Vague ideas will not improve transport for Londoners - Caroline Pidgeon responds to the Mayor's transport strategy (Ilford South Liberal Democrats)

Ilford South Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Vague ideas will not improve transport for Londoners - Caroline Pidgeon responds to the Mayor's transport strategy

October 12, 2009 12:12 PM
Originally published by London Assembly Liberal Democrats

Caroline Pidgeon, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Transport Spokesperson, commenting on the Mayor's Draft Transport Strategy published today said:

"The strategy document has some vague aspirations, but ultimately little else. It falls far short of being a route map showing how transport will be significantly improved for Londoners in the years ahead.

"By the end of his Mayoralty electors should be able to look at Boris Johnson's transport strategy and judge what has actually been implemented. In three years time that will be impossible with so few specific recommendations and targets.

"The transport strategy must also be judged aside the Mayor's record so far on transport. It still remains the case that a £1.8 billion funding gap exists for upgrades to the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines. The Jubilee Line upgrade is already overdue and the Northern Line upgrade has now been postponed.

"The Mayor has stunningly even failed to deliver on issues where funding is not an issue. His promise to extend Oyster to rail by May has long been broken as has his claim that in his first week so in City Hall he would convene an emergency public summit of all the train operating companies."

Notes to editors:

Just some of the broken pledges by the Mayor on transport include:

1.To deliver Oyster Pay as You Go on railways by May 2009: http://www.esadvertising.co.uk/media/images/mayor258_5846.pdf

FACT: As of today Oyster PAYG has not been extended to rail and is starting date might even fall into 2010.

2. To call an emergency public summit of all the train operating companies in "our first few weeks in City Hall….. to ensure action is taken to solve chronic overcrowding, the issue of exorbitant pricing and the availability of Oyster at every station." (page 23 of Boris Johnson's Transport Manifesto) http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/04/27/Transportmanifesto.pdf

FACT: As of today no summit has been called.

3. "By improving public transport in outer London through orbital bus routes".

FACT: Not one new orbital bus route has started since Boris Johnson became Mayor of London.