London Assembly Plenary session on Transport

[snoggle]

This week the London Assembly holds one of its plenary sessions where it questions the Mayor and the relevant Commissioner on particular matters. It is Sir Peter Hendy's turn this week and there is quite a raft of questions on a wide range of topics.

You might note that a certain Mr Dismore (who covers a large part of North London) has gone into overdrive with his questions. If you have ever watched exchanges between him and the Mayor who will have spotted a certain level of "dislike" between the two men. It seems Mr Dismore has lost his patience as many of these questions have been asked before but clearly the answers / lack of progress have wound Mr Dismore up to new heights.

[Deleted]

So youre thinking this one might be worth buying some popcorn and cracking a few beers open over then?

[snoggle]

Oct 7, 2013 16:00:41 GMT @benedict said:

So youre thinking this one might be worth buying some popcorn and cracking a few beers open over then?

Unlikely given Mr Dismore's questions are for a written answer. However the first few on the entire list are for a verbal response in the meeting and Jenny Jones' first question neatly brings together the NB4L and fares. Given we are very close to the annual fares rise announcement I would expect a load of questioning to try to unearth the full cost of the NB4L *plus* what the fares increase will be *plus* a shedload of righteous indignation from the Mayor's opponents about "bearing down on fares rises" when it's evident that the Mayor has no concerns about fares rising faster than inflation. It is ironic that TfL's increase has actually been scaled down from RPI+2% because the Government got cold feet over last year's increase and agreed to constrain increases to RPI+1% for NR and TfL for the remainder of the government's term.

I do expect Mr Dismore will try to get his twopenneth worth at some point and Boris will probably grumble under his breath telling him to "shut up" as happened at the last Mayor's Questions. Dismore is clearly resentful at having lost his parliamentary seat at the last election and does not enjoy being an Assembly member. He is permanently angry and in a bad temper whenever I hear him speak. He has been selected to recontest the Hendon seat he lost at the last election and is clearly desparate to get back to the Commons.

[Deleted]

Oct 8, 2013 0:03:25 GMT snoggle said:

Oct 7, 2013 16:00:41 GMT @benedict said:

So youre thinking this one might be worth buying some popcorn and cracking a few beers open over then?

Unlikely given Mr Dismore's questions are for a written answer. However the first few on the entire list are for a verbal response in the meeting and Jenny Jones' first question neatly brings together the NB4L and fares. Given we are very close to the annual fares rise announcement I would expect a load of questioning to try to unearth the full cost of the NB4L *plus* what the fares increase will be *plus* a shedload of righteous indignation from the Mayor's opponents about "bearing down on fares rises" when it's evident that the Mayor has no concerns about fares rising faster than inflation. It is ironic that TfL's increase has actually been scaled down from RPI+2% because the Government got cold feet over last year's increase and agreed to constrain increases to RPI+1% for NR and TfL for the remainder of the government's term.

I do expect Mr Dismore will try to get his twopenneth worth at some point and Boris will probably grumble under his breath telling him to "shut up" as happened at the last Mayor's Questions. Dismore is clearly resentful at having lost his parliamentary seat at the last election and does not enjoy being an Assembly member. He is permanently angry and in a bad temper whenever I hear him speak. He has been selected to recontest the Hendon seat he lost at the last election and is clearly desparate to get back to the Commons.

Its always fare rises when it comes by the end of the year, why can't the fares get frozen? Wait the VAT just goes up which causes the fare to go up above VAT! Why is TFL obsessed with rising their fare up by 10p or 5p (as in oyster buses)?

The conductor cost will be done by private operators, non of the public money would be used to pay them directly to the conductors. So the operators just earn by running their buses by the mile from TFL. It can be ideal if TFL brings in some volunteer schemes to get people to work as conductor like what First group had proposed on their 9H route. All they give them is travelcard from zones 1 to 6... Like Last year with the NBFL prototypes on the 38, the conductors were actually drivers so they take turns driving the bus. So Arriva just pay them in Driver's wages to have conductors on the NBFL prototypes. A small operator like Sullivan buses or Ensignbus would not afford to run NBFL's in TFL's route...

The question about the NBFL is... Is it really worth it for Londoners as TFL admits they got overwhelming positive comments over the bus? Is it all because of the conductor and the open platform? TFL should fly out some questionnaires to the passengers about it! But the GLA members talk about costs, safety over open platform...etc. TFL needs to start tweaking the NBFL to make it more economical and suitable for suburban use by ditching the open platform, 3rd door, rear staircase, metal rims on stairs...etc. Then who would be buying the NBFL's? TFL out of the GLA budget or the Operators?
When there were bendies in London, the operators brought it themselves instead of TFL buying it for them. But very lucky at least TFL kept the NBFL's at their property. But the amount of publicity the NBFL got as 3 LT's on a world tour and got around 10 minutes air time on Top Gear programme?

I just also want to know the latest from the commissioner about enabling other manufactures like Optare and Alexander Dennis to build the NBFL's.

As i mentioned from another thread. If Ken Livingstone kept to the original plan on building a Modern Routemaster a decade ago, then we would have a different "NBFL"! Then presently he calls the current project run by a Tory Mayor a vanity project because of the money needing to be spent on it.

With the environmental and pollution issue, if London Transport in the past kept all the trolley buses and double deck trams running, as of today, the transport system in London would be very different. With the MTA in New York City, i noticed they are stopped buying Hybrids because of the cost to replace and maintain them, so they prefer normal diesel buses instead. But at least they are trialing BYD electric bus. Why can't they move on and go for hydrogen buses as what we got on route RV1? I wished theres some sort of a group for Transport authorities/services around the world (like Dublin Bus, MTA, Muni, Singapore Transport, Hong Kong Transport...etc) so they can easily share ideas and how they run it. Then we would end up having improvements from sharing ideas with other operators around the world! The main agenda for Public Transport is to enable people to travel, not to rabbit on what expensive or stylish buses we should have... I think politics caused biggest interference to transport services ever done. The money should have spent for serious things in the past like upgrading, signalling, new off the shelf buses...etc I wonder how the Routemaster project several decades ago never had any political interference as its all kept down to London Transport Board to deal with.

I think its better to abolish the GLA and bring back London Regional Transport in my opinion! Then we wouldn't hear anything about London Transport being discussed! Also huge amount from the budget given from the government would be saved. Stuff which GLA usually do should be down to the London councils to deal with! I just wished in 1998 all the people voted no to have a GLA, then things will be different as of today. But at the end of the day, we are getting ripped off from poll tax to fares for things which we don't want!

Thats my 2 pence

[snoggle]

Freebbc - It might be your 2p worth but you clearly do not have any demonstrable understanding of how transport has developed, its history, its inevitable interraction with politics nor the issues that have *always* affected transport in London. You also do not understand the pressures on funding, on investment or how planning and funding of the transport network are organised in London. Much of this I have tried to explain before but either I'm useless at explaining stuff or you just don't want to listen to or accept what is said because it conflicts with your very odd view about two bus designs. I am not going to try to unravel the huge confusion in your post above.

[overgroundcommuter]

Without the GLA, we wouldn't have seen discounted travel for certain adult groups, the free bus travel for those under 19 in full time education and even Boris introducing Oyster 60+ for those who don't meet the age requirements for the Freedom Pass.

London Overground has transformed the former Silverlink Metro service and the East London line.

Yes, there have been at least one vanity project from each mayor, Ken with the Arctics and Boris with NBfL, but at least we have elected politicians who take an active interest in our transport system. The direct funding from government was terrible for London.

[snoggle]

Oct 10, 2013 18:42:15 GMT overgroundcommuter said:

Without the GLA, we wouldn't have seen discounted travel for certain adult groups, the free bus travel for those under 19 in full time education and even Boris introducing Oyster 60+ for those who don't meet the age requirements for the Freedom Pass.

London Overground has transformed the former Silverlink Metro service and the East London line.

Yes, there have been at least one vanity project from each mayor, Ken with the Arctics and Boris with NBfL, but at least we have elected politicians who take an active interest in our transport system. The direct funding from government was terrible for London.

I am going to appear horribly partisan here but we are really talking about the Mayor. The GLA only does what the Mayor instructs as the authority is effectively the "business" that the Mayor controls. This is different from the London Assembly which is there to scrutinise what the Mayor does and to hold him (and the things he controls) to account of behalf of London.

The range of concessions we currently have are largely the result of Ken Livingstone's policies. Whoever succeeded Ken was going to find it extremely hard to remove or water down those concessions. Boris changed the funding mechanism for those in receipt of the income support concession. To be accurate Boris has supported the veterans, 24 hour Freedom Pass and the apprentices concessions. However these have been funded by raiding TfL's budget rather than asking for local authority support (especially the 24 hour Freedom Pass).

I think we must also record the fact that Boris has not ordered any new full trains during his Mayoral terms - all the tube trains, DLR trains and Overground rolling stock was ordered under Ken's tenure. Only very recently have we seen the extra carriages ordered for 5 car Overground trains but the rumoured extra trains for the ELL aren't in the order and we have yet to see what will be ordered for GOBLIN electrification. Crossrail trains are not ordered yet either. Boris has bought a few new trams for Tramlink which is a positive development but small in comparison to what went before. Let's see what else gets ordered by May 2016 - Crossrail's rolling stock, as a minimum, has to be done by then.