Afternoon:
10°c
How magnificently brazen it was to see Ken Livingstone attacking Boris's TfL fares increase last week.
This rise, of inflation plus one per cent from January 2009, is, of course, the exact same package which the ex-Great Helmsman himself secretly agreed on 24 October last year.
The only difference, as emails leaked to the Standard in April showed, was that to the horror of his officials, Mr Livingstone simply decided to ignore the decision.
We've short memories, Ken, but not that short. And remind me: just which Mayor was it who raised fares by up to one-third in 2007? Would that have been you, or a totally different one?
The real problem is not that Boris has kept Ken's 2009 fares plan but that he has, so far, left almost everything else about Livingstone's TfL intact, too. It's a problem because TfL is the Ed Balls of public administration: nothing like as good as it thinks it is.
It genuinely believes, in the words of its commissioner, Peter Hendy, that it is an “efficient and effective” provider of bus and train services.
In fact, under Livingstone and Hendy's stewardship, it has achieved the worst of all worlds: rapacious fares, vast public subsidy and often mediocre service.
The buses have improved, though at a disproportionate, unsustainable cost (bus subsidy has risen about 1,300 per cent, while passengers have risen about 45 per cent). But the Tube is the least-reliable, worst-managed metro in Western Europe, and is getting worse, not better. It is hard to overstate the damage it does to London's international reputation and to Londoners' blood pressure.
TfL genuinely believes itself a world leader which other cities follow. Actually, other cities are surprised at our backwardness in, for instance, providing clean public transport. Even the buses in Delhi have been using cleaner fuels for years — but London's bus fleet remains 99.9 per cent diesel. In terms of air pollution (different from C02), TfL buses are among the most poisonous things on the road in London today, directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of Londoners each year.
No other city has followed London's model of the congestion charge, for the good reason that it uses crude, old technology and has, partly as a result, stopped reducing congestion.
TfL does, however, lead the world in pointless extravagance, with 123 of its managers earning more than £100,000 a year and fortunes wasted on vanity projects like the “Greenwich Waterfront Transit” (a six-mile bus route — again diesel — costing £20 million). Hence the high fares.
Now, with big bills looming for projects of real worth such as Crossrail, fare rises alone, however necessary, won't pay for everything. The bus and rail services London depends on simply cannot survive at their current levels unless TfL takes a crash diet.
But four months in, marvels one senior TfL figure, “Boris's arrival has made no difference whatever. It's all going on exactly as before.” No programmes have (yet) been cancelled. No personnel changes have been made. Indeed, one senior TfL person has just been appointed, of all things, Boris's environmental adviser.
Less than a year ago, as further leaked emails show, Mr Hendy was secretly plotting with Ken's chief of staff to “refute Boris's transport ideas”. Now, in a truly gymnastic feat of brown-nosing, he has apparently persuaded the new Mayor that his sole purpose in life is to implement those very same ideas.
It's surprising that someone as bright as Boris can fall for this obvious nonsense. What it probably means is not that TfL will end up working for Boris — but that Boris will end up working for TfL.
Reader views (18)
The Greenwich Waterfront Transit is not an "infrastructure project." It is a bus route - which will do no more than replace the existing 472 bus route, without even any increase in frequency! (But it will cost us £20 million.)
- Andrew Ross, London, 16/09/2008 13:02
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Andrew - us East and South-East Londoners do get a bit fed up with the Islington/West London media crowd constantly railing against transport infrastructure projects here such as bridges, the Waterfront Transit and other possible advancements. These are not vanity projects and, whilst of course we'd rather have the tube extended out here, frankly we'll take all the buses, trams and flying saucers TfL can throw at us.
- Steve, Woolwich, UK, 12/09/2008 22:54
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Passing Scotland Yard a lot I notice an increase in the amount of drivers waiting for senior police officers these "drivers" are qualified police sergeants on about 50k a year -what a waste of money and there are loads of senior police officers allowed this "perk" an insider said it has got worse since the police located to Empress State Building a large building shared with TFL in Hammersmith due to meetings
I hope Boris will get the sergeants out of the driving the 4x4's and back on the streets doing the job we are paying for please
- Binky Boo, London, 11/09/2008 13:38
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Liam Gooderhall,
it is quite clear you do not live in london.
anyone who thinks the tube is a "well-organised, frequent, low-cost mass transport system." is obviously most unfamiliar with it.
the tube is, without exception, the most expensive modern city metro in the world. to call it "low cost" is surprising by any measure.
I think you'll find the smog in delhi is not solely cause by the public transport system either.
- Scott, London, 11/09/2008 12:46
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TfL a world class organisation...Yeah Right!!
How Peter Hendy has kept his job is utterly amazing, what does he have on Bojo?
The same 123 management members earning over £100,000 per year were responsible for negotating and running the contracts and projects that Metronet were completing and they routinely allowed sub-standard work to be signed off.
One project "Power for Connect" cost you the taxpayer over £6 million pound and it delivered absolutly nothing, work was started at Waterloo and was stopped after a catalogue of failures and errors occurred until 8 months later the project was pulled.
Sub-standard work already completed at some stations will have to be re-done at even more cost to US the TAXPAYER...
Go and have a look at EAST ACTON station the EAST bound platform is crumbling away and the floor asphalt is lifting and cracking just 10 months after its MODERNISATION.
Lancaster Gate has water seepage in walls seeping into live electrical sockets just 18mths after a 8 month station shutdown for a MODERNISATION....
I could go on but you will have to read the book...
Oh and did you know that LUL employed the one and only man in the country barred from British Transport Police as a Threat to Security AND sent him out to check the SECURITY at LUL stations on both nights of the LONDON bombings?
Roger Evans(CON)asked the EX-MAYOR about this but since BOJO's win has dropped the matter and will no longer ask why this absurd situation was allowed to occur
- Inspector, London, 10/09/2008 22:10
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Mark - sorry, but without a doubt we have the worst tube system in the world; overcrowded, unrealiable and expensive. It is a national disgrace. Is this the mayor's fault (either Ken or Boris)? No, but they are responsible for the second rate public sector management, and for not dealing with the RMT.
- Adam, E14,, 10/09/2008 13:35
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Ken did not "freeze Oyster fares" - this is a straightforward rewriting of history. In Jan 2007 he raised the Oyster single bus fare by 25 per cent, from 80p to £1. He then reduced it to 90p just before the election. But it has still gone up by more than 20 per cent over what it was when he won re-election in 2004. He also increased Travelcard prices by more than the rate of inflation every single year.
- Andrew Ross, London, 10/09/2008 12:35
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Yes, Ken did raise fares, but he froze (and was responsible for introducing!) Oyster fares, which Boris has now raised.
Guess what Londoners use more?
- Tom, Manchester, 09/09/2008 15:57
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No Tube system is problem free - its hard to get a reliable service when people are committing suicide on the track, vandalising the track and gangs are fighting on stations. Other cities Underground systems have problems too - Paris (smelly and dirty), New York (dangerous with terrible ambience and cheap plastic seats!), Rome (graffiti), Tokyo (groping males), Berlin (loads of engineering work / overcrowding at the weekends). London Underground could be a lot worse...
- Mark, London, 09/09/2008 10:46
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The only reason congestion has worsened in London's 'C' charge zones is lots of building works and sewer works on most of the roads. The best thing to happen in years the c charge, now bring in the trams. What fools Londoners were to vote Ken out. Time will tell, you'll see.
- C May, bromley, 08/09/2008 21:51
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How much do Deloitte make from TFL? Did they assist with the Oyster card that recently crashed and cost us a small fortune?
- Miss Snipe, London, 08/09/2008 14:44
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Dear, dear are these the first signs that Andrew might be falling out of love with his creation, tut,tut!
Remember what happened to Dr Frankenstein.
- David, london UK, 08/09/2008 14:40
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Have you ever ridden a bus in Delhi? Have you breathed in the smog in that city? What utter tosh.
I don't live in London, but every time I have been there, I have been pleasantly surprised by a well-organised, frequent, low-cost mass transport system. You perhaps forget what it is like to not live in the well-connected Capital city!
TfL is what the rest of the country's transport network needs! Not subsidised, wholly national, national rail!
- Liam Gooderhall, Hooton, United Kingdom, 08/09/2008 13:19
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To Mark, I think Mark you have forgotten to add the obscene bonuses to be paid to Executives, and similar obscene amounts to shareholders. Strange how the publicly owned bus and rail services in France, Holland, and Belgium manage to add new routes and keep fares down. Their services benefit the majority of ordinary people and are well used, and not just a minority who probably never use the services anyway.
- Neil, Gloucestershire, England., 08/09/2008 13:19
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As I've said before on these talkboards, a major issue for me is how, in the 21st Century, the tube and train system is almost totally inaccessible to those using wheelchairs or having to travel with children in pushchairs. A few stations have lifts, but very few of the main interchanges do. Why can't there be a ramp for every set of stairs? Would that really be so difficult or expensive to implement? Then unencumbered and able-bodied commuters could use it too. The reality is parents having to carry buggies up and down flights and flights of stairs, and wheelchair users, presumably, ruling out the tube altogether as a means of transport. Why, with all this talk of modernising the transport system, has almost none of money raised from fares and fare rises been spent on accessibility? Many years after the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act, Transport for London seems to believe itself immune to the need to cater for all its customers.
- Ljw, london, 08/09/2008 13:10
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Well done Andrew...
this is a copy of my blog to Boris on similar subject..
"Dear Boris (Johnson) Mayor of London,
Re your new emissions person (from TfL) Ms Isabel Dedring,
1) Re your new emissions person Ms Isabel Dedring, Please can you tell me....if you (or she) has considered the value of Aquazol as a fuel for our buses? I am in Paris and I notice that the fleet here at RATP use it. I checked out its properties and it says it give a 60% emission reduction and can be used with existing diesel engines with no need for modification.
2) Also, can you find out for me what that terrible stink is that comes from the bus as it accelerates away from bus stops?
3)Why do the buses make such a terrible shrieking engine noise - especially at night? the service that runs through Eversholt Street NW1 often wakes me even though I live in a side road off Eversholt street.
4) What are you going to do about the terrible bus chaos in Oxford Street? It is the single reason I rarely go there to shop, unless to scurry into John Lewis via its back door! It is not just diesel particulates from the engines that bother me it is the sheer hellish noise (and heat) they make - also their omnipotent presence as a 'bus parking lot' in effect, in Oxford street, is just too horrible for words."
- Ivegotanasbo, London, 08/09/2008 12:49
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Well said Andrew Gilligan.
- Ivegotanasbo, London, 08/09/2008 12:28
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Can somebody explain to me why a new bus route costs 20mil? Let's say 4 sparkly new buses, 30 bus stops, some road marking and 4 drivers. Have I missed anything? Should get change out of a million I would have thought, even with the ridiculous union negotiated packages.
- Mark, London, 08/09/2008 11:34
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