Right. Transport. Where to start? Cripes.
Obviously, the transport issue everyone associates with Boris is the bloody Routemaster bus, so we’ll ignore that for now (it’s not going to happen, guys) and move on to what I think is an important disconnect between the Mayor and the wider views of more seasoned London Tories. In particular John Band has identified statements made by Conservative Assembly Member Richard Barnes (and prospective Real Deputy Mayor) which give a rough indication of what the suburban Tories who made Boris Mayor think is important in transport:
TfL needs to be brought under proper accountable and democratic control, and not to be run by a bunch of 1979 throwbacks intent on class war and making life unpleasant for motorists.
Clearly Thatcher’s ‘great car economy’ is going strong down Ealing and Hillingdon way. Now here’s something I noticed Boris saying way back in early March:
I genuinely think we can make a huge difference to the commuting experience of every Londoner, by looking at the multiplicity of ways by which people get to work, stop clobbering them, start helping them
I read this at the time as a disguised promise to car drivers that he’d see them right. The only travellers in London who feel clobbered are those who have spent the last five years jumping up and down and going red faced about the congestion charge (OK, and monthly or yearly Travelcard users, but as far as I’m aware Boris hasn’t actually promised them anything, unlike car drivers). The less selfish, more rational members of society accept that unrestrained car use in London has been a busted flush since the Ringways* bit the dust in approximately 1970, way before ‘car-hating’ Red Ken. Indeed, the last stand of the car lovers, the late 1980s proposals including a tunnel from Chiswick via Barnes to Wandsworth plus the ‘Western Environmental Improvement Route’ were comprehensively thrown out by that well known class-war-loving unreformed Stalinist Cecil Parkinson in 1990. Er.
Ealing, of course, is already on the map as a bit of a 1979 throwback area. In 2004 Ken Livingstone was elected on a manifesto of which, quite incredibly, all but one key promise was kept. The exception was the proposal to run a tram through west London from the new Westfield shopping centre at Shepherd’s Bush, via Acton and Ealing and up to Uxbridge. This scheme, which was green, progressive, would get drivers out of cars (and ironically take bendy buses off the streets) was abandoned after the return of Conservative councils along the route affected, in Hammersmith and Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing, all dedicated to opposing it. In fact it was a key election issue, as a prominent local Conservative opined:
I can’t believe how any bureaucrat sitting in a darkened room could come up with this scheme. They have the collective brain power of an amoeba.
His name? Richard Barnes. The objections mainly centred on the disruption to traffic it would cause while being built and the diversion of traffic off the main road to allow trams priority. Well, we can’t have that, can we? It might make life unpleasant for motorists (It also has to be said that TfL didn’t handle it particularly well, but it was one of the key City Hall v. Boroughs issues of the last few years, which is another Mayoral talking point). It’ll be interesting to watch what happens to the proposed bus priority schemes and Crossrail tie-ins that were announced at the time to save face, plus how congested Uxbridge Road gets.
All of which brings us to the two people John B correctly identifies as key to TfL - Peter Hendy and Tim O’Toole, the two remaining pillars of London’s highly successful transport triumvirate. There’s no word yet on whether they’ll stay in their jobs, but faint rumours today suggest they might stay. On the other hand, during the campaign Dave Hill reported that the Johnson campaign all but accused Hendy of lying about bus crime (which Hendy had correctly reported to the Assembly Transport Committee was a) being comprehensively tackled and b) falling), outright accused him of being a ‘Ken crony’ and questioned whether he ever got on a bus (he does, unsurprisingly). Given that the only things Boris has announced so far are that tackling bus crime is a priority and that Ken cronies can expect the boot, it would be an interesting start to turn round 180 degrees and say ‘Peter Hendy is just the chap I need’, particularly if the virulent TfL hating London Tories like Richard Barnes are also preferred. Again the faint whiff of incoherence arises.
* If you read nothing else today and have any interest in London’s transport history, take a skim through this, it’s one of the finest bits of Internet journalism I’ve ever seen.
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4 responses so far ↓
I live in the Ealing borough not far from the Uxbridge Road (the proposed route of the tram), and opposition to it was strong - not just from car drivers but also from people living and doing business along the route who would have endured years of chaos while it was being constructed.
Chaos was a word often used by the opponents of the scheme IIRC. Yes, building schemes are disruptive, but chaotic? Not noticeably.
My point is that the local Tories, now backing Boris in the Assembly, played up the temporary effects resulting from construction and the effect on private motorists while ignoring the environmental benefits and modal shift that result from light rail schemes (as well as the towering idiocy of accusing a politician, wanting to spend large sums of money helping your area, of waste). They also, as mentioned, think that TfL is anti-car. I’m suggesting these are linked - pro-car => pro-Boris => anti-public transport investment. Since he’s got to finish off quite a few projects in his time, it’ll be interesting to watch how he handles this.
As a counter-example, the people of the East End, Hackney and New Cross are currently enduring ‘years of chaos’ while the East London Line extension is built, but there doesn’t appear to have been the same NIMBY effect, because people realise that the end benefit of being better connected to the rest of London will be good for them. The WLT stands out as the only area of London where the locals said ’sod off’ when TfL proposed putting a lot of cash into improving their environment. I’d be inclined to let them stew, personally, but that would have been spun as ‘Red Ken ignores needs of Tory voters due to partisan spite’. You can’t really win with this kind of thinking.
The effects would have been much worse in the case of the tram, because the Uxbridge Road is a major artery road with, in several places along the route, no alternative routes able to cope with the traffic. All for much less eventual benefit than the East London Line extension will have.
The answer to the congestion problems in West London is improved rail services, not a tram. Scrapping the tram was the right decision.
Cheers for that Ringways link. I spent the greater part of today perusing that fascinating site, instead of working. The section on Glasgow is also well worth a read, if you haven’t already.