I use the core section 3 days a week for work. It’s brilliant, quite the feat of engineering. The scale of the stations is like nothing else on the TFL network.
This is something I think we are still getting wrong in the UK. We are building something that should be largely utilitarian with some basic flourishes, perhaps, but instead we end forking out enormous amounts for "high architecture" and the associated build costs for something that rarely pays itself back.
I feel that somehow we hark back to the Victorian days where everything had to be epic but unlike the Victorian days, we are not making enormous profits by stealing resources from the empire that pay for the epic buildings.
In Japan, I think they have it right, basic concrete buildings designed for efficient boarding.
Whilst I can agree that overspending is an issue, I don't believe the cost of the "fancy" architecture is a major contributor to the costs. What's more, it's nice to have some beautiful public works. Obviously, we want punlic infrastructure that works well, but beyond that, it should be a joy to use.
