Oona4Mayor - Transport Policy Document

Keeping London moving, keeping fares low: Securing London’s Public Transport for good

23 JULY 2010

POLICY: TRANSPORT

www.oona4mayor.com policy document - transport

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policy document - transport

Transport is one of the key areas where the Mayor actually possesses specific and far-reaching powers. The Transport element of the Mayor’s budget will be worth £9.2bn in both 2009/10 and 2010/111. Transport is also one area which affects nearly every single Londoner: there are an estimated 6.5 million2 car journeys made each day through London’s roads with the school run contributing around 20% volume to rush hour traffic.

3.5 million3 people use London’s tube every day, around 260,0004 use the overground train system and approximately 6.3 million5 use the bus network.

Whilst there has been a sustained improvement in the quality of London Transport over the last decade, this progress has stalled in recent years and the Mayor’s actions have been regressive in a number of areas:

Fares have increased well above inflation•A new, expensive fleet of buses are to be introduced on •almost entirely ideological groundsPollution has increased dramatically with apparently •little will within City Hall to tackle the issueThere has been little said on securing the desperately •needed tube upgrade investment and questions remain over the Government’s commitment to delivering the entire planned Crossrail development

IMPROVING TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

One of the Mayor’s key responsibilities is to improve London’s transport infrastructure. Decent transport is crucial for London’s future as a dynamic and prosperous global city where the world comes to invest and do business and people can lead fulfilling, mobile lives.

The increase in population estimated for London over the next two decades must be matched by a corresponding increase in transport capacity, which is why the Crossrail project and Tube upgrade works are so important to London’s future.

Ease of mobility enhances freedom and quality of life. There has been a major expansion of bus and rail services over the last decade.

But transport is often still too expensive and inflexible, and in an era of growing financial pressure, we must fight to protect the resources going in to London transport whilst keeping fares as low as possible.

The Mayor must do more to ensure that fares are kept as low as possible, especially on the mode of transport which is the most accessible and used by the poorest Londoners: the buses.

CONTEXT

policy document - transportpolicy document - transport www.oona4mayor.com

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I WILL:

Re-instate the Western Congestion Charge Zone i. in order to reduce congestion, reduce pollution and divert the c. £55m revenue stream to invest directly in lowering all London bus fares, benefitting all Londoners in every area of the capital, especially the poorest. Work to keep Tube fares as low as possible, ii. with no above-inflation rises and fight for the crucial investment needed for the upgrading of the London Underground. Introduce a new River travel service iii. – within the first term of office, effectively creating a new, cross-London transport route – a new line on the tube map - utilising the already installed pier infrastructure with more boats, regular services and full integration with the London Oyster scheme. Have the strongest possible focus on Cycling, to create iv. more dedicated and safe cycling routes, quadruple the number of cycle parking spaces and champion and implement the Cycle to Work Guarantee across London. Work with Transport for London (TfL) to ensure that v. many more bus routes follow tube routes home late at night, and secure an increase in the number of long-route night bus services to outer London boroughs over the four years 2012-2016. Encourage more bus routes to effectively service local vi. schools with the aim of having a comprehensive service

across London, cutting the 20% of rush hour traffic which constitutes the school run. Ensure that the crucial Crossrail programme goes ahead vii. on time (by 2017) and on budget, by focussing on the savings which might be made with the programme immediately on taking office and calling on the Government to maintain its funding share. Securing the creation of thousands of new jobs in the capital and helping to connect communities served by its route. Support the campaign to keep theLondon Overground viii. (former East London Line) in the public sector following its extension and press for the extension to stop fully in Brixton, the densest conurbation it passes through. Defend the Freedom Pass for older and disabled people ix. so they are able to move freely around the city and get the most out of life.Explore the feasibility of a ‘London Park and Ride’ x. Scheme with brownfield sites around the M25 encouraging visitors to London to leave their cars outside London and take public transport in to the city, reducing congestion and pollution. Investigate and trial a new, shared 8-people hackney xi. carriage service for station hubs in zone 4 and 5 to service areas away from transport hubs, to be integrated with the Oystercard system.


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WESTERN CONGESTION ZONE AND CUTTING BUS FARES

The bus network links homes to jobs, schools and hospitals across Greater London and accounts for half of all London’s public transport journeys.

London’s use of the bus is a tremendous success story, but decisions made in recent years by the Mayor give cause for great concern about the future of the network. The number of people using buses is at its highest level since 1962 but net bus subsidy is due to decline by up to 40% in real terms by 2017/18 due to the shifting of burden from taxpayer to fare-payer.

London’s buses are now 27% fuller than they were in 1999 and growth in passenger numbers has far outstripped the number of kilometres operated by the bus network. Taxpayer support for the London bus network is now lower than most other comparable world cities, and as peak demand for bus travel grows, further reductions in subsidy for bus transportation by Mayor Boris Johnson are very likely to mean cuts to bus services.

As the GLA’s budget committee itself recently stated:

‘fare increases have a huge impact on Londoners and particularly those on low incomes for who travel costs represent a tenth of their outgoings6.’

It is in this context that Boris Johnson has chosen to phase out the bendy bus, halfway through its lifespan, and introduce a new model of the traditional London ‘routemaster’. These new buses, set to be introduced by the end of 2011 will cost £1.6 million each for the initial 5 buses making them the most expensive public transportation in the world7.

The phasing out of the bendy buses and re-introduction of the routemaster buses will:

Raise fares across London – to pay for the new buses and •the two members of staff needed to run them.Increase congestion (as has been evidenced on the •routes where the longer, bendy bus has been removed and replaced with single and double-decker services like the 38 and the 507)Increase pollution, as more buses occupy the space •where a single bus operated before.

Bus travel accounts for around half of all journeys on public transport in London and fares are directly related to social equality and standard of living.

Putting the fares up means the poorest cannot travel. Don’t put fares up and parts of the network may need to be cut to cover the costs. Such cuts would impact on the outer London, infrequent bus routes which many people living in outer London, many on low incomes, rely on.

The only realistic switch to spend available to the Mayor significant enough to impact positivelyon the cost of bus travel is the Western Congestion Charge Zone extension. Not only would the reinstatement of the zone allow for around £55m pa to be reinvested in fare subsidies for all Londoners, but it would help tackle building congestion issues and rising pollution levels in the Capital.

The Western Congestion Charge Extension

Boris Johnson’s negativity toward Congestion Charging and the Low Emissions Zone in London is contributing significantly to London falling foul of the European Union standards on polluting emissions. Thiscould lead to a fine several times that of the annual income of the Western Extension.

The decisions of the current Mayor appear increasingly perverse in light of the facts around his fare increases and effects of the recession on travel incentives for Londoners. Just a year ago the GLA published evidence showing that:

“While public transport fares in London have increased by a higher rate than inflation over the past five years the recession is lowering the cost of private motoring through reductions in petrol and associated costs. For example, in May 2009 the change in annual motoring costs was negative 4.3 per cent. A continued policy of increasing public transport costs above the rate of inflation would widen the gap between the cost of public transport and motoring increasing the risk of affecting people’s decisions about the form of transport they use.8”

ThE WESTERN CONGESTION ChARGE EXTENSION


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The threat to the health of Londoners from air pollution should not be understated. The Mayor’s own air quality strategy has shown there are approximately 4,300 premature deaths per year in London due, at least in part, to long-term exposure to dangerous airborne particles.

This number of fatalities is caused by a level of vehicle emissions higher than the EU air pollution targets. Breach of EU targets is expected to result in a financial penalty of £300m imposed on the UK; a final written warning having been sent as recently as June 20109.

Transport for London has estimated that emissions of polluting particulates (PM10) from traffic in the Western Extension will increase by at least 3.5%, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) will increase by a minimum of 2% and CO2 emissions will increase by at least 5%. The level of pollution in London, particularly pollution caused by particulates (of which PM10 is most damaging) is already above EU air pollution targets.

Neil Churchill, Chief Executive of Asthma UK has called the Boris Johnson’s decision to cancel the Western Extension “short-sighted” and stated publicly that the breathing conditions of Londoners are made worse by traffic, saying “This is a disaster for the 430,000 people in London whose asthma is triggered by traffic pollution.”

We recognise that is it critical to keep Tube fares down, because the high cost of travel is a deterrent to people getting around the capital. However, room for discretion is limited because legislation requires Tube fares to be up-rated annually, andupgrade and maintenance programmes would likely be prolonged with any unplanned capital shortfall. The Mayor should work to keep all Tube fare increases to an absolute minimum, whilst maintaining the state of the service.

The Mayor should always use the Retail Price Index plus one percent formula, or if any departure for that position is called for, the Mayor should publish the grounds on which any decision to part from the formula is based.

The Thames is one of London’s greatest, as yet untapped, transport resources.

There has been a significant increase in the number of private Thames riverboat services in recent years alongside the significant investment in the Thames transport infrastructure such as the new Piers at Westminster, the Globe/Tate Modern, Tower Hill, Canary Wharf and Greenwich and so on.

The sensible next step for the Mayor would be to fully integrate river services in to the London Oyster card scheme and increase the number of vessels on the Thames to deliver a new service for London’s commuters.

This would effectively be a new ‘Tube line’ service on the Thames, to be branded as a integral part of the London Transport system, with an aspiration that a significant increase in the frequency of shuttle services should be achieved to match the frequency of basic underground services.

As all essential hardware is in place – the pier and docking infrastructure – this should be deliverable within the first term of office 2012-2016.

Cycling is one area which the Mayoralty, until very recently, has been reticent to promote seriously in London, even though the number of Londoners cycling through the capital for work or leisure has nearly doubled in the last 15 years. The increase has occurred despite City Hall, not driven or enabled by it, this must change.

The new Cycle Superhighways and bike hire schemes are a welcome introduction by Mayor Boris Johnson. But considering the massive potential cycling has to lower congestion on London’s roads, reduce pollution and improve the health of Londoners, this remains an area where City Hall

WORK TO KEEP TUBE FARES AS LOW AS POSSIBLE

INTRODUCING A NEW ThAmES TUBE SERvICE

ThE REAL FOCUS ON CYCLING ThAT LONDONERS DESERvE


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has, as yet, hugely under-utilised its potential influence to effect radical change across the capital.

We must explore ways to dramatically increase the number of places where cycles can be stored and secured in all London’s Boroughs, with an aim of quadrupling the current provision by 2016.

The former Government’s ‘Cycle to Work Guarantee Scheme10’ was a serious and radical innovation which the Mayor should use all the influence of the office to champion in London. Too few London employers have adopted the scheme’s five pledges.

We should ensure that all of the Mayor’s executive agencies adopt the scheme in the first year of office and set specific targets for the numbers of London businesses to be signed up each year of the mayoralty including an aspiration that every London Council should be participating by 2014.

The scheme would see participating employers offering:Secure, safe, and accessible bike parking facilities for all •staff who want themGood quality changing and locker facilities for all staff •who want themOffset the cost of cycling equipment and save on the •tax through the ‘Cycle to Work scheme’, administered through employer HR departmentsAccessible bike repair for cyclists on or near site•Training, reward and incentive programmes to achieve •targets for more cycling

Although night bus services have improved over the last decade, a regular complaint of many Londoners, especially those in outer London Boroughs, is that the service is extremely complex and rarely follows routes which are similar to the underground service.

As many Londoners use or have a detailed understanding of the Tube map, it makes sense to try and implement a new simpler bus route mapping service and where possible, introduce services which follow the route of the Tube lines, effectively creating a 24-hour tube.

The Mayor should also investigate increasing the number of

long-route night bus services to outer London boroughs over the four years 2012-2016

TfL currently provides around 100 routes across London that go to and from schools which are open to any fare paying passengers. These provide journeys to particular schools timed for the beginning and end of the school day. Many start or finish within or nearby to school grounds and pass by other schools.

However, only a small proportion of London’s schools are served by these routes and TfL currently does very little to promote these services: The services don’t appear on official maps and are not differentiated from regular bus services in any way.

Better promotion and clearer explanation and branding of the service could mean greater take up of the scheme, more interest and ultimately more routes which would make this a viable service for more of the capital’s schools.

Many existing routes that pass nearby to local schools just need their route altered slightly to provide a better service.

The Mayor’s aspiration should be to create a more comprehensive network of school buses across London. This would lead to:

mORE SChOOL BUSES

BUS ROUTES FOLLOW TUBE ROUTES hOmE LATE AT NIGhT


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A decrease in the 20% of congestion which is directly •caused by the school runSafer routes to school for tens of thousands of London •school childrenMore time for parents in the mornings•

The Crossrail project, due to be delivered by 2017, will provide a critical 10 per cent more capacity into central London. This would be the biggest single boost in capacity since before the Second World War.

TfL’s own estimates of benefit to cost ratios for Crossrail range from 2:1 to 3:1 and the project will add an estimated £42bn to the economy. Up to 14,000 jobs will be created at the height of construction.

This will place an additional 1.5m people within one hour’s journey time of the West End, Heathrow, Canary Wharf and the Square Mile.

The project is dependent on the Government’s direct contribution to the scheme which is £5bn, and the scheme progressing (and the effective influence the mayor might have by 2012) will be dependent on the decisions on this investment made by the coalition Government over the coming period.

The Mayor should focus TfL on the savings which might be made with the programme immediately on taking office. The

two years until the Mayoral elections in 2012must be used to strongly make the case for the maintenance of funding for Crossrail and exposing any weakness or uncertainty in the Government’s position whenever that occurs and drawing attention to the fact that re-phasing the project would add costs. Cutting any funds from this essential addition to the transport networkwould undermine the economic benefits of the project and the scale of opportunity to change the circumstances of so many Londoners.

Alongside the Government’s share of funding, more than 60 per cent of the total comes from Londoners and the private sector – and these sources of funding would be lost if the project were cancelled.

Crossrail represents a significant element of many Local Authority’s regeneration plans and the Mayor’s office must do more to communicate and advocate between the project and those and other key beneficiaries of the scheme, especially when plans change.

Extending the East London line (now known as London Overground)has finally connected areas like Hackney and large parts of Lewisham to the Tube network. Built under public ownership, it could well be the case that the Conservative – Liberal government seeks to privatise the line. The failure, though, of Metronet means that simply privatising is unlikely to bring about improvements in the service for passengers. There is no obvious benefit to privatisation as part of some Tory free market dogma. The new line is a welcome addition to the Tube map, but it is important that the new line is not an outlying part of the network, serving a small number of passengers on obscure routes.

The proposed South London extension is currently scheduled to run through Brixton, one of the busiest transport interchanges in zone two, but not stop there. That makes no sense, and a station stop, using the existing Brixton railstation, should be created – the long-term economic benefits to that area far outweigh the short term cost of finding an engineering solution to building an additional platform at the site.

SECURING ThE CROSSRAIL PROJECT

KEEPING ThE EAST LONDON TUBE LINE IN ThE PUBLIC SECTOR AND A STOP FULLY IN BRIXTON


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Defending the Freedom Pass for older and disabled people so they are able to move freely around the city and get the most out of life.

The Freedom Pass is a flagship example of Labour values in action. The scheme was originally designed by Labour councils in London, and as Mayor I will pledge to maintain it as top priority.

Many senior citizens rely on public transport as their principal way to travel the capital, and in an era where the value of pensions are being eroded, and pensioner incomes being squeezed, free bus and tube travel are even more important. There will be no reduction of the scope or scale of the Freedom Pass while I am Mayor.

Large numbers of out-of-London, non-commercial traffic comes in to Greater London every day, especially at weekends and during public holidays, leading to increased pollution and congestion on inner London roads and overcrowding on the London transport network. Yet outer London public transport networks are often under-utilized at these times.

The Mayor should look in to the feasibility of a ring of large park and ride scheme sites around the M25 aimed at moving visitors on to tubes and other forms of public transport earlier at the points where it is least used. This would allow visitors to travel in to central zones more quickly, cleanly and in a way which is less of a burden on the Capital’s road network.

Most people visiting London would use public transport at some point on their journey, but mainly in inner London where it is overcrowded. A London park and ride scheme would encourage utilisation of the public transport system earlier and keep cars out of central London. This initiative should also save significant amounts of time for the visitor as journey times by car across the central zones is slow at

12mph at non-peak times and around 6mph in rush-hour. More time being active in the City is likely to translate as a positive economic impact on the City.

Payment for the parking service could include a dedicated ticket allowing access to the London transport network and revenue could go to reducing fares for Londoners. The Mayor should explore using existing brownfield sites for this scheme looking initially at the North Weald Aerodrome and Scratchwood London gateway services.

Waiting for 20 minutes or more for minicabs at the tube or rail station is a common site in the Outer London suburbs of zones 5 and 6.

More can, and should, be done to provide better services for outer London. Commuters who live in these areas are too oftenwasting time at the end of a long day waiting – often after long periods of travel to and from work - for an expensive last link in their day’s travel, taking private hire vehicles from the outer London travel hubs to their homes.

The Mayor should investigate the feasibility of introducing a new TfL-controlled and branded, shared hackney carriage service for outer London travel hubs, with the aim of this being integrated with the Oyster pay as you goservice.

The service could serve suburban areas by taking up to 8 passengers to a particular zone within a local area. Cars could be colour co-ordinated according to the zone served.

The service would aim to:

Cut the cost of this last portion of travel•Save significant amounts of time for commuters•Cut waiting times for taxi services at outer London •stationsImprove safety, particularly for women and other •vulnerable Londoners.

The first trial of this service would happen between 2012 and 2014.

DEFENDING ThE FREEDOm PASS

hACKNEY CABShARE

LONDON PARK AND RIDE


mY PhILOSOPhYmy approach as mayor will rest on three fundamental principles::

Prevention is better than cureAs mayor, I will prioritise investing in the future. I want to rebalance spending, so instead of all our money being spent on the cure (e.g. young people processed through magistrates courts), we spend more on prevention (e.g. young people given support to prevent re-offending).

human relationships should be at the heart of service delivery

As mayor, I will put relationships at the heart of public policy - these networks are the glue that binds communities together, building social capital. It’s the quality of the relationship between the teacher and the pupil, police officer and resident, youth worker and gang member, Job Centre advisor and unemployed Londoner that has the greatest impact on positive outcomes.

Participation is not an optional extraAs mayor, I will work to ensure that people have a voice in the decisions that affect their lives, putting people first in GLA decision-making. On the left we’ve always understood the value of redistributing wealth. We’ve been slower to embrace the value of redistributing influence, which in itself can reduce inequalities.

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REFERENCES

[1] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/11436.aspx; http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/15106.aspx and - http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/greater-london-authority/current-budget [2] Travel in London Reports 1& 2 [3] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/1574.aspx [4] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/1530.aspx and http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/10597.aspx [5] http://www.london.gov.uk/priorities/transport/investing-transport/buses[6] http://www.london.gov.uk/archive/assembly/reports/budget/fare-decision.pdf [7] http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article7106683.ece [8] http://www.london.gov.uk/archive/assembly/reports/budget/fare-decision.pdf [9] http://ec.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/press/press_releases/2010/pr1055_en.htm [10] http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/sus-tainable/cycling/cycletowork/

© Oona 4 mayor campaign 2010

Reproduced from the website www.oona4mayor.com. Promoted by matt Cooke on behalf of Oona King, both at 6 heron Quays, London E14 4JB.

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