wrote:
On Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:34:40 +0100
"Tim Fenton" wrote:
Dave Hill's London Blog concludes so, from recent comments and articles:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehil...on-london-publ
c-transport-fares

Boris potentially proving yet again that it is actually possibly to make
Ken Livingstone seem like a forward thinking intellectual in retrospect.

On public transport he pretty much was (things like the Overground and
ELL are related to his thinking on the matter a quarter of a century
ago, just as the Congestion Charge has its roots in his experience of
anti-roads protests in the early 1970s), although it's possible to
over-estimate his personal expertise in the matter. The big difference
is that he realised his limits and the return on investment of employing
competent staff to run it for him.

Boris appears to have no interest in the subject whatsoever (as can be
seen by appointing someone younger than me with no external interest
declarations other than 'Conservative Party' as his Transport Advisor,
although assuming that he'll do anything to avoid being beastly to
motorists is a fairly reasonable ground rule.

I'm pretty sure from all that's gone on that Boris actually dislikes
public transport on principle - he's still complaining about dirty bus
exhausts, for instance, completely oblivious to the Euro emission
standards in force and the negative air-quality impacts of diesel cars.
This is tabloid ranting comment column grade ignorance and failure to
see the bigger picture.

Tom