This page was last edited at 1920 GMT London Monday 8 September 2008:
KHOODEELAAR! is republishing the following comment piece by-lined to Andrew Gilligan and carried in the print editions of today's London EVENING nostandards STANDARD. Why we are doing so? As part of the evidence that the EVENING nostandards STANDARD is still treating CRASSrail as a cult item and phenomenon,, always to be left out of any critical assessment or evaluation. We note that the Gilligan piece is apparently an objective attack on ken Livingstone's recorded mess at the TfL. Yet the piece makes an exception of CRASSrail. Describing CRASSRAIL as a 'project of real worth'. This is contradictory., and dishonest. Whether this phrase was inserted by Veronica Wadley or whether itv was Gilligan who wrote it himself is not known as yet. But the fact is that the piece is contradictory because of that plug in it for CRASSrail. Assuming that Gilligan wrote it himself, it is clear on that evidence that Gilligan is just as dishonest as anyone else that has been peddling Crassrail... On that evidence, Gilligan's claimed objectivity in the rest fo the item falls. [To be continued]
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It’s time to turn your attention to TfL, Boris
Andrew Gilligan
08.09.08
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How magnificently brazen it was to see Ken Livingstone attacking Boris's TfL fares increase last week.
This rise, of inflation plus one per cent from January 2009, is, of course, the exact same package which the ex-Great Helmsman himself secretly agreed on 24 October last year.
The only difference, as emails leaked to the Standard in April showed, was that to the horror of his officials, Mr Livingstone simply decided to ignore the decision.
We've short memories, Ken, but not that short. And remind me: just which Mayor was it who raised fares by up to one-third in 2007? Would that have been you, or a totally different one?
The real problem is not that Boris has kept Ken's 2009 fares plan but that he has, so far, left almost everything else about Livingstone's TfL intact, too. It's a problem because TfL is the Ed Balls of public administration: nothing like as good as it thinks it is.
It genuinely believes, in the words of its commissioner, Peter Hendy, that it is an “efficient and effective” provider of bus and train services.
In fact, under Livingstone and Hendy's stewardship, it has achieved the worst of all worlds: rapacious fares, vast public subsidy and often mediocre service.
The buses have improved, though at a disproportionate, unsustainable cost (bus subsidy has risen about 1,300 per cent, while passengers have risen about 45 per cent). But the Tube is the least-reliable, worst-managed metro in Western Europe, and is getting worse, not better. It is hard to overstate the damage it does to London's international reputation and to Londoners' blood pressure.
TfL genuinely believes itself a world leader which other cities follow. Actually, other cities are surprised at our backwardness in, for instance, providing clean public transport. Even the buses in Delhi have been using cleaner fuels for years — but London's bus fleet remains 99.9 per cent diesel. In terms of air pollution (different from C02), TfL buses are among the most poisonous things on the road in London today, directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of Londoners each year.
No other city has followed London's model of the congestion charge, for the good reason that it uses crude, old technology and has, partly as a result, stopped reducing congestion.
TfL does, however, lead the world in pointless extravagance, with 123 of its managers earning more than £100,000 a year and fortunes wasted on vanity projects like the “Greenwich Waterfront Transit” (a six-mile bus route — again diesel — costing £20 million). Hence the high fares.
Now, with big bills looming for projects of real worth such as Crossrail, fare rises alone, however necessary, won't pay for everything. The bus and rail services London depends on simply cannot survive at their current levels unless TfL takes a crash diet.
But four months in, marvels one senior TfL figure, “Boris's arrival has made no difference whatever. It's all going on exactly as before.” No programmes have (yet) been cancelled. No personnel changes have been made. Indeed, one senior TfL person has just been appointed, of all things, Boris's environmental adviser.
Less than a year ago, as further leaked emails show, Mr Hendy was secretly plotting with Ken's chief of staff to “refute Boris's transport ideas”. Now, in a truly gymnastic feat of brown-nosing, he has apparently persuaded the new Mayor that his sole purpose in life is to implement those very same ideas.
It's surprising that someone as bright as Boris can fall for this obvious nonsense. What it probably means is not that TfL will end up working for Boris — but that Boris will end up working for TfL.
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Reader Views (8) Add your view | Show all
Here's a sample of the latest views published. You can click view all to read all views that readers have sent in.
How much do Deloitte make from TFL? Did they assist with the Oyster card that recently crashed and cost us a small fortune?
- Miss Snipe, London
Dear, dear are these the first signs that Andrew might be falling out of love with his creation, tut,tut!
Remember what happened to Dr Frankenstein.
- David, london UK
Have you ever ridden a bus in Delhi? Have you breathed in the smog in that city? What utter tosh.
I don't live in London, but every time I have been there, I have been pleasantly surprised by a well-organised, frequent, low-cost mass transport system. You perhaps forget what it is like to not live in the well-connected Capital city!
TfL is what the rest of the country's transport network needs! Not subsidised, wholly national, national rail!
- Liam Gooderhall, Hooton, United Kingdom
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