Increasingly sad state of London Underground trains - graffiti and disrepair

[Tetchytyke]

Mayor Khan has almost if not total control over the issue.

He holds the purse strings when it comes to non-routine cleaning

Except he doesn’t.

Before Covid TfL made 70% of their revenue from fares income. Covid ruined TfL financially and had to be “bailed out” by the previous government. The previous government set very strict limits on the “efficiency savings” they expected to see from TfL in exchange for that support.

So after Boris had cut things back to the bone, Khan had to cut it further.
With is why you see what you see now.

Hopefully it will improve with the new government, but it won’t be a quick process. Not when the new government is very clear that there isn’t any money.

 

[miklcct]

The business rates retention isn't allowed to be used for day-to-day spending (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/...t-funding-to-upgrade-londons-transport-system). Which I speculate might explain why TfL have had to cut back on things like tackling graffiti.

Regardless, being the only world-city that doesn't receive decent day-to-day funding from central government definitely doesn't help either investment in new stock, or maintenance of existing stock.

The Hong Kong system also doesn't receive day to day funding from the central government. Funding is provided for capital investment while the network runs on an operational surplus, and the capital funding is also from the local government, as the finance in Hong Kong is separate from the central government.

 

[peteb]

Went past Ruislip depot the other week. Sad to see the 1938 stock red train covered in graffiti. You'd have hoped that would have been found a parking slot inside the sheds?

 

[Ghostbus]

It seems too obvious to have to point out, but if something like non-routine train cleaning is a sum too large for the Mayor to find through efficiency savings, fare rises, budget re-allocations, wage negotiations or commercial revenues, perhaps the time has come to ask if his office is adding any value to the taxpayer at all? Is the three link chain of DfT-Mayor-TfL one chain too long?

 

[Thirteen]

Except he doesn’t.

Before Covid TfL made 70% of their revenue from fares income. Covid ruined TfL financially and had to be “bailed out” by the previous government. The previous government set very strict limits on the “efficiency savings” they expected to see from TfL in exchange for that support.

So after Boris had cut things back to the bone, Khan had to cut it further.
With is why you see what you see now.

Hopefully it will improve with the new government, but it won’t be a quick process. Not when the new government is very clear that there isn’t any money.

I think what a Labour Government can do for Sadiq Khan is devolving more spending powers as well as the long term funding deal.

 

[Meole]

A big problem with a lot of recent tag graffiti I see is the growth in the use of incredibly strong acids in the paint or markers so that even if it's cleaned off it either looks an absolute filthy mess or it straight up eaves the original work clearly visible because it's stripped the actual train paint down to the metal after it's cleaned.

Artists buy specialist spray cans these days some use wheeled cases to carry their range which could easily cost £1k, I gleaned this info from a young man decorating a wall outside a station whilst streaming live on you tube with a couple of dozen cans in his case all of which were paid for from his you tube income he said. For some it is apparently an occupation these days.

 

[thomalex]

I gleaned this info from a young man decorating a wall outside a station whilst streaming live on you tube with a couple of dozen cans in his case all of which were paid for from his you tube income he said.

Sounds like criminal damage to me, and one that has been filmed to make it really easy to identify who it is

 

[Recessio]

The Hong Kong system also doesn't receive day to day funding from the central government. Funding is provided for capital investment while the network runs on an operational surplus, and the capital funding is also from the local government, as the finance in Hong Kong is separate from the central government.

Hong Kong has significantly less private car ownership than London, and the weather is less conducive to cycling for a lot of the year, so it's easier for them to be more reliant on fares income as there's less of an alternative to using public transport. I'd also argue the general populace there seem far less likely to smash up the interiors of trains and crawl graffiti everywhere...

It seems too obvious to have to point out, but if something like non-routine train cleaning is a sum too large for the Mayor to find through efficiency savings, fare rises, budget re-allocations, wage negotiations or commercial revenues, perhaps the time has come to ask if his office is adding any value to the taxpayer at all? Is the three link chain of DfT-Mayor-TfL one chain too long?

If you think the tube is bad now, it was even worse in the period between the abolition of the GLC and the creation of the GLA. The problem is not a problem of structure, it is simply funding. I think it is fair to say that actually further devolution to TfL and the GLA would have prevented many of these problems as they would have far more control of the finances, rather than the current top-down model where they constantly have to beg the DfT and Westminster for every single penny.

 

[Gostav]

Artists buy specialist spray cans these days some use wheeled cases to carry their range which could easily cost £1k, I gleaned this info from a young man decorating a wall outside a station whilst streaming live on you tube with a couple of dozen cans in his case all of which were paid for from his you tube income he said. For some it is apparently an occupation these days.

As a game artist and watercolor artist, I occasionally go to art stores to buy materials and can clearly see how expensive various spray paints are.

At the same time, many professional videos on YouTube show that graffiti artists have been linked together to form international organizations. Those people will grouped and painted graffiti across borders and then fly back to their home to avoid any punishment. For example, graffiti artists in the EU will go to the UK to paint graffiti (London's subway and railways are the first to bear the brunt of its geographical location) and then immediately fly back to the mainland. This has also happened in Japan. When the police began to investigate, the graffiti artists had already left the country by plane.

Here is a fresh video just released 4 hours ago about graffiti around world. Someone can try to calculate how much it would cost to make a similar around the world trip to visit these rail systems legally.

 

[InTheEastMids]

Hong Kong has significantly less private car ownership than London, and the weather is less conducive to cycling for a lot of the year, so it's easier for them to be more reliant on fares income as there's less of an alternative to using public transport

This point also helped me remember that, unlike other public transport operators, Mayor of London is trying, to a degree, to undermine TfL' s finances via the active travel strategy. This is obviously the right thing to do with regards to public health etc, but I'm sure I read somewhere (maybe London Reconnections) that increasing active travel has impacted use of TfL services

 

[Thirteen]

I don't think Sadiq Khan is trying to undermine TfL because the Santander Cycles are operated under TfL so they can get a cut of revenue from the scheme.

 

[InTheEastMids]

I don't think Sadiq Khan is trying to undermine TfL because the Santander Cycles are operated under TfL so they can get a cut of revenue from the scheme.

It's less about the Boris Bikes and more about the infrastructure that's getting built to make the city more walkable/bikeable. This is exactly what should be happening, but of course if your make it really safe and easy to bike a few km across London, many of those cyclists will have defected from bus/tube and TfL revenue shrinks a bit

 

[Recessio]

It's interesting to note that buses don't seem to be as badly affected as the tube in my experience. They tend to more often be full of rubbish, but less often graffitied. Though of course this may massively depend on particular routes, I only use a few regularly.

 

[stuu]

It's less about the Boris Bikes and more about the infrastructure that's getting built to make the city more walkable/bikeable. This is exactly what should be happening, but of course if your make it really safe and easy to bike a few km across London, many of those cyclists will have defected from bus/tube and TfL revenue shrinks a bit

Works both ways. It is far cheaper to provide capacity for cycling and walking rather than expanding capacity on the underground. That was one of the drivers for doing it in the first place. If you remove some short journeys you gain capacity for longer ones

 

[starlight73]

Maybe this was already mentioned, but it can be about more than finding money to remove graffiti from trains and fix the vinyls. It can also be about how many useable trains there are. If too many trains are broken down in depots, then LU will have to send out graffitied trains or cancel services. I believe this is a problem on the central line and possibly the Jubilee line as well. So it’s not just about having funding to clean the trains, but also funding to fix or replace the trains…

(This is the general idea I got from forums - happy to be corrected by people in the know)

 

[Mikey C]

It's less about the Boris Bikes and more about the infrastructure that's getting built to make the city more walkable/bikeable. This is exactly what should be happening, but of course if your make it really safe and easy to bike a few km across London, many of those cyclists will have defected from bus/tube and TfL revenue shrinks a bit

All the road changes to add space for cycle infrastructure, whether cycle lanes or removing gyratory systems reduce road capacity for other road vehicles including buses, making buses in central London a little bit slower and a little bit less attractive.

 

[jon0844]

All the road changes to add space for cycle infrastructure, whether cycle lanes or removing gyratory systems reduce road capacity for other road vehicles including buses, making buses in central London a little bit slower and a little bit less attractive.

If you get people out of cars, even vans if you adopt cargo bikes (which are gaining in popularity here) then you reduce congestion and need less road space. More people feel safe to cycle and you move closer to models in other cities.

Of course here we have a stigma attached to walking or using the bus (too poor to own a car) in smaller towns and cities, while cycling is still seen as something only kids do or lycra-clad idiots who think they own the road.

But back to vandalism and graffiti, social media is allowing people to monetise their crimes (as detailed above) and it also funds people who like to do insane pranks that should put some of them in jail. TikTok is perhaps one of the worst although there are others trying to compete, and I never realised how much money ordinary people will give to their heroes breaking the law. It isn't from advertisers, although there are YouTube videos where people can monetise suspect content.

 

[Mikey C]

If you get people out of cars, even vans if you adopt cargo bikes (which are gaining in popularity here) then you reduce congestion and need less road space. More people feel safe to cycle and you move closer to models in other cities.

The number of people in central London switching from cars to bikes is minimal, as the number of people driving in central London is tiny and those people will never use either buses or bikes anyway.

Virtually all cyclists in central London are people who would otherwise have used public transport.

 

[jon0844]

The number of people in central London switching from cars to bikes is minimal, as the number of people driving in central London is tiny and those people will never use either buses or bikes anyway.

Virtually all cyclists in central London are people who would otherwise have used public transport.

Yes that's a fair point for London and other big cities that have developed excellent public transportation - but sadly that often excludes may other big towns that offer no tubes, trams and poorly managed buses that start too late and end too early.

Problem is that I only cycle to and from work with secure storage. I wouldn't cycle anywhere I had to leave my bike longer than a few minutes because bike thefts are insane. London has the bike hire schemes that solves that issue too.

 

[Ghostbus]

Unless these fools are using next level counter-surveillance methods as they make their cross border raids, they can be caught, brought to trial and sent to jail. When the evidence is a trail of CCTV, GPS, social media and other electronic breadcrumbs, it's for the fool to prove he was somewhere else. And because he's a fool, such proof does not exist, and anything but the truth only adds to your sentence. And "no comment" in the face of this kind of evidence is always taken as proof of guilt by a judge or jury.

If people really don't understand how easy it is to catch someone who doesn't want to be caught (but doesn't have the skills not to get caught), especially someone moving around the urban environment and using public transport, I suggest you watch a few episodes of Channel Four's Hunted. And for understandable reasons, even they aren't telling you what's really possibie.

TV drama has been lying to us all for years - even if you stick to cash purchases, cover your face at all times, move only at night, use a burner phone, destroy your SIM card after each use, and use throwaway accounts on the internet, caching you is still as easy as catching anyone else who thinks they're smarter than the state.

This isn't rocket science. It's been this way since the dawn of time. The Brighton Bomber was caught because he was placed between a rock and a hard place even under the primitive law enforcement techniques of the 1980s - finger printing and witness identification. Catching a tagger in 2024 is child's play. Especially if they're under the impression they can't be caught, rather than the reality - it's just cheaper to paint over their doodles.

The impetus to do so is in the hands of the Mayor, nobody else.

 

[thomalex]

But back to vandalism and graffiti, social media is allowing people to monetise their crimes (as detailed above) and it also funds people who like to do insane pranks that should put some of them in jail. TikTok is perhaps one of the worst although there are others trying to compete, and I never realised how much money ordinary people will give to their heroes breaking the law. It isn't from advertisers, although there are YouTube videos where people can monetise suspect content.

Presumably the key to cracking down on this is to go after the social media companies promoting criminal damage. There must be an agreement doable where content flagged by authorities is taken down limiting its spread.

 

[Wolfie]

Presumably the key to cracking down on this is to go after the social media companies promoting criminal damage. There must be an agreement doable where content flagged by authorities is taken down limiting its spread.

You'd have thought as a bare minimum that it wouldn't be unreasonable to demand/legislate that social media companies don't monitise criminal acts. The issue there is that what is legal varies significantly by country.

Re your last sentence, absolutely impossible particularly with a Trump-led Musk-influenced administration due in the US where most of the firms are based. Your blase sentence would mean that anything the Governments in say Russia, China, Israel or Iran disliked would have to be removed. Absolute anathema to those supporting free-speech (the extent to which that right should be qualified is a whole debate in its own right and not one that l propose getting into).

 

[jon0844]

Presumably the key to cracking down on this is to go after the social media companies promoting criminal damage. There must be an agreement doable where content flagged by authorities is taken down limiting its spread.

May I direct you to threads on here about reporting scammers ripping people off with fake ticket/season Facebook pages and the like? None of the services have the manpower to deal with these issues, and some platforms actively encourage it because it brings users to their platform instead of someone else's.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Nov 2024 ==

You'd have thought as a bare minimum that it wouldn't be unreasonable to demand/legislate that social media companies don't monitise criminal acts. The issue there is that what is legal varies significantly by country.

Re your last sentence, absolutely impossible particularly with a Trump-led Musk-influenced administration due in the US where most of the firms are based. Your blase sentence would mean that anything the Governments in say Russia, China, Israel or Iran disliked would have to be removed. Absolute anathema to those supporting free-speech (the extent to which that right should be qualified is a whole debate in its own right and not one that l propose getting into).

Well, the EU has been making threats to the likes of X - but now that Trump is taking over the USA and Elon is de facto acting President (yes, there have been many comments and jokes from Elon that he's effectively going to manage things for Donald) - I expect the EU is going to find it very hard to do much, bar perhaps blocking X from the EU entirely and then starting on a full trade war as a result.

Social media companies are a step change above what Rupert Murdoch ever managed, and engagement = money. Throw in 'freedom of speech' or 'freedom of expression' and sound like you're only allowing this content for that reason, and there you go - you allow anything you decide you want on your platform. Of course, if someone writes something nasty about the owner of a site then that can go..!

 

[Gostav]

Re your last sentence, absolutely impossible particularly with a Trump-led Musk-influenced administration due in the US where most of the firms are based. Your blase sentence would mean that anything the Governments in say Russia, China, Israel or Iran disliked would have to be removed. Absolute anathema to those supporting free-speech (the extent to which that right should be qualified is a whole debate in its own right and not one that l propose getting into).

In recent years, major social media including YouTube have been subject to more and more restrictions and censorship since ISIS.

It is hard to say that graffiti is free creation, for another even crazier behaviour - train surfing, NYC directly asked social media to delete train surfing videos since several train surfers died, there are no first-hand videos of subway surfing on YouTube anymore.

 

[Thirteen]

TBH most young people these days aren't on X, it's TikTok, Snapchat and to a lesser extent Instagram.

 

[jon0844]

TBH most young people these days aren't on X, it's TikTok, Snapchat and to a lesser extent Instagram.

Plus other services once thought of as just basic IM platforms, which are now building their own communities - so you have WhatsApp, Telegram and indeed Instagram, as well as people creating their own Discord servers.

All places where people can and do share questionable content with little to no moderation, and well under the radar of many.

It also perhaps doesn't help when someone does the side of a train, you get people posting photos of it to social media to express outrage and nicely advertise the works further!

 

[riceuten]

I'm completely mystified as to why railway sidings and depots are not more secure - indubitably cost cutting by TOCs

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm completely mystified as to why railway sidings and depots are not more secure

They are secure but it's impossible to make them vandal-proof. Even at a small depot like East Finchley the perimeter fence is easily a mile long.

 

[Turtle]

They are secure but it's impossible to make them vandal-proof. Even at a small depot like East Finchley the perimeter fence is easily a mile long.

Aç

They are secure but it's impossible to make them vandal-proof. Even at a small depot like East Finchley the perimeter fence is easily a mile long.

And the graffiti vandals are highly motivated and see security fencing etc as just another challenge. As others have pointed out on this thread many are quite professional and aim to make money from their criminality. Banning their videos on YouTube etc might prove more effective in the long run.

 

[Meerkat]

If they are profiting from crime can’t the money be taken away again when they are caught - or does it all get ‘reinvested‘ in their ‘hobby’?
it’s one of those crimes where the punishment needs to be massively disproportionate as a deterrent.