On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:00:41 +0000, thoss wrote:

Ah well, there's a surprise. The 3 councils concerned are all
Conservative controlled.

And why? Because last year the two Labour-controlled councils were voted
out because they supported the tram.

There was an overall national swing from Labour to Conservative. Is
there data to suggest that this particular change of control only took
place due to Labour voters changing their vote over the tram issue?

asdf wrote:
On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:00:41 +0000, thoss wrote:

Ah well, there's a surprise. The 3 councils concerned are all
Conservative controlled.

And why? Because last year the two Labour-controlled councils were
voted out because they supported the tram.

There was an overall national swing from Labour to Conservative. Is
there data to suggest that this particular change of control only
took place due to Labour voters changing their vote over the tram
issue?

I'm sure it was a major factor. The swing from Labour to Conservative
was 4% in London as a whole, but 10% in Ealing. The new council voted
*unanimously* to oppose the tram, with the remaining Labour councillors
effectively admitting that their previous policy of supporting the tram
was wrong. The Labour deputy leader on the council was reported as
saying "This [the tram] is something which has been very unpopular and
we accept that it has been a major factor in our defeat. The public have
decided this for all of us and we need to move on."
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On 25 Jan, 11:27, "Richard J." wrote:
The Labour deputy leader on the council was reported as
saying "This [the tram] is something which has been very unpopular and
we accept that it has been a major factor in our defeat. The public have
decided this for all of us and we need to move on."

This leads on to the interesting question - why do people in Ealing not
want the tram, whereas people in Peckham are quite keen on it? Is it:

a. Ealing has three tube stations plus two National Rail stations, and
feels that is adequate
b. Ealing residents are more likely to have cars than Peckham
residents, so the idea of road restrictions has more resonance for them
c. Peckham currently only has a couple of National Rail stations, so
its residents are looking forward to better services
d. The car lobby is more vocal in Ealing, and really there are no
differences in levels of support between Ealing & Peckham

or something else entirely?

Patrick

In message .com,
writes


On 25 Jan, 11:27, "Richard J." wrote:
The Labour deputy leader on the council was reported as
saying "This [the tram] is something which has been very unpopular and
we accept that it has been a major factor in our defeat. The public have
decided this for all of us and we need to move on."

This leads on to the interesting question - why do people in Ealing not
want the tram, whereas people in Peckham are quite keen on it? Is it:

a. Ealing has three tube stations plus two National Rail stations, and
feels that is adequate
b. Ealing residents are more likely to have cars than Peckham
residents, so the idea of road restrictions has more resonance for them
c. Peckham currently only has a couple of National Rail stations, so
its residents are looking forward to better services
d. The car lobby is more vocal in Ealing, and really there are no
differences in levels of support between Ealing & Peckham

or something else entirely?

Patrick

The trouble with the English, is that they all think of trams as
something out a 50s film, They don't go to places which have modern tram
systems ?
--
martyn dawe

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 wrote:



On 25 Jan, 11:27, "Richard J." wrote:
The Labour deputy leader on the council was reported as
saying "This [the tram] is something which has been very unpopular and
we accept that it has been a major factor in our defeat. The public have
decided this for all of us and we need to move on."

This leads on to the interesting question - why do people in Ealing not
want the tram, whereas people in Peckham are quite keen on it? Is it:

a. Ealing has three tube stations plus two National Rail stations, and
feels that is adequate
b. Ealing residents are more likely to have cars than Peckham
residents, so the idea of road restrictions has more resonance for them
c. Peckham currently only has a couple of National Rail stations, so
its residents are looking forward to better services
d. The car lobby is more vocal in Ealing, and really there are no
differences in levels of support between Ealing & Peckham

or something else entirely?

Yes, something else. I'd love a tram, but the Uxbridge Road is quite
unsuitable for one.
--
Thoss

martyn dawe wrote:

The trouble with the English, is that they all think of trams as something
out a 50s film, They don't go to places which have modern tram systems ?

You mean like Croydon?

thoss wrote:
On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 wrote:


On 25 Jan, 11:27, "Richard J." wrote:
The Labour deputy leader on the council was reported as
saying "This [the tram] is something which has been very unpopular and
we accept that it has been a major factor in our defeat. The public have
decided this for all of us and we need to move on."
This leads on to the interesting question - why do people in Ealing not
want the tram, whereas people in Peckham are quite keen on it? Is it:

a. Ealing has three tube stations plus two National Rail stations, and
feels that is adequate
b. Ealing residents are more likely to have cars than Peckham
residents, so the idea of road restrictions has more resonance for them
c. Peckham currently only has a couple of National Rail stations, so
its residents are looking forward to better services
d. The car lobby is more vocal in Ealing, and really there are no
differences in levels of support between Ealing & Peckham

or something else entirely?

Yes, something else. I'd love a tram, but the Uxbridge Road is quite
unsuitable for one.

I think this is a bit of a misnomer. It is true that the Uxbridge Road
is narrow in many places and so there is a lot of competition for road
space between motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and bus users.

However, any high capacity, high quality street public transport service
along this route is going to need more roadspace than is used now for
the conventional bus routes - otherwise it will be impossible to
maintain effective headways, and difficult to encourage some of the car
users to switch modes.

As far as I can see, there are only two ways to go with the Uxbridge
Road. Either more roadspace is taken away from private vehicles for
public transport (whether that is a tram or something else), or road
charging is introduced along it so that a very high articulated bus
frequency can operate.

However, there is a limit to the capacity you can get from such a bus
service without more infrastructure (at very high frequencies, buses
will need to be able to overtake each other easily). Longer vehicles
will be needed (longer than the current bendy buses) - and that brings
us right back to trams or tram-like technology (e.g. optically-guided
multi-articulated buses).

As for why Ealing doesn't want the tram but Peckham does, I would
combine higher car ownership and usage and a different attitude to
roadspace - oddly, much of the Cross River Tram route has more roadspace
available to it than does the West London Tram route, so battles over
roadspace are more hotly contested on the latter. I would say Inner
London residents are also much more used to the need to allocate
roadspace to public transport.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

asdf wrote:
On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 11:14:16 -0000, Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:

Date: 23.01.07
Release: Immediate

Title: West London Tram Could Put Council Tax up £315

This is the first I've heard of the Tram being funded by a Council Tax
increase. Won't it just be paid for out of existing transport budgets?

Quite - it's just a headline-grabbing figure. AIUI, funding for WLT
would probably need to be negotiated with central government as part of
the next investment plan, which, as now, will involve a combination of
TfL revenues, central government grant, Mayor's precept and borrowing
secured against future revenues. It could also potentially involve other
funds like TIF (Transport Innovation Fund), which would be connected to
other travel demand management projects.

The article assumes that the entire scheme would be funded out of the
Mayor's precept, which is not true.

(snip)

Notes to editors:

1. Transport for London's Survey in 2006 showed that 46% of residents
opposed the West London Tram.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/trams/download...tober-2006.pdf.

Why do they point this out? It appears to be the same survey they
referred to above, and therefore contradicts what they claimed!

The poll and consultation figures are constantly tossed around from side
to side in the WLT debate, and have all become fairly meaningless - the
only real conclusion one can draw is that opinion is quite evenly mixed.
One could also conclude that the opponents are much more vocal than the
supporters.

Until recently, the media consistently accused TfL and the Mayor of
manipulating the support figures for the tram - because the majority of
respondents to the public consultation opposed the tram, but an
independent poll showed a much more mixed opinion. The poll was a much
more reliable method of gauging public opinion (people opposed to
something are always more likely to voice their opinion than those who
support it - look at Cross River Tram where polls put support in the
nineties but media coverage is still focused on opposition issues).

3. The £315 figure is based on a £1bn estimate for the build cost,

What method did they use to come up with this estimate? This is more
than double the official estimate for the cost (£463m). The budgeted
cost, which includes a 40% risk premium, is £648m. The main anti-tram
website, Save Ealing's Streets, doesn't dispute the official figure.

Given that they don't say, and the co-incidence that it's such a round
figure, unless further clarification arrives I can only assume that
they used the pull-a-figure-out-of-your-arse-to-make-a-nice-headline
method.

I'm sure they did. They may have a point because these costs tend to
inflate anyway, but I'd be very sceptical of this figure until I saw
some supporting calculations (e.g. a comparison with cost overruns for
other UK light rail schemes).

Date: 24.01.07
Release: Immediate

Declaration of War Against the West London Tram

Think about what could be achieved with £1bn:
more police, better public services or a reduction is council tax: isn't it
a waste to throw all this money away on one white elephant transport scheme.

Right. So while the previous press release claimed that the Tram would
be entirely funded by a big Council Tax increase, this one (from the
same people) suggests that binning the project will leave a £1bn
surplus kicking around, which would be freely available to spend on
other public services or to give a reduction in Council Tax.

They're not doing their credibility any favours here.

You're right about the "money kicking around". Since a significant
proportion of the scheme cost could come from central government, the
likelihood would be that the "spare" money would be spent elsewhere in
the country. Such money would probably be in the DfT's budget, so it
would never get spent on tax reductions, police or any public services
other than transport.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

James Farrar wrote:

Most if not all of the three councils were won on a platform that includes
opposing the tram - this is a case of politicians fulfilling their
promises!

Treasure it while it lasts, it'll be a long time till the next one!
:-)

Hammersmith & Fulham Conservatives also pledged to cut Council Tax - and
they did.

http://timrollpickering.blogspot.com...-i-wish-i.html

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:53:20 -0000, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

James Farrar wrote:

Most if not all of the three councils were won on a platform that includes
opposing the tram - this is a case of politicians fulfilling their
promises!

Treasure it while it lasts, it'll be a long time till the next one!
:-)

Hammersmith & Fulham Conservatives also pledged to cut Council Tax - and
they did.

And we'll see how that affects their funding from central Government
next time round...