GBP108 million cut to TfL's transport grant
Just heard on the radio that the SoS Transport, Philip Hammond, is
'consulting' Mayor Boris on a £108 million cut to the GLA transport
grant from central government (which rather sounds like a metaphor for
telling BoJo how it's going to be).
Not sure of the proportion these at the moment but a few years back
the grant accounted for around half of TfL's funding.
On the same bulletin I heard that the Mayor has confirmed this morning
that the Western Extension of the Congestion Charge will be scrapped
by the end of the year, so that's a source of income that will no
longer exist. Of course last week we heard about the finalised design
for the New Bus for London (aka 'new Routemaster', 'BorisBus',
'BorisMaster'), which many have described as something of a vanity
project for Boris - and that doesn't come for free. And then there's
the costly purge of bendy buses from London. All this in the context
of TfL taking over the Tube Lines infraco (after the 2008 takeover of
Metronet), so now TfL itself is responsible for delivering the
promised Underground line upgrades. Then there's Crossrail...
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