have a BREEAM excellent rating. But again, in today’s context, the scheme brings further important environmental benefits. Infrastructure designed for smoother, faster journeys is critical to increasing public transport use and thereby bringing down carbon emissions and improving air quality: a critical part of a green recovery.

Without doubt, the big thinking behind Crossrail will pay off and in ways that we couldn’t have predicted back in 2008. This tells me two things: first, investment in big public transportation projects is still needed and the transformational impact will be felt for years. Second, engineers need to be ambitious and push boundaries if their designs are going to meet what will become fundamental requirements of generations to come.

So, where are the next boundaries that engineers and architects need to push in terms of station design? What should we incorporate into designs now, which will become standard by 2035?

We already know new stations need to be designed be built and operate at net zero. In addition, they will need to cope with longer, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters. Management and use of water, including surface water, will be critical. It may also be that we can incorporate regenerative design into stations and finding future ways they could make a net contribution to the environment, through, for example, water collection and reuse or air filtering.

Part of future thinking will be informed by how we expect our cities to evolve. As Aecom’s London 2070 vision identified, urban areas will increasingly become polycentric and this will be reflected in a network of stations rather than transportation centred around a terminus. Cities may see clusters with specific offerings such as civic centres, innovation centres or areas focusing on leisure and cultural activities. These new stations will be digitally hyper-connected, as flexibility of work location increases – could we see bookable meeting spaces in stations as they increasingly become focal points for businesses with a geographically disparate workforces, perhaps with immersive technology?

We’re already seeing the use of stations change because more companies are adopting a hybrid working model post pandemic. In the future we expect to see more people using stations, but those people commuting less frequently. We also expect their destinations to become more varied and a ‘mesh’ of routes, rather than the same linear suburb to city routes used on a repetitive basis. Engineers will increasingly need to factor in mobility on demand and connected and autonomous vehicles.

Major infrastructure projects take decades to come to fruition, which is why those engineers who have the privilege to work on them need to be so forward looking when it comes to design – as the Elizabeth Line now proudly demonstrates.

This is reproduction of an article which originally appeared in New Civil Engineer