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IPPR suggest "Greater South East" rail body
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 |
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