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Old March 12th 06, 04:02 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway
[email protected] peter@heather170.freeserve.co.uk is offline
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Default Rail Links with the Magic Kendom


Does this mean every cross boundary
commuter will now get to be included in the vote that determines who
should be Mayor of London - or will this be a case of increased fare
extraction and service reduction without representation?


No: the proposal involves TfL subsidising rail services outside the GLA
area (like the Croxley link, in which £16m of Londoners' money will be
used to improve Hertfordshire's rail connections). The relevant
services will be only those where the vast majority of the route is
within the GLA area, but where the logical terminating point is not.
This already happens on London Underground and works rather well.

The governance arrrangements on p15/16 state that services will only be
changed if a local government body for the relevant bit of not-GLA-land
agrees: the only exception is if TfL introduces a new subsidised
service to benefit non-GLA commuters and then decides to withdraw it
again, which seems fair enough.


Try reading it properly. The Mayor can propose reductions (called
decrements) in service outside London (not just ones he was previously
funding) and can then use those 'savings' elsewhere, and not
necessarily for transport. He also only has to consult "Local Transport
Authorities", whatever they are, presumably the County Councils, and
the Regional Assemblies that the government are obsessed with, who
represent nobody, and most people have never heard of or want. There is
no consultation with local District Councils that are closest to the
residents of areas outside London.

Peter