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!

In article , John Rowland
writes
"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
.. .

London Buses are also cutting back on
vehicle numbers for future bids thus
risking the reliability improvements made to date.

Is that not the correct response to shortened journey times and improved
reliability since the congestion charge was introduced?

No, the answer should be to increase frequency and routes to attract
more people away from cars particularly outside the central zone.
Congestion Charging was introduced on the basis of allowing public
transport to be improved - that appears to have happened in the short
term, now it must continue or is Ken going back on his justifications
for the CC in the first place?
--
John Alexander,

Paul Corfield wrote:
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.

The tram scheme costs were escalating rapidly; given the National Audit
Office's findings on the economics of existing light rail schemes in the
UK, it made a lot of sense to get the local authorities to reassess
their schemes.

TL2K also suffered from some poor specification without due
consideration of alternatives (not to the scheme itself but to parts of
it, like Borough Market); hopefully soon the new environmental statement
and revised Borough scheme will get the scheme progressing. I'm not
particularly au fait with the legal proceedings, but I imagine the SRA
is probably reluctant to start anything as its end is nigh and it's
probably easier to wait for the DfT to bite into it from the beginning.

I'm amazed the King's Cross debacle hasn't become a political hot
potato. The media don't seem to have picked up on it at all, given that
the station box construction has caused huge inconvenience for everyone
using King's Cross.

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.

Understandable. Obviously Ken has to represent the interest of
Londoners, but in the case of Thameslink, a regional scheme is much more
favourable, given that the current level of service to inner suburban
stations seems to be considered an over-provision. However, some group
(can't remember who) raised concerns over the reliability of the
proposed TL2K scheme at the consultation, and I share those concerns.
Thameslink is unreliable enough when running Bedford-Brighton, let alone
all the additional branches. King's Lynn seems a bit much.

The same debate over Crossrail has come up with the proposed Superlink
scheme. One of the supposed benefits of the latter is abstraction of
traffic from the M25 - but the Orbit multimodal study concluded that the
effects of any rail scheme on the M25 would be absolutely minimal.

That leaves the main objectives of these RER-style schemes to be
additional capacity creation and Tube congestion relief, which seem more
suited to more local schemes.

[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.

Ken seems extremely unwilling to keep quiet if he disagrees with the
government. If it weren't so, he probably wouldn't be Mayor.

An objective impact report into the congestion charge would be welcome,
particularly before new schemes are introduced elsewhere like Edinburgh.

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.

Slash and burn seems a bit over the top. However, I understand that such
a massive bus expansion will inevitable result in some curtailments as
the network is adjusted to the actual growth taking place. Around here
(Kensington), the network improvements seem generally well-matched to
growth, with the exception of the 360 which seems to be heavily
under-used, and the C1 which seems heavily over-used. Improvements
(part-funded by the congestion charge) to the 9, 49, 28, 74 and 414 seem
to be appropriate. Oh, and we seem to have avoided bendybuses for the
time being...

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.

I knew about the PVR cuts on the 73 and the 453/53 frequency reduction.
The whole bendybus thing seems to have been rushed and enthusiastically
mismanaged, and it's one bus issue I've been disappointed with. Is the
453 cut because of overprovision? The few times I've used it, it seems
to be underused.

I had no idea about the suburban bus cuts; it's disappointing news, and
doesn't help the Mayor's central-London-centric image. Have any reasons
been given for the night bus cuts?

(snip)
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.

Here's a quick summary: "Trams are better than buses", "They're just
buses with the infelixibility of rails", "The rails make them more
attractive", "High quality buses would be just as attractive" etc etc.
Someone else brings up trolleybuses, and no-one really gets anywhere
because there are lots of arguments for and against.

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.

These transit schemes seem to be to encourage Thames Gateway development
by guaranteeing a level of provision without having to invest in
light rail to begin with as some of the developments to be served
haven't been built yet.

Heavy rail works fine for radial journeys but does little for orbital
and local ones, which the Thames Gateway will generate in spades. The
DLR and Tramlink are good at creating new radial networks to serve large
suburban centres, but not so good for the lower flows likely to be
generated as the first new developments grow up.

Without a higher-quality bus service than normal in these new areas, I
think they're quite likely to become car-oriented, and it's hard to
shrug off car dependency when it becomes entrenched. It's an experiment
to attempt to generate a higher modal share for the bus in the new
developments than it would otherwise achieve.

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.

I'm sorry, but I don't quite understand what you mean here. What are the
rail schemes and competing schemes you mention, and the more appropriate
but ground-breaking schemes for 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.

External issues are ever more pressing. The Underground is closer to
capacity than ever, with real risks of regular peak-time station
closures, and the London economy is at severe risk if current trends
continue, as businesses can quite easily relocate to other major
European cities. Labour could win more business brownie points here than
ever before, being in control of both central and new regional
government in London, so a political impetus is there. The stakeholders
even volunteered quite significant funding!

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 think you've nailed that one :-) Even given TL2K, Crossrail 1 and
Crossrail 2, some LU stations would still need costly expansion; LU will
still be a distributor for RER journeys, and some latent demand might be
unleashed into the newly-freed capacity of the Tube. IMHO, the only way
to combat the expensive station expansion would be to create a new
network of tram distributors on the surface from the major stations, but
that has massive roadspace problems of its own and is also probably a
perverse financial equation!

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.

Isn't the struggle to understand buses more reason to boldly enhance
information provision rather than construct costly orbital rail
networks? Orbirail is certainly a good idea (and _is_ a key part of the
transport strategy), but has limited scope in dealing with orbital
journeys as, by their nature, orbital journeys are diverse. Even
DLR-style operation on the NLL (which would have massive implications
for the national network, and would require huge investment outside
London) would only help with a particular proportion of orbital journeys.

The Orbit multimodal study looked at the effect of Orbirail on reducing
M25 car journeys, and the effect was truly minimal. I can't remember the
effects on other orbital road corridors but the conclusions weren't
promising. Rail is not the answer for orbital journeys (and even public
transport in any form isn't a very promising answer by itself; road
pricing has to be introduced to have any effect).

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.

Transferring road capacity in the way you say is laudable but has its
own problems. The proposed frequency of CRT had to be reduced from 40tph
to 30tph because of the impact it would have on east-west bus corridors
at the Aldwych, Holborn and Euston. Trams are certainly part of the
solution but they have to be exquisitely matched to particular
corridors. However, to make them affordable, it would be helpful if we
could achieve an economical procurement method along European lines.
Trolleybuses should be investigated in detail too.

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.

The South East network is unique amongst London railways in being able
to serve both the City and the West End without relying on the Tube. If
the main objectives for RER schemes are to create new capacity and
relieve Tube crowding, then any scheme involving the South East network
will not perform as well against those targets.

As for the regional vs metro view, intensification of development is the
order of the day in London, and, as such, metro schemes support that
objective better than regional ones. I guess it all depends on where the
current and future demand is. I was surprised that Crossrail doesn't
seem to effectively serve the Thames Gateway, and instead Dagenham Dock
developments are expected to feed into Crossrail via the DLR or ELT;
similarly on the other side of the river. The redevelopments further out
lose out too (particularly on the northern side of the river which
doesn't have CTRL-DS).

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.

That's more of a social perception issue than an operating one. London
has a major advantage in bus perception over the rest of the country,
but that diminishes with each zone you travel out of the centre. I agree
with you on express buses; rather than mirroring rail services, these
should link suburban centres orbitally (and could do so more cheaply and
with a wider catchment than orbital rail services, although Orbirail
should definitely be introduced for denser inner London).

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!

Poor you :-)

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?

There's no point defining a artists' impression of a London street in 10
years' time - what use is that? Transport is a means to an end rather
than an end in itself, which is why the strategy is based on other
objectives (quoted from the strategy):

• Providing for economic and demographic growth by investing
to deliver the necessary additional public transport capacity and
reliability.
• Supporting London’s world city functions by tackling traffic
congestion, improving public transport and improving the city’s
international links.
• Promoting social inclusion and regeneration by providing the
transport links and accessibility to underpin economic development.
• Making London’s streets and transport systems safer, more
attractive and more comfortable.
• Tackling traffic congestion, improving air quality and the
environment, alongside promoting healthier means of travel.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Dave Arquati wrote:
Is the
453 cut because of overprovision? The few times I've used it, it
seems
to be underused.


I think it's one of those awkward routes which is overused in the rush
hour (and at night, actually), and under used out of it. I've given up
even trying to get a bus from the Old Kent Road between 8am and 9am -
there just aren't enough of them to cope with demand, and as I live at
the city end, they're mostly so full by the time they reach me that
they don't even stop. However, during the day, the 453 seems to run
half full.

Jonn

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:21:21 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 16:03:15 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:

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,

The tender documentation for 123 was for the same level of service as
at present.

extra Sunday buses on the W11.

Unless you know something I don't, the Sunday daytime service on W11
gets increased from 2 to 4 bph from 06/03/2005.

snip

--
Thomas Covenant
Please observe reply to Address.
Unsolicited mail to "From" address
deleted unread.

Jeffrey Asante wrote:
give Chingford branch passengers a decent link to the
City (changing onto ELL at Dalston and again at Shoreditch High St).

I am sure that people on the Chingford branch can't wait to have to do
two changes to get to Liverpool St where as at the moment they make
none.

Kevin

In article , Dave Arquati
wrote:
Paul Corfield wrote:
[snip]
, Dave Arquati wrote
[snip]
John wrote:

Why do people write all this? There is gricerly interest, and there is
technical interest, and there is constructive interest (how could it be done
better?), and too little, there is POLITICAL interest - what is the
objective?

[snip]

I'm amazed the King's Cross debacle hasn't become a political hot
potato. The media don't seem to have picked up on it at all, given that
the station box construction has caused huge inconvenience for everyone
using King's Cross.

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.

Understandable. Obviously Ken has to represent the interest of
Londoners, but in the case of Thameslink, a regional scheme is much more
favourable, given that the current level of service to inner suburban
stations seems to be considered an over-provision.

[snip]

That leaves the main objectives of these RER-style schemes to be
additional capacity creation and Tube congestion relief, which seem more
suited to more local schemes.

Yes, so despite the public talk about Crossrail (in either of its
versions) being to make travelling conditions for Londoners easier, the REAL
objective is to bring more workers in to feed the "City" and increase the
dominance of London in the UK as a whole. I always thought so. If you LOOK at
the plans, it always seemed plain.

[snip]

Michael Bell
--

On Wed, 05 Jan 2005 22:28:26 +0000, Thomas Covenant
wrote:

On Tue, 04 Jan 2005 18:21:21 +0000, Paul Corfield
wrote:
On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 16:03:15 +0000, Dave Arquati wrote:

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,

The tender documentation for 123 was for the same level of service as
at present.

However I am sure you will agree that it desperately needs improvement
and that therefore the tender documentation was issued on an incorrect
premise.

I have several E Mails from First Bus managers bemoaning the stinginess
of TfL in not responding positively to their many and varied suggestions
for providing a better and more reliable service. I had one arrive only
yesterday! I think that shows what is wrong with the current set up -
operators want to make positive changes, TfL don't / won't / can't agree
to the proposals. I accept the operators have a vested interest in
reducing their risk of penalties and want to earn more money but if it
gives a better service I fail to see what the issue can be - apart from
"there is no budget".

I find it bizarre in the extreme that Arriva are being allowed to buy
shorter and lower capacity double decks (for the new contract) than most
of the buses that First currently use on the route. For the last two
nights buses have hurtled past my local stop without stopping for the
waiting passengers as people have been pressed up against the windscreen
as the buses have been so full. For goodness sake the route gets full at
07.00 in the morning!

It is this sort of nonsensical "improvement" - i.e. none whatsoever -
that really gets my goat when it is demonstrably the case that
passengers are not able to use the service properly today and that the
new contract is highly unlikely to deliver any improvement whatsoever as
there is no increase in the peak vehicle requirement which means the run
time must be about the same as now - i.e. inadequate. Perhaps Arriva are
able to cast a magic spell to run the route better than First but
somehow I doubt it.

extra Sunday buses on the W11.

Unless you know something I don't, the Sunday daytime service on W11
gets increased from 2 to 4 bph from 06/03/2005.

Not what the final consultation document said. I was copied it at the
last minute and provided comments on a whole range of the proposals.
There were no improvements to the W11 stated in the document and I
commented that this was a backwards move from the original tender
documentation.

Needless to say I have had no acknowledgement whatsoever of my
submission or a response as to what will happen. It is therefore
possible that the document was incorrect or TfL have had a change of
heart.

The November Service Change Bulletin has the full list of Walthamstow
changes in it and it says that there are no changes to the W11. I do
accept that this document can often be incorrect. I guess you may want
to go and make some checks yourself!
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Michael Bell wrote:
In article , Dave Arquati
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
[snip]
, Dave Arquati wrote
[snip]
John wrote:

Why do people write all this? There is gricerly interest, and there is
technical interest, and there is constructive interest (how could it be done
better?), and too little, there is POLITICAL interest - what is the
objective?

I don't understand; what's your issue with this discussion?

[snip]

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.

Understandable. Obviously Ken has to represent the interest of
Londoners, but in the case of Thameslink, a regional scheme is much more
favourable, given that the current level of service to inner suburban
stations seems to be considered an over-provision.

[snip]

That leaves the main objectives of these RER-style schemes to be
additional capacity creation and Tube congestion relief, which seem more
suited to more local schemes.

Yes, so despite the public talk about Crossrail (in either of its
versions) being to make travelling conditions for Londoners easier, the REAL
objective is to bring more workers in to feed the "City" and increase the
dominance of London in the UK as a whole. I always thought so. If you LOOK at
the plans, it always seemed plain.

Crossrail *is* basically a local scheme and hence achieves the
objectives of additional capacity creation (both to accommodate growth
in travel in the future, and to increase the reliability of the existing
services now) and Tube congestion relief. What's the problem with that?

The other remaining approaches are to either do nothing (with travel
growth therefore being constrained by capacity, damaging London's status
amongst rival cities abroad) or to charge higher fares to discourage use
(which is politically unacceptable and would also damage London's status
and economy).

Growth in travel is occurring across the country, not just in London.
Crossrail is one way to accommodate some of that growth in London; other
cities have their own schemes to accommodate growth. The objective isn't
to increase the dominance of London in the UK, although that may be a
side-effect if other cities' transport plans fall by the wayside for
whatever reason. The primary objective is to sustain the growth and
status of London in the world. Secondary objectives are social inclusion
and modal shift to public transport.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

In article , Dave Arquati
wrote:
Michael Bell wrote:
In article , Dave Arquati
wrote:

Paul Corfield wrote:
[snip]
, Dave Arquati wrote
[snip]
John wrote:

Why do people write all this? There is gricerly interest, and there is
technical interest, and there is constructive interest (how could it be done
better?), and too little, there is POLITICAL interest - what is the
objective?

I don't understand; what's your issue with this discussion?

[snip]

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.

Understandable. Obviously Ken has to represent the interest of
Londoners, but in the case of Thameslink, a regional scheme is much more
favourable, given that the current level of service to inner suburban
stations seems to be considered an over-provision.

[snip]

That leaves the main objectives of these RER-style schemes to be
additional capacity creation and Tube congestion relief, which seem more
suited to more local schemes.

Yes, so despite the public talk about Crossrail (in either of its
versions) being to make travelling conditions for Londoners easier, the REAL
objective is to bring more workers in to feed the "City" and increase the
dominance of London in the UK as a whole. I always thought so. If you LOOK at
the plans, it always seemed plain.

Crossrail *is* basically a local scheme and hence achieves the
objectives of additional capacity creation (both to accommodate growth
in travel in the future, and to increase the reliability of the existing
services now) and Tube congestion relief. What's the problem with that?

The other remaining approaches are to either do nothing (with travel
growth therefore being constrained by capacity, damaging London's status
amongst rival cities abroad) or to charge higher fares to discourage use
(which is politically unacceptable and would also damage London's status
and economy).

Growth in travel is occurring across the country, not just in London.
Crossrail is one way to accommodate some of that growth in London; other
cities have their own schemes to accommodate growth. The objective isn't
to increase the dominance of London in the UK, although that may be a
side-effect if other cities' transport plans fall by the wayside for
whatever reason. The primary objective is to sustain the growth and
status of London in the world. Secondary objectives are social inclusion
and modal shift to public transport.

I think that to a fair extent we have agreed.

Michael Bell

--