Transport for London will "declare itself bankrupt" by end of today (14 May 2020) without emergency finance

[bramling]

Goldsmith wasn't exactly pleasant either - at least a part of his campaign relied on dog whistle racism.

Yes it seems to be part of the job description for London mayor that one has to be a weird nasty piece of work.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

On the subject of Bailey, personal view however I find it incredible that the Conservatives have managed to find a mayoral candidate who’s even more odious than Khan.

The tories have a long history of it... Jeffrey Archer ('nuff said), later replaced by Steve Norris who then stood in the next election too and whilst being a bit of a lothario was the most decent one of the bunch, BoJo, Goldsmith - not a great record.

Wasn't keen on Livingstone and have no great affinity for Khan but a lot of these issues are outside his control.

 

[ainsworth74]

Yes it seems to be part of the job description for London mayor that one has to be a weird nasty piece of work.

Much like the city!

(I kid, I kid )

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Much like the city!

(I kid, I kid )

You're from Redcar.... not a position from which to cast aspersions (equally, I'm joshing )

 

[ABB125]

You're from Redcar.... not a position from which to cast aspersions (equally, I'm joshing )

Redcar... not the end of the world, but you can see it from there! (as my dad says)

 

[thenorthern]

Apparently the government is thinking of taking control of TFL from the Greater London Authority according to some press reports. It's rather like what happened with councils in 1986 when the GLC and other councils were abolished for not doing what Thatcher wanted.

Really though Khan has been running TFL badly as he has the wrong priorities.

 

[bramling]

Apparently the government is thinking of taking control of TFL from the Greater London Authority according to some press reports. It's rather like what happened with councils in 1986 when the GLC and other councils were abolished for not doing what Thatcher wanted.

Really though Khan has been running TFL badly as he has the wrong priorities.

TFL has been a political entity from the start, but has got worse over time. Whether moving it from one political umbrella to another would help is perhaps a matter for debate, but the current poisonous position being caught in the middle of a major game / rift just cannot continue.

What would be really good would be to split off the political side and recreate something like London Transport, and return to a focus on such mundane activities as running trains and buses!

 

[duncanp]

And now Sadiq Khant is blaming the government for TfLs financial problems

MPs reject motion to provide free school meals to pupils during half term

MPs have voted against a Labour motion to continue to provide free school meals to eligible students during the school holidays.

www.telegraph.co.uk

And your alleged "fares freeze" had nothing to do with it?

Sadiq Khan has accused Boris Johnson of lying to the House of Commons, after he claimed that Transport for London had been "effectively bankrupted" by the London Mayor.

The Prime Minister was challenged by several MPs over conditions being imposed on TfL as a result of acrimonious bailout talks, including extending the congestion charge as far as the North and South Circulars and ending free travel for the under-18s.

Although he failed to respond to the substance of the questions, Mr Johnson claimed: "The current Mayor of London had effectively bankrupted TfL before coronavirus had even hit and left a massive black hole in its finances.

"Any need to make up that deficit is entirely down to him, it is entirely his responsibility.

"Any expansion of the congestion charge or any other measure taken to improve the finances of TfL are entirely the responsibility of the bankrupt current Labour Mayor of London."

He added that TfL's finances had been left in "robust" shape but destroyed by "grossly irresponsible, demagogic policies".

After PMQs, Mr Khan tweeted: "The PM has lied to the House of Commons. Before Covid I was fixing his mess at TfL- reducing the deficit by 71 per cent since 2016.

"Covid-19 is the sole cause of TfL’s challenges. The PM wants to increase fares, the congestion charge & taxes - and end free travel for children and older Londoners."

 

[deltic]

I am not sure what the basis of the various personal attacks on Sadiq Khan in this thread are nor what he has done wrong in relation to TfL.

It is ironic that a person who as Mayor of London scrapped the western extension to the congestion charge zone wants to significantly increase its coverage. While if the 90% resident discount applies to the whole new congestion charge zone it will greatly increase traffic within the existing zone while creating a Berlin wall between inner and outer London. Who is going to pay £15 to travel from Streatham Hill to Tulse Hill. There is already a 150,000 strong petition against the extension of ULEZ to the south and north circulars - wait until people find out they will have to pay a congestion charge on top.

 

[duncanp]

I am not sure what the basis of the various personal attacks on Sadiq Khan in this thread are nor what he has done wrong in relation to TfL.

• A populist "fares freeze" which has had an adverse effect on TfLs finances. Of course it isn't really a "fares freeze", as Travelcard prices and daily caps have risen every year, even if you only use TfL services. By contrast, when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, there was one year when the price of my Zone 1 - 3 annual travelcard did not go up at all at the time of the January fares review.

 

[deltic]

Impact on TfL finances of the fares freeze has been minimal - it was a decision to "spend money" on fares rather than infrastructure - you may not agree with it but that is what the electorate wanted

 

[PeterC]

He is a slippery fish of a politician.

I think that counts as tautology

 

[hwl]

And now Sadiq Khant is blaming the government for TfLs financial problems

MPs reject motion to provide free school meals to pupils during half term

MPs have voted against a Labour motion to continue to provide free school meals to eligible students during the school holidays.

www.telegraph.co.uk

And your alleged "fares freeze" had nothing to do with it?

The fares freeze is a small (minority) part of the problem the impact of not doing the fares freeze would have left TFL needing a bailout in November rather than October.
Boris did leave a few unpleasant financial issues behind to deal with.

 

[Mojo]

While I don't especially rate Khan, the government is playing politics here, and when it comes to the Mayoral elections next year and indeed the next General Election, the Conservative candidates will be the ones who will suffer most. There are currently 21 MPs in London, most in outer London, and a lot of residents will be directly or indirectly affected by these changes, especially the congestion charge

And as much as the Prime Minister would like to pretend he isn't, the biggest intrigue about the whole thing is that Boris is one of those 21 London Conservative MPs himself!

 

[WelshBluebird]

And now Sadiq Khant is blaming the government for TfLs financial problems

MPs reject motion to provide free school meals to pupils during half term

MPs have voted against a Labour motion to continue to provide free school meals to eligible students during the school holidays.

www.telegraph.co.uk

And your alleged "fares freeze" had nothing to do with it?

• A populist "fares freeze" which has had an adverse effect on TfLs finances. Of course it isn't really a "fares freeze", as Travelcard prices and daily caps have risen every year, even if you only use TfL services. By contrast, when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, there was one year when the price of my Zone 1 - 3 annual travelcard did not go up at all at the time of the January fares review.

The fare's freeze has cost TfL around £640m spread over 4 years.
The government cutting TfL's grant by £700 every single year adds up to £2.8bn over the same time period.
I wonder which one has had the bigger impact.

 

[hwl]

Impact on TfL finances of the fares freeze has been minimal - it was a decision to "spend money" on fares rather than infrastructure - you may not agree with it but that is what the electorate wanted

Or locally until they discovered they weren't getting the promised tube frequency upgrade promised as result.

 

[thenorthern]

TFL has been a political entity from the start, but has got worse over time. Whether moving it from one political umbrella to another would help is perhaps a matter for debate, but the current poisonous position being caught in the middle of a major game / rift just cannot continue.

What would be really good would be to split off the political side and recreate something like London Transport, and return to a focus on such mundane activities as running trains and buses!

Problem with Khan is he has brought in a lot of idea like freezing tube fares and increasing free travel to under 18s without any idea of how to pay for it.

A couple of weeks ago I read that Westminster freezing fuel duty for 10 years is now costing the Treasury £9Bn a year compared to if Fuel Duty had continued to rise under the old system. While this is a vote winner the government has had to offset the cost of freezing fuel duty elsewhere with cuts or other tax rises. With Khan he didn't seem to understand freezing tube fares has to be paid for.

Also his other TFL ideas such as banning lorries from Central London, having TFL control Southern and other things sound good in the newspapers but would never work in practice.

 

[hwl]

The fare's freeze has cost TfL around £640m spread over 4 years.
The government cutting TfL's grant by £700 every single year adds up to £2.8bn over the same time period.
I wonder which one has had the bigger impact.

The grant cut was partially netted out by getting a small share of business rates (which is now looking pretty worthless!). the Grant impact is far far bigger than the fares freeze though.

Boris left behind some big assumptions / target for advertising revenue at the end of his era in 2016 which were / are unrealistic with the rise of the internet and ad spending shifting there instead.

 

[kristiang85]

Also his other TFL ideas such as banning lorries from Central London

Was that a genuine idea? How on earth would shops/pubs/etc. been able to restock without large goods vehicles?

 

[hwl]

Problem with Khan is he has brought in a lot of idea like freezing tube fares and increasing free travel to under 18s without any idea of how to pay for it.

A couple of weeks ago I read that Westminster freezing fuel duty for 10 years is now costing the Treasury £9Bn a year compared to if Fuel Duty had continued to rise under the old system. While this is a vote winner the government has had to offset the cost of freezing fuel duty elsewhere with cuts or other tax rises. With Khan he didn't seem to understand freezing tube fares has to be paid for.

Also his other TFL ideas such as banning lorries from Central London, having TFL control Southern and other things sound good in the newspapers but would never work in practice.

His team of advisers were very naive - these is school of thinking that they didn't understand the grant cut agreement until way to late.

Was that a genuine idea? How on earth would shops/pubs/etc. been able to restock without large goods vehicles?

Lots of Lorry moves are prohibited at night in London, the idea as successfully trialed during the Olympics was trying to maximise lorry deliveries at night. The idea was to do that permanently again.

 

[thenorthern]

Was that a genuine idea? How on earth would shops/pubs/etc. been able to restock without large goods vehicles?

Exactly it's just things that sound good but really don't mean anything. I assume if such a plan did come to fruition an exemption would be granted for deliveries in Central London. The problem is the net result would be a negligible reduction in Lorries driving in Central London as lorry drivers don't deliberately drive through Central London because they can or just to spit on people. Given Lorry Drivers are professional drivers they prefer to use the M25 or the North/South Circular routes compared to driving in Central London if they have to take good from one part of London to another.

 

[deltic]

Problem with Khan is he has brought in a lot of idea like freezing tube fares and increasing free travel to under 18s without any idea of how to pay for it.

A couple of weeks ago I read that Westminster freezing fuel duty for 10 years is now costing the Treasury £9Bn a year compared to if Fuel Duty had continued to rise under the old system. While this is a vote winner the government has had to offset the cost of freezing fuel duty elsewhere with cuts or other tax rises. With Khan he didn't seem to understand freezing tube fares has to be paid for.

Also his other TFL ideas such as banning lorries from Central London, having TFL control Southern and other things sound good in the newspapers but would never work in practice.

Kahn's manifesto set out how the fare freeze would be paid for - and he has cut operating costs. Given declining bus passenger numbers one could argue that without the fare freeze and bus hopper fare, patronage would have been even lower and services could have been cut to save money.

TfL having control over national rail services in London has been a long term ambition of TfL well before Kahn became Mayor. Interestingly Kahn has put forward ideas to ban certain types of lorries from central London, based on driver vision standards, to improve safety for cycles. Again an idea that originated under Boris's regime and which Boris used as an argument for leaving the EU as vehicle design standards are set at an EU level.

If one has any transport complaints against Kahn is that he has come up with no new ideas other than a fare freeze. The bus hopper fare was long championed by the Lib Dems, while he has built on existing proposals for expanding the cycle network and implementing an already planned clean air zone. In this respect he resembles Boris who also did nothing for transport except waste money on the new bus for London and the dangleway.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The lorry control scheme was to remove certain designs of lorries that didn't meet a set of standards. That would be items including but not limited to ensuring mirrors and other measures remove blindspots (such as full length windows on doors to see on the nearside) and correct design of under-run bars. All these things to stop the disproportionate number of cyclists killed by LGVs.

The other measures are about restricting deliveries by vehicles out of hours. Imagine you're a resident and you're woken at 5 am by a delivery vehicle with a chiller unit going and roll cages being pushed onto a tail lift etc. It's to avoid that, and it's an extension of the earlier LLCS/LBTS that has been around since 1986.

So it's not a ban on lorries in London but to influence their design and operation.

 

[HSTEd]

Ultimately TfL will have to cut its coat according to the available cloth.

Major rationalisations and service reductions are inevitable.

 

[philosopher]

The fares freeze is a small (minority) part of the problem the impact of not doing the fares freeze would have left TFL needing a bailout in November rather than October.
Boris did leave a few unpleasant financial issues behind to deal with.

In hindsight I do not think the fares freeze was a great idea. Bus fares even before the freeze were on the cheap side and now they seem to be almost half that of the rest of the country. That said to be fair in hindsight I think quite a few things would have been done differently.
Boris did waste money on things such as the garden bridge and the New Routemaster for London which can‘t have helped TfL’s finances.

Going forward TfL are going to need a new funding model that involves some form of a grant as I can’t see passenger numbers, particularly on the tube getting back to 2019 levels any time in the near future.

 

[bramling]

And now Sadiq Khant is blaming the government for TfLs financial problems

MPs reject motion to provide free school meals to pupils during half term

MPs have voted against a Labour motion to continue to provide free school meals to eligible students during the school holidays.

www.telegraph.co.uk

And your alleged "fares freeze" had nothing to do with it?

To be frank I wish both of these sewer-grade politicians would just disappear off the scene.

They’re both as bad as each other, if they can’t work together during a national crisis - and whatever one’s views Underground and bus transport in London is an important part of the national infrastructure - then neither are fit for office.

A blame-game being played out in public at this time is just the pits.

It’s a pity the Queen stays out of all this, I can only imagine what she must think seeing all this nonsense going on.

 

[deltic]

In hindsight I do not think the fares freeze was a great idea. Bus fares even before the freeze were on the cheap side and now they seem to be almost half that of the rest of the country. That said to be fair in hindsight I think quite a few things would have been done differently.
Boris did waste money on things such as the garden bridge and the New Routemaster for London which can‘t have helped TfL’s finances.

Going forward TfL are going to need a new funding model that involves some form of a grant as I can’t see passenger numbers, particularly on the tube getting back to 2019 levels any time in the near future.

Or maybe it should radically reduce service levels - not many people will notice the difference between 36tph and 30tph or 24tph and 20tph. Staffing levels seem very high on stations that are underground - not sure how many are really needed for safety reasons

With the collapse of the evening economy can the service close down earlier?

The bus network needs a radical change - now with hopper fares in place there is less of a case for 5-6 different services operating along the same corridors for miles on end

Lots of difficult decisions will need to be made

 

[bramling]

Or maybe it should radically reduce service levels - not many people will notice the difference between 36tph and 30tph or 24tph and 20tph. Staffing levels seem very high on stations that are underground - not sure how many are really needed for safety reasons

With the collapse of the evening economy can the service close down earlier?

The bus network needs a radical change - now with hopper fares in place there is less of a case for 5-6 different services operating along the same corridors for miles on end

Lots of difficult decisions will need to be made

Service levels could be reduced now, however things like the Victoria Line 36tph (the only line to run that frequency) really were necessary in normal times. The danger is that if, or perhaps more accurately when, demand does recover there won’t then be the resources to return to that level of service.

Staffing levels have already been cut over the last few years. Any further driving down of station staff numbers would cause issues when incidents occur - might not be immediately unsafe, but a basic incident will take longer to resolve, which in turn leads to the risk of knock-on incidents.

It depends on whether Underground transport in London is considered to be an essential national service or not. Given it’s importance to London’s functioning, and in turn London’s importance to the country’s functioning, I’d say there’s a pretty strong case to say that it is. It certainly deserves better than the current Khan versus Piffle circus.

If we’re looking to make some savings, perhaps not wasting money producing “The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has...” posters might be a starting point?

 

[matt_world2004]

The fares freeze is a small (minority) part of the problem the impact of not doing the fares freeze would have left TFL needing a bailout in November rather than October.
Boris did leave a few unpleasant financial issues behind to deal with.

The fares freeze actually probably delayed the bailout earlier TfL reduced it's operational expenditure to pay for the fares freeze and as such had lower operational costs when the crisis began meaning it lasted longer without fare revenue.

The abolishing of the central government grant was far more disastrous than the fares freeze. Indeed as a result of the fares freeze TfL owned services did not receive as much as a fall in passenger numbers as other London tocs did before the crisis began

 

[ChiefPlanner]

When trains are almost empty all day in Zone 1 , you know you have a long term problem. (till the West End opens up in some way , and some sort of re-start kicks in on commuting - albeit in a differing way) , it is , to quote the much favoured phrase of the Daily Express , "heartbreaking" to see the darkened West End Theatre land. Little incentive to go there now , especially as you cannot meet up for a drink in moderation as you used to.

Do you really need - did you ever need - a 10 min service to Watford Met , or Harrow and Wealdstone all day ? - especially when some of the relatively sparse off peak passengers were riding free (and yes - I know these lines very well) , or observed the virtually ecs to Stanmore for much of the day. In the past , the rush to get "social benefits" even used to extend to converting such gems as the 00xx Harrow and Wealdstone empties to Stonebridge Park into a passenger service - not one I would have wanted , or needed to travel to. Even in the 1990's they were costing something like £18 a train mile.

So - yes - hard decisions - keep stations as now for staffing , but thin out train miles where sensible , because you can always put them back in incrementally at some time.

And before I get accused of ill- favouring TfL , which I have the ultimate respect and affection for , we can do the same on the suburban network. My son , had the pleasure of a 10-car Southern train to himself the other evening on a route that would have had "reasonable" loadings not so long ago.