The following is an article on the London Transport Strategy published in 2001 (notice how prophetic some of the comments therein are in you study the recent reports on the Congestion Charge scheme).

Comments on the London Transport Strategy, published August 2001

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has recently published his Transport Strategy.  This is a document of over 450 pages so this article is a very brief summary of some of the key points, with some appropriate comments.

I think there is general agreement that transport in London has been getting worse rather than better over the years.  Anyone who has lived and worked in London, whether they use rail, tube, bus or car, has probably experienced problems. Public transport has suffered from lack of investment with the result that for a major world city, London has now one of the worst public transport networks.  It is unreliable, dirty, uncomfortable and expensive.   

London also has one of the worst road networks, and even compares badly with  other major UK cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. Where those cities have taken the opportunity to build both new public transport networks and road networks, London has consistently failed to do so. Note that the political complexion of the controlling councils in other cities did not necessarily affect these decisions - good transport networks were seen to be of benefit to all social classes.  

Whereas other towns took the opportunity to rebuild their infrastructure where it had become run down, London never took the opportunity to build a new environment, even after the second world war when many parts of London were devastated.  As a result the London road network is still based on a layout established in the middle ages, and the train and tube network is predominantly Victorian.  One of the major reasons for this was the disjointed control of the London transport network. Following the disbanding of the old GLC for political reasons, control of the road network passed to local boroughs. The result was lack of co-ordination and inaction. No borough wanted a major road constructed through it, preferring that it went through a neighbouring one. The result was no improvement to the road network and resulting heavy traffic on local, residential streets with the associated congestion.  South London was particularly badly affected with the South Circular remaining a major road in name only, which everyone avoids if at all possible.  The A2 and A20, major roads into London, simply peter out into unimproved local roads in Greenwich and Lewisham primarily because of lack of any strategic vision.  

These problems were compounded by the difficulty that Londoners often see themselves as residents of a local neighourhood or "village" (poor transport links between adjacent parts of London contribute to this mentality). This happens even when the locality is run down and contains poor quality infrastructure and buildings. The resulting nimbyism tends to militate against any worthwhile transport infrastructure development.   The outcome has been the costly transport of goods, industry and commerce tending to move elsewhere, inefficient local transport networks, and massive noise and air pollution problems. 

Similarly the London Underground suffered from political interference, lack of long term strategic planning and government underfunding. Road and rail networks were unco-ordinated and have not adapted to new patterns of work and residential locations. 

Note that the population of London is now growing again, leading to overcrowding on many train and tube lines. The previous drift of people from London to rural areas has been halted. However London's population is still about 600,000 below what it was in 1961. 

Traffic growth in London has been constrained by the poor road network (there were 23,600 cars and taxis in central London each day in 1991 and this only increased slightly to 24,600 in 2001 with a matching slight reduction in average traffic speed). Similarly traffic growth in the outer London boroughs such as Bromley have tended to level off, even though car ownership continues to rise.  Congestion is causing self regulation of traffic growth. 

Well the above states some of the problems.  The new Greater London Authority and the position of Mayor were designed to reverse the downward trend and provide a more positive strategic control and planning capability. The leadership of an elected mayor with a strong political mandate could hopefully force through some necessary changes, and get appropriate co-operation from central government.  Unfortunately in respect of the last point, the electorate voted for Mr Livingstone standing as an independent, who is not exactly popular with the ruling Labour party for reasons that readers may no doubt remember. 

So what is the Mayor proposing? His ten key transport priorities are stated to be (I have condensed the excessive verbiage of the report - these take up a whole page in the "executive summary" alone): 

1. Reducing traffic congestion.
2. Increasing investment in the Underground to increase capacity.
3. Improving bus services including increasing capacity.
4. Better integration of the national rail network with London's other transport systems.
5. Increasing overall capacity of the London transport system by promoting cross-London rail links, orbital rail links in central London and new Thames river crossings in East London.
6. Improving journey time reliability for car users, particularly in outer London, whilst reducing car dependency.
7. Supporting local transport initiatives including those that improve road safety.
8. Improving the efficiency of the distribution of goods whilst minimising environmental impact.
9. Improving access to transport for all people, including the disabled.
10. Improve transport integration.

Note that major new road schemes are ruled out on the basis that they would be "environmentally unacceptable" and "financially unaffordable".  Therefore the strategy to reduce traffic congestion is by improvements to public transport, more enforcement of traffic regulations and the introduction of a congestion charging scheme. 

Major investment in the London Underground and the proposed Public Private Partnership (PPP) takes up a lot of space in the document, but as Bromley is not serviced significantly by the tube, only limited space has been devoted to it in this report. 

Major improvements to the bus network are envisaged, and in the short term, these are seen as a means of relieving congestion on the rail and tube network (where improvements will take many years to implement).  However as the report says "The greatest challenge for the bus service is to deliver a level of reliability and dependability that will attract new users from cars. Overall bus reliability has fallen over the recent years, principally due to traffic congestion. The problems have been exacerbated by streetworks, uncontrolled parking and bus driver shortages."  (What the report does not say is that increasing the number of buses may well contribute further to congestion because buses are large vehicles that stop frequently, often block the carriageway and generally travel slower than the prevailing traffic flow). 

The Proposals

The following are the suggested solutions:

-         A central London congestion charging scheme.

-         Additional rail services including  "CrossRail" and Thameslink 2000 routes across London and a Hackney-SouthWest Line.

-         New Thames river crossings including a rail crossing at Woolwich, a "multi-modal" crossing at Thamesmead and a third road crossing at Blackwall with public transport priority.

-         Extensions to the Docklands Light Railway, Croydon Tramlink and East London Line and rail improvements in the Lee Valley area.

-         Pedestrianisation of Trafalgar Square and other squares.

-         Expansion of the bus network and extension of bus priorities (ie. bus lanes, etc) - with up to 40% more bus passengers.

-         More traffic enforcement including new regulations.

-         Public off street parking will be more heavily regulated to discourage car use.

-         Particular traffic bottlenecks may be tackled (but without a programme of new roads).

-         Existing road improvement schemes including the North Circular, A40 Western Ave, A23 Coulsdon and A205 Catford (South Circular) are to be reconsidered and probably replaced by "reduced scale" schemes.

-         Integrating car use with other forms of transport such as improving parking facilities at rail stations in outer London

 Congestion Charging Scheme

The aim is to reduce traffic by 15% in Central London and this will be achieved by a congestion charging scheme. The charge will be £5 per day between 7.0 am to 7.0 pm Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays). The map below shows the extent of the scheme.

The net cost of this scheme over the first 2 years appears to be £130 million, but net revenue thereafter is about £200 million per annum. Although there was a commitment that public transport would be improved before such a scheme was introduced, it seems likely that the only improvement possible before then will be some extra buses.

Overall cost of the proposals

Spending is assumed to be £3 billion per year for the next couple of years, excluding the Underground, from existing government commitments, rising by an extra £500 million from 2004 (of which £200 million would come from the net revenue from the congestion charging scheme). The difference, £300 million, has yet to be found so that is what the mayor is asking for in addition.

Writers Comments

What a lost opportunity! Although the document contains many useful proposals, it is ultimately weak.  Mr Livingstone seems to have tried to please everyone, but unfortunately you can't re-bake the London transport infrastructure without breaking some eggs. 

The proposals to tackle traffic congestion will not work, because:

a - There is no attempt to reform or make major improvements to the road network.

b - The congestion charging scheme is not aggressive enough to make any difference to traffic congestion in central London (there is sufficient "unsatisfied demand" for road use that it is very unlikely to have any effect - all it will likely do is replace poorer people by the richer folks who can afford £5 per day - a peculiar attempt at social engineering).

c - Adding more buses is unlikely to make them significantly more attractive to existing road or rail users.

d - Improvements to the rail and underground network will be a long time coming and are not major enhancements- they are unlikely to tackle the key problems of commuters. 

The additional investment being made is relatively minor and will not make a major difference to London's transport quality. In essence this document proposes a lot of tactical approaches to the transport problems of London, but it is hardly a strategic, long-term vision of a better future.

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