Early 2027: Pedestrianisation is all the (road) rage right now. With a chunk of Oxford Street having just gone wheel-less, Camden High Street has followed in its tracks: following an 18-month trial, the stretch between Britannia Junction and the junction with Jamestown Road and Hawley Crescent will now be indefinitely pedestrianised, and early in 2027 temporary barriers will be replaced with permanent ones. In the future, an extension of the pedestrianised area could be on the cards too.
Also early 2027: Roll-out of the new DLR trains picks up in 2027, as they take over the Stratford International and Woolwich Arsenal branch from 10 January, then begin to populate the Bank and Lewisham branch on the same day, before being rolled out between Stratford International and Lewisham, and Canning Town and Beckton from February. It won’t, however, be until spring 2028 that the entire DLR network is served exclusively by the new trains. At which point, are they even new anymore?
2 January: Angel Tube station goes exit-only at weekends/bank holidays until further notice. It’s so that TfL can take care of its lengthy escalators (some of which are the longest on the network, no less), which haven’t enjoyed much TLC since opening in 1992, poor blighters.
30 January: The 109/N109 route between Croydon and Brixton becomes the latest route to get new electric double-deckers — 25 of them.
March: That time of the year which makes London’s commuters grind their teeth in grim anticipation. At time of writing, 2027’s price hikes haven’t been announced, but Tube and rail fares within London rose by a huge 5.8% in 2026, while bus and tram fares snuck up by 10p per adult fare.
17 May: More escalator-induced closures! City Thameslink — a station which already takes Sundays off — comprehensively shuts from 17 May-late December 2027, so that 10 escalators can be replaced.
By June 2027? The new Piccadilly line trains were first due to be rolled out by the end of 2025, but due to “a rigorous programme of testing the interactions with the infrastructure and systems” that date’s been shoved back. TfL says it is now working to a window between December 2026 and June 2027.
5 July: Happy tram-iversary! 75 years ago on this day, London’s last tram ran, as part of London’s last tram week. Of course, since then, trams have returned to a small portion of south London. If only it were possible to run vintage trams on the current tracks, what a tribute that would be!
31 August: It’s 40 years since the Docklands Light Railway opened, and to celebrate they’re going to take the roof off and run it at triple speed for thrillseekers. Well, that’s what we’d suggest, anyway.
16 December: Exactly half a century since the Piccadilly line extension was opened to Heathrow Airport, providing passengers with a new, if somewhat trundling, way to get to their plane. The extension also prompted this plane/roundel mash-up logo from Willian Fenton, which admittedly looks a bit like a ‘no planes’ sign.
Late 2027: Buses for London takes over the number 6 route, becoming TfL’s first publicly operated route since 2009. It marks the beginning of a wider roll out in 2028. What’s the benefit for passengers? TfL says “to boost reliability and safety while crucially reinvesting profits to further improve the capital’s transport network.”
Sometime in 2027? TfL hopes to introduce three more Superloop routes across 2027: the SL13 between Ealing Broadway and Hendon War Memorial; the SL14 between Stratford Bus Station and Hatch Lane; and the SL15 between Clapham Junction and Eltham stations.
.jpeg?trim=9,0,31,0&auto=webp&quality=75&width=1200 "Thomas Frank tipped to be next Crystal Palace manager as new rival for job emerges")
