Tony Polson wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:


Tony Polson wrote:

It makes a lot of difference when you consider that a substantial
proportion of commuters using these "highly centred on London"
services actually live outside the capital and have no representatives
on the GLA and no say in the election of the Mayor.

No taxation without representation ...

Someone said it would be better to have a SE rail authority rather than
a "central London dominated" TfL - but since the rail network is central
London dominated, from that point of view, there isn't much of a
difference, as a SE rail authority would be London-dominated anyway.


I'm sorry, you seem to have completely missed my point.

The rail services might appear "central London dominated" but the
people using them are most certainly NOT.

The majority of journeys in the south eastern area are to or from
central London - I'd call that central London dominated.

It would be quite
inappropriate to give control of these services to TfL when such a
substantial proportion of people using them live and vote (please note
that word) outside London. The fact that their morning commute
terminates in central London doesn't mean that they are in any sense
adequately represented by TfL or the Office of the Mayor, and it would
not be realistic to suggest that they could be.

I understand that. However, a "Greater South East Rail Authority" is as
unlikely to be accountable to passengers in the area as TfL-controlled
rail services would be - unless the GSERA proportionally represented the
passengers of the area, taking representatives from each authority
region. If that were the case, it would probably end up being
TfL-dominated anyway.

I was just pointing out that such a rail authority is not necessarily
better than total TfL control - both are probably equally bad for people
outside the GLA area.

It was theoretical anyway; I wouldn't advocate giving the whole of NSE
to TfL. I do think it would make more sense for them to have greater
control over inner suburban services though, even if those do stray
outside the GLA boundary - the idea is to make sure that transport into
London is co-ordinated properly.


I'm sure we can all agree on that. The point is, however, that people
served by these services who live outside London are not represented
by TfL. They would be poorly served (at best) by any SE Rail body
that was dominated by TfL or the Mayor. On the other hand, they were
well served by Network SouthEast, which (on the whole) successfully
balanced the needs of its passengers in, into and outside of London.

That's why I suggested we need look no further than the boundaries of
Network SouthEast.

NSE did have some rather odd boundaries anyway - King's Lynn & Exeter? A
new NSE would also extend to Kidderminster! Boundaries will always be
somewhat arbitrary.

If you introduce three layers of control - TfL inside the GLA, NSE for
the SE area, and "everywhere else" (taking into account other regional
control like Wales, Scotland and the PTEs), then you risk a lot of
bureaucracy.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London