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London's Underground system today emerged as a key target for Treasury spending cuts.
Crucial upgrades to the network could be in danger if Chancellor George Osborne insists on squeezing 25 to 40 per cent from the transport budget.
Transport secretary Philip Hammond is understood to be submitting proposals for cuts to the Treasury next week - a fortnight ahead of a deadline - for the summer-long comprehensive spending review.
Sources said he will not downsize the £16 billion Crossrail project, but business leaders fear this leaves Tube upgrades exposed.
Business leaders today warned that cancelling upgrades would undermine the capital's economy. A report by business group London First forecast "intolerable" conditions on the Tube in 2026 if the cuts were made. It claimed:
Temperatures could soar to 32C, breaking EU limits for transporting livestock, let alone people.
The 10-mile journey from Tooting Broadway to Canary Wharf on the Northern line could take an hour to complete as a result of delays caused by overcrowding.
The ticket barrier at Victoria station would shut every six minutes, for two minutes at a time, to maintain safety because of severe over-crowding.
Every passenger using Bond Street station would have to add an extra 10 minutes to their journey to push through overcrowded platforms and escalators.
Baroness Valentine, chief executive of London First, said: "Without the Tube's modernisation alongside Crossrail, London's ability to accommodate jobs, population and new economic activity will grind to a halt, to the detriment of the whole country. Passengers will no longer tolerate the conditions. It may take a generation, it may be too slow to see by the eye, but it will happen, and our hard won status as a world city will slowly slip from our hands."
Experts say the Tube is vulnerable as it takes up such a large share of the £14billion budget at the Department for Transport, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies says is likely to suffer 33per cent cuts. Almost a third of the department's annual budget goes to Transport for London. Upgrades are planned for the Northern and Piccadilly lines. An upgrade of the Jubilee line is now due to be completed by October.
Reader views (26)
If money is short, it sounds a sensible move to me. The "upgrades" of lines always result in a system which is technically much more complex but doesn't achieve a significant increase in capacity - perhaps one extra train an hour.
Far better to focus attention on money for building entirely new routes (such as crossrail, DLR extensions etc.) than tinkering round at the edges of a system already above capacity to try to squeeze a little more out of it.
Incidentally, the picture shows a train on the only route which is considered to be fully "upgraded" and isn't expected to have anything done to it other than a lick of paint for many years.
- Ian, now escaped London to the west, 12/07/2010 00:10
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Crossrail will give my neighbours through trains to west of Liverpool Street. Stratford to Holborn on the Central Line (see photo!) is the longest overcrowded stretch on London Underground.
Having listened carefully to the few words of Transport Secretary Phillip Hammmond MP, I am confident that Crossrail will go ahead.
I'm less confident tht all of it will open in 2017 and that investment in the tube will hit the PPP target dates.
- Alan Griffiths, Forest Gate, LONDON E7, 11/07/2010 13:21
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I have never understood the vital importance of Crossrail, can anyone explain it. as for the so-caleld upgrades which have been going on for months and have no end in sight, has anyone noticed any improvements-I certainly haven't. And large parts of teh network are out of action week-end after week-end. Would this happen in any other major city in the world? At these fares? Lunatic, criminal or both.
- MikeS, London, 11/07/2010 11:27
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This article is pure speculation - again. The headline indicates that something has happened and it has not. There is a wretched habit among some journalists (and editors) to pretend that they have news when in fact they are simply being lazy. This is then followed up by comments that are steeped in myth and again have little or no foundation. Pretty poor Evening Standard.
- John, Stlbans, 10/07/2010 18:37
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Remove the Tube Vehical, board the Rail-recess right across, supply FREE Bikes- 2 wheel for the fit ,3 Wheel for the difficult members of sociaty, Tandams for Lovers- partners(of all sexs) and Chaufer peddled Rickshaws for the ones who want Luxury, some could be battery driven. Get everyone Fit and every one will be less agressive and a bit better BALANCED.
- trevor, stockwood, 10/07/2010 06:57
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It would plainly be better to improve the existing public transport provision, i.e. the Tube, rather than spend a king's ransom on a totally new project that, unlike the Tube, is not currently used by hundreds of thousands of people every day.
Crossrail is the issue and the answer to that is obvious.
- Matt, London, UK, 10/07/2010 02:41
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Stand on the platform at Euston Square, and wait and wait. How on earth do we need an identical pair of tracks burrowed underneath these empty tracks? It's a reminder that this Lib-Dem/Tory government is not short of cash, it's short of folk who've ever travelled by tube.
- mkpaul, Milton Keynes, 09/07/2010 20:43
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They must be literally mad. Every time I return home for a visit, I find the tube to be almost embarrassingly dirty and clapped-out in comparison with those in Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpar etc. ad infinitum. Don't they understand that having a modern clean transport system is part of what makes a city attarctive for business and tourists? (They clearly don't care about actual residents). What's right-wing or conservative about turning Britain into a new run-down, communist era eatern european state (but with worse trains)? I realise I know longer live in London, and so anything I say is probably completely irrelevant and uninformed, but making the tube even worse makes me flippn' mad!
- Harry, Taipei, 09/07/2010 19:09
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A deafening silence from the Lord Mayor on this subject ?
- brian williams, barry south wales, 09/07/2010 18:18
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Schools not Transport cut. Yet I read we are spending twelve million pounds on the visit by a foreign religious leader.
- Alan., England., 09/07/2010 17:43
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Why is Transport in London in such a dreadful state. Labour had thirteen years to modernize it plus a Labour mayor for a lot of that time. i know, most of their MPs come from Wales, Scotland and the North. As one of your correspondents puts it Wales doesn't care. Provided of course they get the usual perks, free prescriptions, and as is the case in Scotland, free Universities and nursing care in old age.
- alan., England., 09/07/2010 17:36
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Why not get out of Afghanistan (the country never wanted to be there in the first place), cut the military budget and spend the money on the Underground??? Would make too much sense. LET'S START SOME MORE WARS!!!!
- authoriseduser, London, England, 09/07/2010 17:27
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Wales doesn't care.
- Alan, Llandrindod Wells, Wales, 09/07/2010 17:25
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Yet i read we are going to spend 12 million rising they say to 20 million on the Popes Visit. The Catholic church has no connection to this country and is rich enough to pay for its own visits.
- ALAN., ENGLAND., 09/07/2010 17:18
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OMG this is exactly where we shoudl be spending in a down term. I think we may voted in a bunch of ameteurs.
- Adrian, London, 09/07/2010 16:09
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They could start by cutting the wretched announcements now plaguing the tube. It's one thing we really don't need and would at least give us a bit of peace and quiet as we swelter...
- rover, London NW2, 09/07/2010 15:59
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"A report by business group London First forecast "intolerable" conditions on the Tube in 2026 if the cuts were made".
No doubt, with the inevitable increase in projected population. So now is high time to reduce pressure on our transport and infrastructure in general by AT LAST grasping the nettle of the huge problem of our imported populations.
Stop immigration, start repatriation, and we're on the way to a solution - including to that of the so-called "housing problem" - without any eye-watering investments.
- Croyboy, Croydon, UK, 09/07/2010 15:04
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Intolerable in 2026
It is now - crowded, hot and trains too full to get on. That's intolerable now.
We need workers to be fresh when they get to work, not tired so we need improvements to the tube urgently
- Steve, Redhill, 09/07/2010 14:49
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The upgrading of the tube should be more of a priority than the building of Crossrail. It would not be a great suprise if Crossrail was very late and very over budget given it's complexity.
- Richard, Hoxton, 09/07/2010 14:14
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Sounds like a great plan, cut spending on the transport and schools budget to save the economy and then spend three times as much in 10 years time on the same projects and end up with the same level of debt.
- W6, London, 09/07/2010 14:05
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Fred when you get a bunch of no hopers in government what can you expect? Call me Dave, moron Gove (only 22 mistakes), Nick the bag carrier, Vince "watch me dance all the way to Lords" Cable, Ken Clarke......oh this list goes on and on. Not forgetting Beaker the token ginger one.
- Derek Porter, London, UK, 09/07/2010 13:59
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Are the CrossRail trains going to have air-con? Please makesure they do...
Any chance we could get some on the tube as well?
Never understood why the Bakerloo line wasn't extended to the South East, like via Elephant to Deptford, perhaps under the existing road network like New Kent/ OLd Kent road?
- James, London, 09/07/2010 13:56
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Rather than the punishment taxes that government wants to lay at the door of London institutionals perhaps direct "donations" into the coffers of LUL. At least that way those that benefit most from London's improved transport infrastructure can see their money working for them rather then dissappear down the dark corridors fo Whitehall.
- Paula Griffin, South London, 09/07/2010 13:47
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Perhaps Govt will now follow through on pledge to remove management consultants from the public sector and replace the expensive consultants managing CrossRail (whose costs don't seem to appear on TfL's headcount) with equally effective but much cheaper in house managers.
All of the expensive consultants on the CrossRail project can, in the current recession, be replaced by directly employed managers saving us taxpayers many millions.
- John, Berks, 09/07/2010 13:46
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Hmm, time for a strike by long-suffering tube passengers, methinks - and/or an undertaking that call-me-Dave's lot will alwauys travel by tube when mvoing around London.
- sallyp, London, England, 09/07/2010 13:42
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these people are nuts. labour's deficit-cutting plans were adequate. it's good to spend on infrastructure in a recession - you get it cheaper, and you sustain businesses that would otherwise go under. someone needs to tell the treasury to put good economic sense ahead of ideology
- fred, london, england, 09/07/2010 13:41
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