London Banter - View Single Post

[email protected] · January 22nd 16, 01:00 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

There is NOTHING in the DfT / TfL consultation document that says TfL
will take over any service that reaches Hampshire. NOTHING. Therefore
people who are wittering on about the evils of Greater London should
stop and perhaps read the paperwork and what the intention is. Medium
and longer distance services would remain within the DfT's remit. The
SoS retains the final say over everything on National Rail even if TfL
gain responsibility for procuring the operator of inner area services.
The whole premise is a *Partnership* between DfT and TfL but DfT has
the final say. Everyone in the media has run away with the idea of an
unfettered TfL takeover and that is NOT what is planned. Quite the
opposite from what I can see from reading the paperwork. It's all
very carefully worded, all very tentative and with barely a firm
commitment anywhere.

Here's a direct and relevant quote from the document.

"Hand-in-hand with the London Suburban Metro must go improvements to
services that connect the Capital and the wider South East. A guiding
principle is that train paths used by outer-London services would be
unaffected by the London Suburban Metro and options to increase their
capacity will be explored too."

"Indeed, improvements on inner suburban routes will free up space for
more and faster services to and from the rest of the South East. For
example, in the long term, constructing Crossrail 2 would move inner
suburban services onto new tracks, potentially leaving the main lines
into London clearer for enhanced services from Surrey, Hampshire,
Hertfordshire and Essex. "

I'm not terribly convinced by these proposals because they are
inevitably compromised. There are no funding commitments. The
intention to consult with every political body imaginable over the
train service specification is a potential recipe for chaos,
compromise and "who shouts loudest" decision making. Worse if any of
the parties are providing funding for their pet initiative. So much
for relying on the competence of transport experts.

I also see it as a political move in the context of the London
Mayoralty and whoever is the next Mayor will find themselves trapped
within the constraints of this initiative. It'll be worse if you're
the Mayor of the political opponents of whoever is in Government. The
scope for battles and argument and disagreement is writ large in these
arrangements. There also remains the insistence of the DfT that
passengers fund a greater share of the railway and that surpluses are
directed to fund improvements. Also there are rules that decisions in
Greater London can't screw up fares for those outside. Therefore no
cliff edge changes in fares at boundaries. No scope there for fare
cuts - ever!

In line with the current government's policies devolution means one
thing only - moving responsibility for failure away from Whitehall.
The second element of the strategy is the removal of funding
responsibility from Whitehall wholly to local areas (but unlikely in
London's case because Govt has to retain ability to redistribute
London's wealth everywhere else). If I was a local politician I
wouldn't be agreeing to devolution under Osborne's terms.

I'd like to have seen a cleaner split of responsibilities about
services and less tangling with every echelon of political influence.
The only way this works is with minimal but efficient interfaces, a
lot of funding and a lot of time. I suspect the public's expectations
of instant improvements will cause massive disappointment and problems
for TfL because you can't deliver instant improvement. It takes years
and years to do anything of substance. Even a timetable change takes 2
years unless you are fixing a mess of your own making (as with
Southern and C2C in recent times).

LOUD AND PROLONGED APPLAUSE

--
Colin Rosenstiel