A Night Tube for London, At Last!

Transport for London has announced that from 12 September 2015, an overnight tube service will run on Fridays and Saturdays. So at last London Underground will be entering the 21st century, acknowledging the demands of the public in Europe’s premier city. In the past, all sorts of reasons were put forward why this was not possible; cleaning the tracks, for example. But I always suspected that some of these “reasons” were in fact excuses, and even if a 24/7 tube might not be feasible, given the antiquity of some of the infrastructure that shouldn’t stop a full weekend service. I imagine TfL must have got the relevant unions to agree to this; if so, hats off to them too. In London we are blessed with night buses (living on he very frequent No 25 route, I am particularly fortunate, but the buses are sometimes full or rowdy or both. And the tube will be much faster. So, thank you, TfL for some really cheering news. Less than a year to wait!

Caroline Pidgeon’s Transport Overview

photo by Anuja Prashar

As someone who has lived in London for more than 30 years I know how important public transport is to most people’s lives in the city, so it was hardly surprising that Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat member of the Greater London Assembly (GLA) and Chair of the Assembly’s Transport Committee, attracted a good audience and a barrage of questions when she spoke to Merton Liberal Democrats last night. She paid tribute to the way that many Londoners shifted their working patterns during the recent Olympics and Paralympics, which meant that the underground system and Docklands Light Railway managed to cope despite the millions of extra journeys by visitors. With ongoing advances in communications technology, there is good reason to assume that some London companies and their employees will build more home-working, video-conferencing etc into their lives, reducing the need for daily commutes. Yet there is every reason to suppose that the pressure on the public transport network will increase. The underground system — the oldest in the world — still needs massive new investment to be fit for purpose, though Crossrail — now progressing after several decades of inexcusable dithering and delay — should ease the east-west congestion. Caroline was a great supporter of the proposed cross-river tram, which would have eased north-south congestion too, but the project was alas abandoned. Indeed, Mayor Boris Johnson does not seem to be aware of the true potential of trams, Caroline said. She also argued that much more use could be made of the River Thames as a transport highway, and she spoke up strongly for more, better and safer cycling provisions. I raised the issue of aviation, as the Liberal Democrats need to have more of a coherent policy than merely opposing a third runway at Heathrow. That will be the subject of a debate at the up-coming party conference in Brighton. In the meantime, what is clear is that both the Conservatives and Labour are deeply divided on whether there should be increased air capacity in London and the South East, and if so, where.

So What Has Bob Crow Achieved?

Hundreds of thousands of Londoners are struggling home tonight, as a result of the RMT’s unilateral tube strike. Doubtless many of these people, like me, have had meetings or appointments cancelled, turned up late for work or lost business. Indeed, it is said that each day there is such a public transport strike in London, the capital’s economy loses tens of millions of pounds. People miss planes and tourists get pissed off, vowing never to return to such a shambolic city. Tomorrow, unless there is some miraculous resolution of the dispute, or else more underground train drivers defy the union’s diktat (as some did today), there will be yet more misery and chaos. Things are unlikely to get back to normal until Friday morning.

So what, exactly, has RMT chief Bob Crow achieved, other than further alienating the long-suffering traveling public (something he seems to delight in doing), snarling up the capital’s traffic and causing overstretched bus drivers great stress? There he was on the picket line at Seven Sisters this morning, looking like a superanuated bovver-boy, being paid more per year than most of us will ever be, but proclaiming to be the champion of the ‘workers’. It’s interesting to note that the train drivers themselves earn considerably more than the average wage. Moreover, at a time when so many people are seeing their busineses fail or fear for their own jobs, the last thing Londoners needed was  a kick in the shins from Crow and Co. However, in 2009 he and his ilk do look like dinosaurs, so maybe they should be kept out of harm’s way in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington along with the others.