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Boris vows to fight closure of Tube station ticket offices
Pippa Crerar and Rob Singh11.04.08
Boris Johnson was campaigning against the closure of Tube ticket offices in outer London today.
The Tory mayoral candidate warned that passengers would be put off using the Underground if stations were unmanned and added that since Transport for London had no intention of making job cuts, its plans for the closures were unnecessary.
On the campaign trail in Harrow Mr Johnson pledged to halt TfL's proposals to close around 40 offices and said: "They do provide a great deal of reassurance to people late at night if something untoward happens, if they're scared, or if there is an affray.
"It's good to at least have a human being there to give a sense of security. That's why I think we should fight to reverse this programme of closures."
He said transport was "needlessly scary" and that he was concerned about disorder and violence on the network.
Earlier the Tory candidate claimed that Mayor Ken Livingstone had ignored the growing problem of drug-taking on buses.
Metropolitan police figures show crimes involving drug use went up by 66 per cent between April and November last year compared with the same period the year before.
He said: "It is a disgrace that Londoners have to suffer this kind of behaviour on our buses. People should be able to travel in safety with their children. When I am Mayor my extra officers will crack down on drug-taking on our buses."
But TfL said Mr Johnson had failed to take into account that overall crime on London's buses actually fell 11 per cent in that period.
The statistics showed that robbery was down 28.3 per cent, criminal damage down 22.2 per cent and theft down nine per cent.
A TfL spokesman said: "Over the six-month period referred to, 381 drugs offences were recorded out of nearly a billion passenger journeys on 8,000 buses that serve 700 different routes.
"The rate of bus related crime is now at its lowest for four years with just 15 crimes for every million passenger journeys."
Reader views (6)
"Gez" seems to think that closing the ticket offices would mean staff would be on the platforms instead. But I don't believe Tfl would do that- after all, there's no profit in it!
Let's face it, profit is all they seem to care about...
- Robert Cunningham, Harrow, London, UK
Why is TfL commenting on Boris Johnson's proposals? They are supposed to be politically neutral, especially at election time.
- Sg, London
I think Boris is half way right - there needs to be a person at the station who can both assist with tickets and provide security monitoring. The two do not need to be mutually exclusive ... unless you let the Tube unions get involved, of course.
I'm not sure I believe the TfL stats on bus crime - most goes unreported due to lack of faith there will be response.
- Rachelle, London
What is Boris on? He has to move with the times - if people aren't buying tickets why have ticket offices open! Have the staff out on the station instead! Some of these ticket offices sell a handful of tickets what a waste of time and money.
- Gez, Stonecot
TfL pull your fingers out of your own backside. Playing and quoting stats appears is all you are capable of doing. No matter the numbers, it is still too many. The point is people still do not feel safe travelling and they are the paying passengers for a third rate transport network while you bods sit in your smug offices.
- Asw, Hong Kong
This is just silly. The idea that a man stuck behind a thick glass window (usually without a convenient means of getting into the ticket hall) makes the Tube any safer is feel-good nonsense. There needs to be more areas to dispense tickets; anyone who travels the Tube regularly has experienced ridiculous queues. Which makes the best use of surface area in order to dispense as many tickets as possible? It's the machines!
As for public transport being scary; much of it probably has to do with the fact that many of the stations are somewhat decrepit; perhaps if they looked less like a set of medieval ruins relentlessly pounded by tourists and commuters, maybe the impression would fade.
- Christian, West Sussex
