On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:28:17 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

thoss wrote:
At 13:14:10 on Fri, 3 Aug 2007 asdf opined:-

On Fri, 3 Aug 2007 12:51:28 +0100, thoss wrote:

Today's Ealing Gazette has a story that Ken has suspended the WLT
until after Crossrail opens, if that goes ahead.

I hadn't heard anything about this, so I went to
http://www.london.gov.uk to look for an announcement.

And it's there, under the utterly irrelevant heading of "Crossrail".

Hidden amongst a press release that digresses repeatedly onto the
subject of Crossrail is the news that WLT has been cancelled.

Ken doesn't seem to want us to find out about it, though. If he's
going to cancel a major transport project he could at least have the
guts to tell us.

According to the Ealing Gazette article (they interviewed Ken when he
visited somewhere in Ealing for a photoshoot) it's not cancelled, just
put on hold. Maybe he's just trying to confuse the enemy with
contradictory statements.

The idea of WLT being "put on hold" seems to be a spin invented by the
Ealing Gazette, as the joint press release that appears on both the Mayor's
and Ealing's websites makes no mention of this. Both parties will proceed
to work on "a bus-based solution rather than the tram originally envisaged".

Not really. The GLA press release says that the cancellation is
dependent on Crossrail proceeding. Now that may well be clever
semantics but the whole thing is a mess.

Quite why Ealing Council believe a bus based system employing many of
the same traffic priorities as the tram would have used will be any more
popular I do not know. The main point of opposition to the tram, if I
have been paying attention, was the effect that its tracks and
priorities would have on people being able to use their cars. I can't
see buses being more readily acceptable to those same opponents. I
suspect Ealing Council hope they can scrap the majority of the proposed
priorities and just leave the bus service (enhanced or otherwise) to be
a disaster area. Current services are supposedly at capacity and
allegedly so are the roads so what is going to give to make all this
work? Apologies for the cynicism but I would have preferred the tram
scheme to proceed as that was the only option that would have both
forced a reduction of road space and provided a suitable attractive
alternative to car drivers.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!