Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Not even London will have a ‘London-style’ transport system
'The current state of TfL’s finances, with no clear plan of how to fund it in the future, threatens to result in a very different London public transport system that elsewhere in the country would be wise to avoid.
'Unless solutions can be found to the current crisis, TfL could face deep budget cuts and a halting of investment, the result being a deteriorating service for Londoners. At this rate, not even London will have a ‘London-style’ transport system.'
Read the rest of this blog post about the dangers facing our transport system on the Centre for London's website.
Tags for Forum Posts: public transport, tfl
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by JJ B on
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It is called "levelling up" and is a way of "building back better" innit?
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Don't see how you can critise the government for covid decimating TFL revenue. They can be blamed for many things such as the daily waves of illegal immigrants landing in Kent but not for covid.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Whilst nothing is simple or straightforward, there are a few reasons given in the article for pointing the finger at Johnson and the current national administration.
"..others point to the previous Mayor’s (and the current Prime Minister’s) agreement to give up the revenue support grant in 2011."
"London is now almost alone amongst major global cities in that its public transport network is not in receipt of a financial subsidy from the national government."
"Some argue that London should be able to retain a fraction more of its economic contribution to the Treasury (£40 billion a year more than comes back to the city through public spending) to keep the transport network running. However, so far, ministers have been adamant there’ll be no restoration of the old revenue support grant for London."
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Putting aside the covid revenue gap (which the government has no choice but to cover), why should the rest of the country subsidise a transport system which only those in London use? If I lived in the midlands or the north or the south west I'd be miffed to be paying towards London's transport system when I don't really have access to an effective one of my own.
One might argue that London contributes more to GDP than other places and thus deserves more spending but we already enjoy that in different forms. We have public wealth unsurpassed in other parts of the country (more and better hospitals, galleries, parks and better state schools). We have higher wages and house prices and job opportunities galore
I don't really like Boris but you could argue that removing the support grant was 'levelling up' in action.
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I’d call it “cutting the head off the tall poppy”’ To quote a phase.
This government is going to need the £40billion a year, and probably double, from London, to pay for its levelling up projects. Cutting London at its knees isn’t going to help.
The only thing that holds this disparate bunch of villages together is the transport system.You could suggest to Boris, that he should set up Transport For Northumbria or Transport for Mercia, Anglia etc.
That really would level things up!!
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Hi Brian, I was shocked by the governments flat refusal to help TFL whilst bailing out the private rail companys. Boris only relented when TFL and Khan said they’d have to shutdown completely. As part of the final bailout we have to endure Andrew Gilligan as the TFL overseer, appointed directly by Boris.
For that, and everything listed by Hugh I think Boris is to blame.
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As much as I love London, TFL piss money away left right and centre - for a start, and having known several people who have worked there and still do, they suffer from massive overspending on final salary pensions scheme that still runs, early retirement and overpaying on the market rate for office jobs (i.e over 40k for a project assistants) and that's not even getting started on third party contracts and spaffing money on inefficient or ineffective projects. If you count flex and overtime, staff can access up to over 70 days holiday a year! (30ddays minimum plus 3 extra days a month if you work compressed hours.)
Having a bit of oversight on TFL won't do it any harm.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I can’t understand the reference to compressed hours. In my last five years at work (not for TfL) I worked 4 nine hour days rather than it being spread over 5 days. My employer still got a minimum of 36 hours a week from me.
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In literally every major company, you work 5 days a week and might work a few hours extra here and there, but there's no question of an extra day off. Given the chronic debt that TFL was in, you'd think think that these kind of agreements were suspended until they got out the other side - especially given the burden that something like a 70 days off would cause on customer service (or often the lack of it) on our services.
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I worked the hours I was paid to work - and normally more that I wasn’t paid for. Having a group of staff where you can rota them to provide 9 hours a day cover rather than 7.2 can give much better customer service.
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CC,
Do you mean projects like Crossrail, the Overground, Boris buses and cycle superhighways??
We could simply Break it all up and deregulate. That would certainly make some savings.
I also thought that the oversight was supposed to be done by our elected Mayor, wasn't that how it worked when Bossa was the fat controller?
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