On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 16:03:15 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 01:04:03 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:

John wrote:

In article , Dave Arquati
writes

Paul Corfield wrote:
(lots of snip)

Oh and a strategy for the proper development of all of London's
transport would also be a good thing.

Like this?
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/strategies/transport/

Well yes there is that document. I just wonder to what extent it is
actually being implemented.

A quick glance suggests that whilst it may be approaching Paul's
objective, the revisions suggest that we are in the normal quasi-
political government cycle of proposal, change, proposal with no
consistency or any actual investment.

Precisely. There are far too many schemes that to all intents are
finalised but which are going nowhere - Thameslink being the biggest
victim of this inertia.

Thameslink being covered by the SRA which has one foot in the grave.
With any luck, the Mayor's proposed new rail powers will enable progress
to be made on Thameslink, although I can see a clash happening between
TfL and the DfT, as TfL would prefer a more local, metro-like scheme
rather than the regional scheme currently on the table.

I firmly believe Thameslink has to be built but I don't believe it will
happen. The cock up between Prescott's department over planning issues
and the lack of interest from the SRA and worrying developments at Kings
Cross under the auspices of the DfT all suggest to me an attempt to kill
the scheme. If Mr Darling can't find a few hundred million for some
trams in the Labour heartlands then I can't see how he's going to find
well over £1billion to fund Thameslink.

I also worry that this clash between Ken's London centric view and the
possibly far more beneficial regional form of rail scheme is not good
for the nation as a whole. Ken has access to government cash - at the
moment - because he delivered the London Mayoralty for Labour. He cannot
milk that forever - especially if Gordon Brown ever becomes Labour
leader. The current apparent largesse for London is a short term payoff
- I simply don't see it being maintained.

[congestion charge]

It speeds up bus services (except along Oxford Street...); I personally
haven't noticed a large decrease in its efficiency but it seems logical
that traffic will increase without the charge being raised - hence the
proposal to increase the charge to £8 to secure the traffic reductions
for the next few years.

I doubt that the Western extension will happen - simply because the
charge is viewed as a tax and that is going to become an electoral issue
in the short term. Therefore Ken is going to be told to "shut up" about
the congestion charge until after the next election. I also have doubts
about how effectively the scheme is being operated and also about the
true economic effects on London businesses. I appreciate everyone has an
axe to grind but I would like to see some objective research on the
charge and its impacts before either the Western extension or a change
to the level of the charge. Londoners at least deserve to have that
knowledge.


improved bus services are in place,

but no more development can be afforded. There are now cuts being made
to a range of services including the night bus network which is contrary
to the strategy. London Buses are also cutting back on vehicle numbers
for future bids thus risking the reliability improvements made to date.
The bus fleet will also now age significantly following the huge and
rapid push to a low floor fleet over the last 3 years. I am afraid that
I consider TfL to be in breach of the Mayor's strategy so far as the bus
network is concerned.

The problem TfL have had is that they've managed to increase bus
services in the central area but now lack the funds to do the same in
the suburbs. I think they were expecting more money from central
government than they actually received.

Which is a polite way of saying they prioritised the central area to
support the congestion charge, got their sums wrong and then went in to
"slash and burn" mode when they failed to convince government about
their bus strategy. Oh and they also decided to spent money on choo choo
trains rather than buses.

What cuts are being made?

The N101 has gone. The N58 goes in March. A whole pile of suburban
schemes have been scrapped - the 228 in South East London, the extension
to the 309 to Clapton. The Walthamstow scheme has had a number of items
that were in the original tender package scrapped - improvements to the
123, extra Sunday buses on the W11. the 58 is having its Saturday
frequency cut despite it being packed on this day. Some of the planned
congestion charge related improvements were never implemented. There
have been bizarre policy decisions concerning funding of cross boundary
routes to adjacent shire counties which hark back to the worst days of
LT policy when money was short. The 453 and 53 are having their
frequencies cut in a few weeks time - the surplus artics are going to
route 25 to deal with the chronic overcrowding. Route 73 lost 14 buses
off its PVR when it went artic. You can expect the same sort of cut when
the 38 goes artic later this year.

To answer another poster's comment many of the PVR reductions are not on
Central London routes - they are on suburban services where there is no
congestion charge impact. This is simply TfL trading the risk of
unreliability against the bid premiums that the bus companies had got
away with during the initial move to Quality Incentive Contracts.

the West London Tram, East London Transit and
Greenwich Waterfront Transit are all well-advanced.

For some reason I am somewhat underwhelmed by these schemes. I think the
West London tram will never happen because of public opposition and
escalating costs for tram schemes. I still don't understand the
reasoning for the transit schemes and would prefer that the money set
aside for these schemes were put into development of the bus network
overall.

It's the classic argument about the attractiveness of trams vs. buses
which we've done many times on here. The transit schemes will be an
interesting way of finalising that argument as they will provide
tram-like levels of service and infrastructure provision, whilst still
using conventional bendybuses - we can see whether buses themselves are
a turnoff, or whether the permanent way of the tram is the deciding feature.

I tend not to follow the more ranting arguments on the group. For
certain key flows then trams are undoubtedly the best answer. For others
then a properly resourced and operated bus service will do just fine. I
just don't see the need for enhanced "transit" like services in the
areas being proposed for them. If you want to properly support
something like the Thames Gateway then you need heavy rail, possibly
something like DLR or trams for the heavier intermediate flows and then
a decent, well integrated bus network.

I note that you have omitted the Cross River Tram which I do think
should go ahead as a matter of urgency - if only to get trams back into
the centre of London from where further expansion can then take place.
It is strategically important that this tram scheme is built and built
soon.

I also believe that CRT is vital, particularly at King's Cross to act as
a distributor for the new CTRL and TL2K services, and at the Elephant to
help the regeneration plans there progress. I think it's slightly lower
down the agenda because having expanded bus provision in central London,
the Mayor wants to improve public transport quality in the suburbs to
help stem some of the growth in car use there. That fits in with the
Transport Strategy (which I believe includes reducing traffic growth in
central London from 5% to zero, and in outer London from 5% to 3%).

Well given that I cannot see improvements to suburban bus services
happening any time soon as I think TfL will genuinely struggle to get
all of their rail schemes planned and committed in such a short
timescale. There is also the risk that there will be cost overruns and
risks arising between competing schemes that will further dent the
ability of TfL to fund more appropriate but ground breaking schemes in
the future.

Crossrail

The scheme will never be buried; there are a lot of extremely interested
parties very keen to see it constructed, and they won't stop until they
get something. It's not just TfL; the Corporation of London and Canary
Wharf Group are pushing very heavily for it. Hopefully a critical point
has now been reached in both development of the scheme and support, with
a lot of political goodwill at stake if it now gets rejected.

Hmm - I take the point about the stakeholders but governments of various
hues have done a bloody good job of ignoring them for the last 30 years.

Why do you question the balance between modes?

I suppose it's a personal view really. There is a whole load of cash
going into the Tube and hopefully there will be some very good
improvements with new trains and signalling systems. It'll be a hell of
a struggle to get there but I think the end result will be worth it. I
have some question marks about some of the station capacity schemes
being proposed as I would prefer to see RER type lines being built
across the centre thus reducing the need for huge and costly expansion
in some central london LU stations. I accept that is a slightly perverse
financial equation though!

I strongly support the ELLX but would prefer to see a proper Orbirail
network being part of the TfL strategy. I would also prefer it to be
high frequency with DLR style operation under a brand new operating
regime that scraps a lot of the LU or NR historical operating practices.
I don't see that happening anytime soon but I think that would make a
huge impact of reducing car journeys within London as it would be
convenient, easy to understand and well integrated with the Tube and
Rail networks. Car drivers understand rail based networks but struggle
with buses - we need more structure to the London transport system with
money being spent to link it together properly.

I think the Cross River Tram has to be built because a bold step needs
to be made to permanently transfer road capacity to high quality rail
based public transport. If you look at what Paris is planning or what
Zurich or Vienna have then you can see what I mean. Once CRT was built
then extensions could be added and you can take out some of the most
heavily used bus services and make them trams instead. This then becomes
"permanent" in the mind of car users.

I would prefer Crossrail and Thameslink to be regional schemes rather
than the bizarre view of creating more Metro type services. Every S Bahn
or RER scheme I've ever used has managed to combine a high frequency
central area distributor role with a good and efficient regional service
as well. I just think it is crazy to leave so much of the South East
rail network disconnected from these schemes just because we have a
London Mayor.

On the buses I think there is a lot still to do. I would love to see a
really well designed and funded bus network - I fear we will never get
it. I don't fully agree with some of the "simple" design parameters that
TfL employ in their network design as I think you end up with over
provision of capacity in places that don't warrant it. I think there
should be some express bus services - I've just returned from Hong Kong
and their hierarchical bus network structure can teach us a number of
lessons. Buses have an important role to play and are not necessarily
the bottom of the transport hierarchy - I just think that is where they
have now been consigned to.

I think dealing with problems is the essence of the way plans for
London's transport network must be taken forward; you can't achieve the
targets you mention without addressing particular issues. Specifically
target-led approaches have merits but can be very complicated and can
lead to meaningless number manipulation. London Underground is now
following such an approach; look at the complexity of the PPP documents.

I know all about the PPP documents!

I'm not advocating targets for the sake of it but I get no sense at all
from Ken's Transport Strategy as to what sort of overall public
transport he is trying to provide us with. There are loads of fine words
but what will the man in the street see or experience in 10 years time?

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!