Boris Johnson launched his transport manifesto yesterday. You can read the press release as a on his website or, indeed, the full manifesto for transport. In places, it is quite surreal. The accusations of Ken’s transport policy being weighted excessively heavily towards zone one don’t stack up. Certainly, the congestion charge lies within zone one, but most of London Overground lies outside the centre; LB Hackney will be getting its first tube stations as a result of the extension of the East London line. Night buses have been extended in number and distance and had their fares matched to daytime buses.

Some of Boris’s ideas bear slightly more consideration. These include, on page five,

I believe we should consider fresh thinking to relieve congestion on public transport

which is in the motherhood and apple pie realm of politics. Looking to more serious policies than mere Ken-bashing, Mr Johnson says that he

will look to reduce the disruption caused by strikes on the Tube by negotiating a nostrike deal, in good faith, with the Tube unions.

The RMT are indeed intransigent and much criticism of them is justified. However, they have already said that they would not accept a no-strike agreement. For good or ill, this plank of Mr Johnson’s platform has cracked.

Let us move on.

Above all, I will stand up for rail commuters in London, and champion their cause by working tirelessly with the companies who operate our railways to improve the dire service. I will fight for longer trains, more frequent services, manned stations, better lighting, Oyster at every station and lower fares. I will promote greater use of the river, by making it more integrated into the current system.

These are all things Ken Livingstone has been doing with some success. The TOCs are as intransigent as the RMT and have been slow to roll out Oyster and, where it has been set up, are dragging their feet over pay-as-you-go. It would be nice, though, if Mr Johnson did come out and say ‘I will continue to do what Mr Livingstone has been doing’. Given that he’s not having much luck with trains and tubes, maybe he’ll try the river. Let’s look at page 31

I will promote greater use of the river, by making it more integrated into the current system.

I would love to see the river used more; I take it from time to time down to Greenwich. It’s not going to happen. The River Thames is, in London, tidal. The flow of water makes it impossible to fix journey times, in terms of start, arrival and length, from one day to the next. Their predictability and reliability will keep them as a secondary mode of transport unless and until the Thames is dammed and is no longer tidal. Equally, the money that would be spent on boats could, I feel, be better used elsewhere.

Given that the river is a non-starter, let’s have a look at the buses. On page 31, Mr Johnson says

I will launch a competition to produce a new, iconic London bus, a 21st century Routemaster with conductors, of which Londoners can be proud.

This would cost £600m across London to replace all buses plus an extra £108m on operations. That amounts to a 15% hike in fares across the board.

On page 35, the manifesto says that Johnson will

‘Scrap PCO Notice 44/06 which penalises cab drivers for stopping at red routes to allow passengers to use cashpoints.’

Red routes are urban freeways where stopping is prohibited or heavily restricted; the intention is to improve commuter traffic flow. So far as I can tell, more cars stopping on red routes will foul up the traffic. However, on page three of his manifesto, Mr Johnson’s very first priority is

1. Put The Commuter First
• By focusing on making traffic flow more smoothly through measures like re-phasing traffic lights, allowing motorcycles in bus lanes and cracking down on utility companies who dig up the roads.

Which don’t sit very well together.

xD.

Edit 1326: added in bits about buses and the river.

Posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Categories: London, London Votes 2008, Politicae Britannicae, Politics.
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