Boris Watch

It’s just come to my attention that entry to the London Transport Museum, which had been free to Freedom Pass holders since the museum reopened in November 2007 after a two-year, £22 million refurbishment, has been charged at £8 for all senior citizens since 1 March this year.
The London Transport Museum is a subsidiary company [...]

Oo, lovely, investment in the suburbs, new facilities for cyclists, all the good Boris stuff:
Transport for London (TfL) and the London Borough of Hounslow today unveiled a new foot and cycle bridge that allows pedestrians and cyclists to cross the railway at Bedfont Road in Hounslow in greater safety.
The brand new shared-use bridge, built alongside [...]

From the BBC article about the Class 378 launch (which I suspect is rewritten from a press release):
Mayor of London Boris Johnson will unveil the first of the new £250m fleet in Willesden, west London.
Deputy Mayor of London, Kabir Das, said: “We want to increase capacity – and these brand new trains have been specially [...]

If one seeks office in this country, it is as well to sharpen up one’s bargaining techniques because these people are no patsies. I fear that a life in the wilderness has left the hon. Gentleman with his customary good nature, but without that instinct for the jugular which so defines the Government, whom it is [...]

Fascinating results of a reader’s FOI request published over at London Reconnections, shedding more light on the murky deal between TfL and the DfT over funding ELLX Phase 2.  It quotes what is apparently a communication from the DfT (under Geoff Hoon at the time, although Boris’ mate and new Transport Secretary Lord Adonis was [...]

Jon Snow interviewing Boris on C4 News.  I paraphrase slightly.

BoJo: I’m happy to meet Bob Crow at any time for a beer or whatever, as long as the RMT aren’t striking or in dispute
JoSno: So why haven’t you met them to discuss your manifesto committment to a no-strike agreement
BoJo: There’s never been a time when [...]

I thought ATOC (the industry group representing train operators) would have something to say about TfL’s loud and repeated conviction that Oyster PAYG was valid on all National Rail routes in London today.  ATOC and the train operators are adamant that they only agreed to a few tube-paralleling routes additional to the normal PAYG validity, [...]

Boris has a web page up about the strike, this time on london.gov.uk, which is more political than TfL.  He duly starts with a rant at the RMT:
“It is utterly demented of the RMT leadership to proceed with this strike when two thirds of their members did not vote for it and when real progress [...]

West London ground to a halt today.  The cause was a car accident near the Hammersmith Flyover at 3am that, despite not being fatal or involving more than one car, lead to the entire area being sealed off by the police for forensic investigation and not handed back to TfL, apparently, until 1pm, resulting in [...]

TfL’s budget meeting has, as expected, canned the Greenwich Waterfront Transit and deferred the (rather expensive) Baker Street step-free access project.  The spin is, as usual, so heavy in the air you can taste it:
Step change increase in investment to deliver major milestones for Tube upgrades, Crossrail, the East London Line, DLR and Cycle Hire [...]