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ALL TUBE users are familiar with unconvincing excuses, and Tim O'Toole's resignation last week as head of the Underground produced a vintage crop.
There were, it seemed, family issues, or perhaps financial ones (TfL's, not his). Ken Livingstone, to absolutely no one's surprise, blamed it all on Boris. But I'm not sure you leave a £450,000 job during an economic meltdown for any of those reasons. I think O'Toole quit from sheer exhaustion.
O'Toole was good with journalists, politicians and Tube staff, and they liked him. That helps explain why he got such a decent media send-off last week. On the actual service, however, despite spending a fortune, he achieved relatively little.
In June 2003, the month before O'Toole started work, Underground travellers suffered, on average, a delay of 6.76 minutes on each journey they made. By January 2009, the average delay was still 6.39 minutes. That seems in line with most passengers' empirical experience — few or no improvements.
Even the perhaps fairer comparison — of the same months in each year — gives a mixed picture. The January-to-January comparison over O'Toole's time shows a sharp fall in delays. But the June -to-June comparison shows virtually no change.
What's more, the figures entirely exclude planned closures. With up to a third of the network now shut every weekend, the Tube is providing perhaps its worst service ever.
None of this is O'Toole's fault. He was doomed from the start by the extraordinary scandal of the public-private partnership, all but powerless to stop the PPP contractors in their legal, institutionalised plunder.
In six years, nearly £10 billion has been spent but the weekend closures, and a few new wall tiles, are virtually all there is to show for it.
Investigations by the Standard revealed where some of the money really went. Unqualified contractors got work from their mates. Manual labourers cost the taxpayer £144,000 a year each. Routine meetings were held on chartered riverboats, with TfL paying the bar tab. I think O'Toole just got sick of pushing the boulder uphill.
The priority for O'Toole's successor is to smash the boulder; to campaign, with Boris for a new post-Brown government to abolish the PPP. The tricky part will be keeping the funding that comes with it.
That, presumably, is why O'Toole, and Johnson, played along with all the “transforming the Tube” baloney rather than telling the truth — that, with the exception of Michael Jackson's nose job, the PPP is the least effective “transformation” in world history.
Over the past 25 years, use of the Underground has more than doubled. Last year alone, it grew six per cent. But the PPP will deliver a capacity increase of little more than a quarter — and even that not until 2020, an amazingly poor return for a bill likely to top £20 billion. (Much of the new capacity, incidentally, will come from nothing more advanced than taking out seats, and making us stand.)
The recession gives O'Toole's successor a breathing-space — though it will also lose him fare income, while not cutting the PPP bill one jot. But recessions don't last for ever. And while the PPP survives, the Tube will never be any good.
TfL's finances are indeed getting tight. That's why it's all the more imperative not to pour more money than we need into Tube Lines and the rump Metronet (still, I am told, guilty of some of the same excesses, even though now under TfL's wing.)
The finances, the air-conditioning, the unions: many challenges await. But all are second-order beside the PPP.
Heston, a cook among men
I WAS sorry to see that Heston Blumenthal has had to close his restaurant, the Fat Duck, after some diners fell ill. I've eaten there, a 17-course lunch that lasted until 5.15pm, and what was even clearer than the quality and originality of the meal was Blumenthal's care for his customers. For all their equality in the star rankings, other celebrity chefs (I name no names — well OK, Gordon Ramsay) are businesses and brands more than cooks. But Blumenthal takes such pains with the Fat Duck that even at £130 a head it barely makes a profit. He is in it for the food, not the money. I hear you're re-opening, Heston — be generous with the Dettol.
Labour must rediscover liberty
AT THE weekend's Convention on Modern Liberty, where I was a speaker, many participants remarked on the lack of top-rank Labour politicians at this rights-defending event. There were, in fact, at least two backbench Labour MPs and a junior minister down to speak, as well as a parliamentary candidate, Chuka Umunna. But they did seem rather subdued. Umunna described how his father was beaten up by the police — then proposed as his big idea the blocking of junk mail and salesman phone calls, something anyone can do already.
Liberty isn't, and shouldn't be, a party political issue. Though the Tories are quite convincing on it at the moment, they have a sometimes authoritarian past. And though Labour is sensitive about its awful record on human rights, there is a strong civil liberty streak in the party. It's time it found its voice again.
Reader views (11)
As a relatively new Londoner what I find most disheartening about the whole TFL experience is the absolute resignation on the faces of most passengers when things invariably go wrong.So many years of appalling service and lack of investment have left passengers absolutely accepting of mediocrity.In this case the much vaunted English stoicism is borne out of years of being let down by a transport system with crumbling infrastructure and lacklustre,overpaid staff.
- John, London, England
Unqualified Alanj? How did you come about that ridiculous statement? It takes over six months for a person to train and *qualify* to drive an underground train, and they have to re qualify every year to keep their licenses. It's not just driving, but signalling rules and regulations, train knowledge and how to fix them when they go wrong. Tube drivers have colossal responsibility to their passengers, up to a thousand at one go.
- Pete, London UK
Why is no one looking at getting rid of £43k pa train drivers with the same system as DLR has? The Victoria line was designed to be driverless and they are only needed because of the unions. Get rid of the drivers with less staff means fewer managers and that combined could mean lower fares and improving infrastructure.
- Tim, London
Most unfair line of argument.
The first two very big projects (rebuilding the Victoria line and resignalling the Jubilee line) haven't yet reached the step-change improvement that they are supposed to deliver.
And trying to run projects this big without weekend closures will just cost more and take even longer.
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON. UK
Having lived once in an area of London where the tube was scrapped in 1954 the tube made little difference to my working life. Now the chances of any further underground extensions seem as remote as a shark attack in the Thames.
- Mark Wright, Milan, Italy
So Alanj would be happy for an unqualified,unskilled person to be responsible for his safety 300 feet underground.
- Colin, barking essex
I am not a fan of the tube at the best of times, but let's be a little bit accurate with the analysis.
You say that the delays have decreased when comparing Jan v Jan. However not while comparing Jun v Jun.
And then you say that passenger numbers keep rising...by 6% over the last year etc.
More people, less delays. So surely something must have improved! No?
And why is an increase in capacity of a 1/4 such a poor return for £20 bn? It's a lot of money, sure. But a lot of capacity too. How much do you think it costs to increase such a huge system by a 1/4? What would be a good return?
And with trains you pretty much have to cause delays to make improvements. Yet everyone complains about the delays, and demands improvements.
I am definitely not defending everything about them, but how about giving them a fair go...
- Jimmy, Amsterdam, NL
TFL will continue to be a massive money pit long into the future. The strong unions do not help matters, the vastly overpaid Train drivers on more than teachers & firefighters are a joke. Okay so they get up early but 80% of them seem to find it difficult to even stop at the correct spot in stations or slow down without hurling all standing passengers down the train at 90mph. How on earth can they & their managers justify their salaries? Engineers with experience & education is understandable but unqualified and unskilled jobs like driving should not command the 35-40k + salaries they do at TFL
- Alanj, London
Are we forgetting to mention that one of the reasons for the problems with the tube is the failure of both Tory and Labour governments to invest adequately in it over the last 50 years + ? This is why there is such a huge backlog of work to be done compared to the transport systems of many other European capitals.
- Nigel, London WC1
“…What's more, the figures entirely exclude planned closures. With up to a third of the network now shut every weekend, the Tube is providing perhaps its worst service ever..”
Indeed Andrew. I have never known such an appalling and disrupted weekend service on the Tube in the 30 years I have lived in London. TfL seem to take a perverse joy in this and I also find the public speaker announcements that there is a “good service on the Tube network” - when a third of their services have been suspended for “planned closures” - basically insulting to the average transport user. And as far a decor is concerned, if anyone wants to an example of years of total inaction on the part of TfL take a look at the disgraceful state of Oxford Circus Tube station with exposed ceiling and unfinished tile work. I wonder want tourists make of this mess when exiting into London’s West End.
- John David, London
Good heavens, an article by Andrew Gilligan that i agree wholeheartedly with
- Tony, London
