How about banning all cars with less than two people in them? that would have a much better effect.... then the cars with three people in it wouldnt have to inconvenience the morally riteous bus users .

actually KLF, your analogy to a bendy bus being 7 cars long is interesting.
a normal double decker can carry about 80 people, and takes up the space of 3 cars. so even if there are only 12 people on the bus then its using the same road space per person as 3 cars with 4 passengers on board. if i put it in those terms, do you see why cars are bad for londons roads?

No,your 'token' bus fare goes into the same black hole as our 31 Billion.

But get rid of bus lanes and you free up 50% of road space in most high streets.Can't you see why buses slow traffic down.

Look, most people use public transport to commute to Central London.My main concern is with outer London and the south east in general.

Regarding bendy buses.How can they carry 150 people.75 in each section?? Thats nearly as much in each section as a whole double decker.In that case a 'Bendy' would have to be nearly four time a long as a double decker.Bendy's take up twice the roadspace of a double decker,and there no way they can carry twice the passangers of a double decker.

get on one oneday and read the maximum number of passengers chart by the driver. i am certain its 149 passengers, 147 i think if there is a wheel chair user onboard. i'm going on one later, i'll confirm or deny it.

the big outrage amongst bendy bus users is that it carries more people, but less get to sit dowm, theres only something like 50 seats on one.

how come this debate has suddenly chainged to the south east in general. theres no bus lanes on the M3 M2, M25, M40, M11, M1, A13 (once your out of docklands). your complaining about bus lanes in areas that there arent any arent you?

Get rid of bus lanes and 3 cars with 4 persons in MAX (12 people mr mathemetician), can take the space of a bus that might have 80 people on. your idea doesn't work! the same number of people still need to move about.

so, you aren't paying all of public transports costs are you? which is what you SAID.

I cant find any evidence that tells me what proportion of london transports finances are self generated, i am afraid. i do know for sure, its not ZERO.

what happens to taxes is a whole different argument... you don't like taxes. your a tory.

There is a word, which I can't remember, for when taxes are raised for a particular thing. I'll come back when I remember it.

Anyway, KLF, are you seriously arguing that because you pay tax that in some way is connected to driving your car, this should be invested in making your car-driving experience better? Because I pay a considerable amount of tax on alcohol and I don't see the government providing me with free beer.

and Ken livingstone's remit doesn't cover the entire south east of england
thats what this thread is about, your hatred of him because you cant drive your car without getting stuck in a queue with other inconsiderate bastards.

Smart! there's a 360 degree panorama thingy of a bendy bus here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/360/travel/bendy_bus.shtml

and a more vivid simulation of abject drunkenness that setting that thing onto fast spin I've yet to see.

PS it says 59 seating and 120 standing there... 179 though that would be a rather unpleasant journey I expect

In your analogy, with the bus carrying 12 people taking up the same space of 3 cars, you claim that the 3 cars are worse for london than the bus.

Do you know how much polution a double decker bus causes in comparison to 3 cars (assuming an average of abou 1.6L engine)?

Big Willy

My main concern is Outer London and then the south East in general..Who's talking about motorways.The vast majority of driving is done within 10 miles of your address and mainly through town centres or on A roads.

With your bus lane rationale,you are forgetting that even by your optimistic figures, only one bus per minute uses a bus lane.Where as, 50 cars or more could use that lane in a minute.So with a bus solely using a bus lane you have a maximum of 50 people a minute using half of the road(presuming the bus is full),if cars use that lane there could be up to 200 people using that half of the road.Throw in the bus as well and you have probably treble the capacity of people travelling along thet lane per minute,which in turn free ups the second lane ,which then flows smoother as well.Everyones a winner.

we're not discussing polution, we are discussing congestion.

I use buses nearly every day and I agree they are better - with that and the ccharge hes done a great job.(but why couldnt nicky gavron say take over from him? shes got the same policies and doesnt go round getting pissed and talking shite.) by not apologising ken is not standing on any particular principle except the right to talk shite while pissed. (we've all done it but hes mayor and if hed apologised - not to the odious standard but to the people of london and finegold then all would be well. he could have just said it was an innappropriate analogy but the mail and std still suck). also he says he feels the Holocaust is the worst crime in human history. I dont doubt his sincerity. but is he aware of the history of euro antisemitism? its littered with people talking of Jewish conspiracies etc. funnily enough Ken seems to resort to blaming "Zionist conspiracies" when hes been attacked recently.(fine if hes antizionist but these are not dark forces oppressing us all ken.)this is talk I expect from the NF and the likes of Holocaust denier David Irving.

I wish Ken would spend a bit more energy on improving the ability of people to communicate clearly in their native language.

But that might take some effort on the part of the learner. Ken can't do that for them, can he?

I'm also extremely, extremely disappointed to find out that none of the buses I saw or rode on this weekend was nearly empty.

you must have been unlucky maria...

Yeah, because apparently every bus in the city is almost empty every other day except the ones I'm there!

There remain two undisputable facts

1. A two lane road allows far more people too travel along it per minute or per hour,than a one lane/one bus lane road does.

2. Everytime you hinder car traffic or slow it down, you also hinder and slow down businesses that deliver goods,resulting in huge costs to the economy.

Why the KLF should embrace Red Ken:

and why the KLF is in the minority:



bloody loonie minority groups, trying to push their mad ideas onto the rest of us.

WALK YOU BASTARDS!



your tax must be being spent on immigrants instead, KLF!

i know you will dismiss all the information i've just given because its all from the transport 2000 website; they would say that wouldn't they?

for more information, go to the learning zone at:

http://www.transport2000.org.uk/

Sorry, I've been away, and thus missing all the fun!



Let's see, I live in zone 3, I never buy monthly railcards because I do not travel every day, and as you rightly pointed out later, in order to make the pass economically viable you really need to travel 7 days a week. When I am working in the centre, which I have been for a couple of months, I buy a weekly travelcard (however, since the station where I live doesn't support Oystercards (!!!!) if I forget to update mine when in the centre, I have to buy a daily travelcard. A daily travelcard for zones 1-4 (which is all they offer) is now £5.20. It was £4.80 last year (thanks Ken!).

When I first moved to London in 2000, I lived in Zone 2, and a daily, off-peak travelcard (zones 1-2) was £3.80. I honestly don't know what it would have been for zones 1-4, but I think it was about 60p more. So it has gone up steadily, well ahead of inflation. Speaking of... anybody remember Ken's promise last year when travelcards went up substantially? Well, I do. He promised they wouldn't go up again for six years except in pace with inflation. A daily zone 1-4 travelcard went up from £4.80 to £5.20, an increase of 40p. Unless inflation was nearly 10 percent this year, something went wrong.

SO. A weekly Oyster card for zones 1-3 is £25. That's 5 pounds a day if you travel five days, which is my usual practice. They do not offer a Mon-Fri travelcard at a reduced price. Go figure.

So, yes, I really have problems with the steady increase in the cost of travelcards, if only because it does not make sense to me to penalize people who are using public transport for doing so. I think they should be encouraged. So we all go to filthy, hideous stations, get on dirty trains driven by malcontented staff who act as if they despise us. And we get to do it EVERY DAY. Oh the joy of the everyday commuter.

I believe -- and you can check this out if you wish, that transport in London is the most expensive in Europe, more than 30 percent more than in New York, about 60 percent more than in Boston or Chicago, more than double what it costs in Paris.

So, looking around at cities that have high taxes (Europe) and those that have low taxes (the US), you really do have to reassess if you're paying more every single day than ALL of them.

Having said that, I understand that the tories put transport in a hole with years of underinvestment, but I do think that there has to be some balance between investing and (brace yourselves) cost-cutting.

I know I know I know.

But it is quite clear the tube is a bit inefficient. Possibly admin-heavy. Certainly so highly unionized that staff cutbacks have never, in the five years I've lived here, happened. I think as more money is poured into infrastructure, we need to take a little back elsewhere. There has to be a way. Every other city in the world struggles with this problem, but none quite so expensively as London.

From the UK Commission for Integrated Transport report:



And this is old. A single ticket in London is now £2.10, I believe.

Expensive to use or expensive on the city budget mata? when I was in NYC in 2001 it was a basic $1 single any distance on the MTA... less for regular commuters with a travelcard. A fantastic bargain.

Hard to believe that something as expensive and overcrowded as the tube isn't actually making a clear profit

My general concern, then, is that transport in London is really expensive, desperately inefficient, and there is no logic behind the increases. I am in favour of the congestion charge, because I don't drive, yet I realise that it is punative rather than intelligent. By that I mean, it punishes drivers by forcing them not to drive, then doesn't give them a decent alternative to driving. Tubes and trains are unreliable and overcrowded. Buses are infrequent and unpredictable, and they pollute more than any other form of public transport. The continually raised fares and the congestion charge are explained as necessary in order to invest in the underinvested infrastructure, but the only thing I've seen so far is more buses (which, as mentioned above, are the least pleasant of all the public transport options).

So, in order for me not to think that the system is broken and the people in charge incapable of fixing it, there would have to be coherence. Investment schemes and growth plans, including cost cutting on things like overstaffing and redundant operation techniques, that in, say, 15 years time would have visible outcomes. Something, in effect, for our money. But I have not seen anything but vague, illusory promises, and Olympic pipedreams.

That is why I don't have faith in Ken Livingstone. I genuinely believe his heart is in the right place, but I do not think he is smart enough to fix this conundrum in which we are living.

If I recall correctly Livingstone wanted to get the guy who fixed the NY MTA in to run the tubes in London but was blocked by blair who insisted the infrastructure and maintenance be divided up and privatised.

Going back further into the mists of history he got into trouble for raising public transport subsidy and cutting fares when he was head of the GLC... actually wasn't it the suburban car addicts kicking up a stink that time too.

Not that I pay too much attention to these regional trifles but livies track record is of a guy who wants to make public transport cheap, seems odd if he's personally insisting on inflation busting fare raises.

I genuinely believe he hates raising fares but can't think of an alternative. And I genuinely think London deserves/desperately needs a mayor who is smart enough to think of an alternative.

Meanwhile, they're throwing a strop in NY for paying half what we pay here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/nyregion/28fares.html

64% want more bus lanes ??? What did transport 2000 do ? Interview people in bus queues. I don't suppose they stopped cars and asked the drivers the same question

If you are questioning perdestrians and public transport users and asking questions in a certain way, of course you are going to get the answers you want.Ask people the same question at supermarkets/DIY stores or at football matches..ect.You'll be lucky to get 6.4% agreeing let alone 64%.

If we'd been able to raise bonds to pay for the work needed on the underground, it would have been cheaper and faster. The Blairites won on that issue and Ken was defeated, now we are reaping the consequences of Ken being defeated by Blair.

If we are to have a good service, we have to pay for it, and the only alternative to tube fair increases that I've seen proposed on here is to sack more workers at a time when there are staff shortages on London Underground - I just can't see that one being a winner. It's no good just saying that there should be someone smart who can make all those millions appear without using any of the funding channels open to this person. We have to live in the real world where real decisions have to be made.

What's happening now is payback for years of underinvestment and a bad system to raise the cash to pay for it, which is why the mayor is investing in more busses, as that is the only transport sector in which we can realistically expand capacity.

Whether we need the service expanded or not.
The fact that this policies knock-on effect is to cause havoc for car/lorry/van drivers is just an added bonus for ken.

I'm sorry, but I'm not a transport expert. I didn't study it -- you can get a degree in it. I knew people who did. I'm also not a public policy expert.

Neither, might I add, is Ken Livingstone. (Nor, frankly, are you, Graham.)

All I'm saying is, in four years, Livingstone hasn't done much but add bendy buses, which terrorize bike riders, take up extensive road space and pollute, but do, on the other hand, hold lots of passengers. Which is fine, but not exactly anything to marvel at.

I cannot believe that in a city of 14 million people, many of them trained public policy and surely one or two experts on human traffic, this is the best London can do.

Every single other city in the world does better.




God this is the excuse for bloody everything! Do you have any idea how often British people use this as an excuse for everything from crap hospitals, dreadful public transport, bad weather, poor policy decisions, to sneezing near others, overdrawing one's checquing account, tripping on a paving stone, not knowing the works of Nietzsche, misquoting Shakespeare -- it's the all-purpose excuse. Yes, there was underinvestment, and it was remarkably stupid, and it's very unfortunate that people kept reelecting the Tories.

But if you're telling me that the damage was irreversible, I'm telling you it isn't. If you're telling me that it excuses four years of shite city management, I'm telling you that it does not. If you're telling me it excuses bad city management and the overall lack of a public transport plan, I think you're losing it.

Demand more, get more.

It needs to be fixed, Ken can't fix it.

Who's next?

Gosh, Mata - I hate to be the one say it, but for someone who hasn't been here very long and who has relatively little invested here, you sure demand a lot! And when you're not demanding, you're banging on about how absolutely shit everything is.

I don't really think you can blame Ken for all London's ills. My feeling is that the transportation situation (along with most other public services) is exacerbated because London is full to breaking point. The government needs to encourage a multi-centered Britain, perhaps by offering tax incentives for various industries to re-locate to other parts of the country. Re-distributing the industry and population would also redistribute the wealth, of course, and be good for everyone in encouraging a less London-centric approach to national life. And it could only benefit London itself, by shrinking the population and demands on services back to a more achievable level.

first off i love nevski.

2nd--bendy buses scare the shit outta me.

3rd--d, it was a buck 50 per ride on the glorious MTA back in the day. but the MTA too has decided it's going to make the fare sky rocket, by putting up the cost of monthly and weekly tickets. it's not going to the unionized workforce either... i think the money goes straight to the board of directors.

4th-- the LT needs to streamline the choices really all the fucked up combinations of tickets isn't very useful. they either need to ditch the zone crap or come up with simpler combinations of ticket choices.

Mata, your answer just confirms to me that you don't really have any other solutions to what Ken has done and that you're just complaining about what's been done because you don't like him.... luckily people in London have a more constructive approach to their politics.

Tube plans - not the way Ken would have liked to have done it, but here you can find the progress so far.
http://tube.tfl.gov.uk/ppp/index.asp


The most jouneys on bus in more than 25 years and an increase of 104 million passenger trips on bus in 2002/2003
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/cib_about.shtml

Transport for London also just announced that oyster cards will now calculate the lowest fare for a persons journeys over one day and automatically charge them that lowest fare.

Getting the city moving again is expensive and the mayor is very limited in what he can do. Given the limitations, that he can't do what the Metropolitan Transit Authority did because he can't raise bonds and there isn't spare capacity on the underground as there was in the 80s on the subway or on the underground; that he has a limited budget, which he is doing his best to raise to make improvements, he's doing a better job than anyone I can think of.

Actually, I quite like Ken as a person, Graham. I just happen to think he's a crap mayor.



Yeah, sorry about that, Joanie. You've probably lived in London much longer than me and... wait, you DO live in London. Don't you? No? Well, to make a statement like that as a native British citizen you know more than... Oh dear.

Have you got a new job in Ken's PR office, par chance? If not, he should hire you. Somebody pass it along!

Listen, I can't vote so don't get your panties in a twist, Graham. But I can take the tube and the train and I can pay £5.20 for the privilege, and, therefore, I can bitch like everybody else. But, yes, I do think that saying what the mayor should have is a COHERENT TRANSPORT PLAN for investing and fundraising that goes beyond taking from the poor, the rich and the middle classes and giving it to tube workers isn't really that big of a shocking statement, surely? I'm not going out on that big of a limb here. It's just sort of common sense.

I understand the bonds issue was shot down by Tony Blair, but surely there was a plan B? If this is it, I don't much like it. It sounds to me like both sides are being stubborn and commuters are the pawns on this game board. And I don't like that either. As Keri pointed out the ticket system is bizarrely complex, and individual stations have impressive autonomy to opt out of them (the station nearest me does not accept Oyster cards -- the cheapest form of travelcard -- nor does it offer weekend travel cards -- the cheapest form of weekend travelcard, and there is nothing I can do about it, nor apparently, that the mayor can do about it, and yet London Transport is pouring money into this station in what is clearly an effort to bribe them to cooperate). I don't think I'm going out on a limb at this point to say that it is time for revolutionary thought in London transport or things are going to get worse.

If London doesn't get the Olympics, I'll bet money transport is the reason why. And there is so much else that London loses out on in terms of private investment because of its remarkably messed up transport.

Now, if it sounds like I'm being too harsh on London, I'm sorry. To balance things out we can talk about my old home town of New Orleans, if you like, where the bus system was wildly erratic -- buses stopped when and where they wanted, bus stops weren't marked, and I was once on a bus where the driver stopped for 20 minutes to get doughnuts and flirt with the girl at the counter, while 20 people sat on the bus in 100 degree heat waiting for him to come back. New Orleans streetcars are the only alternative, and they have a maximum speed of 29 miles per hour. I had a car there, for obvious reasons. I have no intention of owning a car as long as I live in London because, given the congestion and the expense, it would hardly help.

Now teleportation -- that's something I'd consider.

That's a tube map. Hardly a coherent, integrated transport investment and upgrade plan. Can you do better?



Bravo. But even TFL admits buses are slower and less efficient than tubes and trains. It takes me 15 minutes to get to central London by train, and 45 minutes by bus. So they've invested in the cheaper equipment, which is a stopgap solution, Graham. Surely you see that? It cannot be the answer. Nor can PPP. There has to be an integrated, coherent transport plan, with investment planned for now and down the line, otherwise Ken too is starving transport of investment, exactly as the Tories did. Short-term investments should be happening all the time, but longterm investment, expansion and improvements should be planned now for 2010, 2015, 2020, and work on much of that would have to be underway now to happen then.

But I've looked for signs of that and I really don't see it. Is there something I've missed? Seriously, I am asking. If there is a viable, coherent investment and improvement plan for London transport I want to know about it.

You can bitch all you like, I'm certainly in no position to stop you, but if you have a problem with the policies of the mayor, in particular his raising fares, I'd like to see what it is....I've got a feeling I may be waiting for some time for this one.....

Now, voting Londoners could, if they wanted, have voted for candidates who wanted to abolish congestion charging (Norris) or to reduce the charge and who opposed the extension of congestion charging. Both of those would have left a greater shortfall.

So, on the other hand, I suppose that someone could have taken your approach of trying to make savings off of working people on the underground. Aside from that being, I think, a fairly shabby thing to do to people who earn less than the average wage, it would also have a number of big effects. It would undoubtedly create more strikes - remember those - we haven't had many since Ken became Mayor - trying to take on the unions to cut people's wages would cause more strikes. It would also create an even greater recruitment problem. It's hard to get people to live in London, bring up a family and pay rent or a mortgage. Most of the people who work for London Underground are highly skilled (such as drivers and signal operators), cutting wages would cut the number of drivers and effect recruitment.

So, your only alternative would make matters worse. I'll stick with Mayor Ken rather than Mayor Mata I think.

1. It's a presentation so that people can see the tangible effects of the programme on thier station. It's just a cheep shot so suggest that this is not part of a coherant scheme, but not a surprising one.

2. The London Underground is at its capacity. That means we need more trains running to increase capacity which will need a complete overhall of the signalling, which is very expensive and takes a long time. Given that you oppose ticket increases, who do you think the money to increase tube capacity should be found? The reason that they have invested in more busses is that it can make a difference today. That doesn't mean to say that they aren't updating the signalling.

So, let's take stock here. You want a better service and you don't want to pay for it, but you want it now. How, exactly do you think that will happen? Magic?

Also, the mayor is simplifying the charging system - he introduced oyster cards, which, as you say yourself, are the cheapest option.

Well, I used to live in London, and I've been in Britain for almost 15 years, and my husband and child are British. As someone who feels fully entitled to an opinion on a whole range of topics when you have no direct experience of them, like the state of education when you have no children, I'm intrigued that you think I have no right to an opinion on this topic. Fact is, you bang on "demanding" things but don't really offer any solutions regarding how these things are to suddenly come about.

The London-centricity of Britain affects everyone both inside and outside the capital. If living in London causes you so much grief, have you considered moving?

Mayor Mata! Ha! That's what my beau is always saying when I harp on about Ken....

This is actually really interesting -- sort of answering my own questions. I'm about halfway into it. It's a bit halcyon, white clouds and sunny daydreams, but if they were serious about it, and if it actually went beyond the page, I would reconsider my Bin Ken campaign. (Catchy, huh?)

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/about/investment.shtml

Yes, but if the system is so anarchic that stations can arbitrarily decide not to accept them, then the problem is much more fundamental and invasive. So, like many things in London Transport, it's a part-solution that leaves people as frustrated as if he hadn't bothered in the first place.

Sort of shooting itself in the foot. Or undoing whatever was accomplished.

Vision! Graham, we need some vision, here, and a bit more attention to detail.

That's all I'm sayin'.

Using the well worn transport analogy. If you encourage people to move out of London,there will be many many others coming along to fill up their space.Shrinking the population on London ??? Now that is pie in the sky.Stopping massive increases each year will be hard enough to achieve.Thats if anyone in power wants to achieve it,which they don't.

But why do people come to London, KLF? Because jobs and wealth are centered in the southeast. Change that, and surely you'll have people following their respective industries - look at the BBC's upcoming move to Manchester. People who want to work in the broadcasting industry and want to have an affordable home in a vibrant city will now see Manchester as an alternative to London.

I was taking the piss. Actually, I think everybody ought to have opinions about everything. No way is this transport thing going to get solved unless people put their heads together.

Which is all we're doing here. Although 'bashing' might be a better term for it....

And, Joanie please. Bitching about transport is what people in London do. And everybody with any sense in London is planning to move someplace as else as soon as work, money, details, life allows. I am not alone in this.

By the way, one in 10 Parisians is unhappy with the Paris transport system. One in four Londoners is.

I just wonder if the other 3 ever leave their houses.

Graham. I also don't agree with cutting wages.I also don't know what other tube employee's are earning.I do know that tube drivers are on £30k a year.Which is top money.I'm sure more tube drivers would be easy to recuit.I know a few lorry drivers that are going to train up on the tubes and they only doing it because the money is so good.

I'd like to see all my taxes going to train and employ tube and train drivers and to update the rail and tube infrastructure,rather than see it wasted on the hugely expensinsive and wasteful rise in buses that we see on all out roads today.

Here's a link to the Mayor's Transport Strategy. It's 458 pages long - surely that's enough detail???
Transport Strategy

A bit bizarly it's on the Mayor's page rather than on TFL's page.

Wrong Joaniecrumpet.

Most of the BBC London staff will either be redeployed in London, given redundency, or will find new jobs.Most of the new jobs created by the BBC in Manchester will be filled by current residents of the North West and surrounding areas.

My Brother works for a bank in the city.Last year the staff were informed that the banks headquarters would be rellocated to Chertsey in Surrey.All 200 staff were given the option of moving to the Chertsey HQ on the same money and job title,voluntary redundency,or rellocate to a different branch of the bank in Canary wharf (this move would entail an average of £1500 wage cut because of a different wage structure).

Only 12 people opted to rellocate out of London.96 people took volluntary dedudency,and 92 opted to take a wage cut in order to stay working in London (thus avoiding the extra travel costs of commuting to Surrey each day,or uprooting the family from their current homes.

You can't bring in laws and policies to force people out of curtain areas,just as you can't force people out of their prefured mode of transport.

Why is that bizarre.Livingstone and the TFL are joined at the hip.TFL are funded by Livingstone and are the mouthpiece for his transport dreams.