More than five million journeys have been made on the Northern line extension to Battersea, it was revealed on Friday.
The £1.1bn extension, with new stations at Nine Elms and Battersea Power station, was the first Tube extension this century and first on the Northern line for 80 years.
Journeys are expected to double to 10m a year by 2024/25, helped by Battersea Power Station finally opening to the public as a retail and leisure complex on October 14. It had been expected to reopen this summer.
Transport for London said there were about 40,000 trips a week to or from Nine Elms and 80,000 at Battersea Power Station. This has cut journey times to the City and West End in half, by about 17 minutes.
The extension opened on September 20 last year. The number of trains on the route was doubled in June, from six to 12 trains per hour during peak times, and from five to 10 trains per hour off-peak.
Andy Lord, TfL’s chief operating officer, said: “We opened our new Northern line stations with great pride and excitement a year ago and it has been fantastic to see how quickly they have become part of the fabric of the city.”
The Grade II* listed former power station, which closed almost 40 years ago, has been transformed with more than 100 shops, bars, restaurants and events venues.
The number of passenger journeys on the Northern Line extension totalled 5,041,743 as of last Saturday.
Prior to its opening, the last major Tube extension was the Jubilee Line extension, which opened in 1999.
The Northern Line extension was underwritten by the Government and funded by a loan from City Hall, with contributions from developers and Wandsworth and Lambeth councils.
It came in £160 million under budget, partly because two “run-off” tunnels that would have taken the line under Battersea Dogs and Cats Home was axed, to ensure the animals did not have their sleep disturbed.
