Boris "seriously looking at the Bakerloo extension"

Mayor Boris Johnson has confirmed that he is giving serious consideration to a Bakerloo Line extension through South East London. In today's #askboris Q&A, he responded to a question about tube provision in south London:

yes, seriously looking at Bakerloo line extension #askboris @opearman
— Boris Johnson (@MayorofLondon) September 23, 2013

This is the second bit of positive noise Boris has made about the idea this year. And while we understand that these utterances need to be taken with a huge dollop of salt, we've argued for a while that although the Bakerloo line is nominally lower down the priority list than the likes of Crossrail 2, it's also a relatively cheap and easy way of expanding London's transport capacity, in a way that might become appealing to our opportunistic Mayor.

While mega-projects like Crossrail and Thameslink take decades, everyone has taken note of what the relatively cheap and easy ELL upgrade achieved. The Northern Line extension to Battersea is set to do something similar. A Mayor in search of a quick win could do worse than extend the Bakerloo through Southwark to Lewisham.

With thanks to Monkeyboy.