Chucking millions down the Tube

16 September 2009

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Transport for London is to waste £97 million on a ‘symbolic’ project to give wheelchair users access to Green Park station, says Andrew Gilligan. Why hasn’t Boris reined it in?

Disabled Londoners are, said Parry, angry at being ‘excluded’ from the tube. But even if TfL’s millions made any difference to that situation, how could anyone sane feel anything but relief at being excluded from a service which, even for the able-bodied, is an exercise in low-level misery? If someone offered me a free parking permit, a nice subsidised taxi or a dial-a-ride service which worked properly, I would happily exclude myself from the tube forever tomorrow.

Green Park was an Olympic commitment, said Parry. It would be central London’s ‘gateway’ to Stratford. But the Olympics only lasts two weeks, I said. Why not just give every disabled Londoner who wanted to go to Stratford a free taxi from wherever they lived, rather than dragging them all the way into W1 to get on a train? In the end, after much prodding, Parry admitted that the main benefit of the project was ‘symbolic’.

Two clear threads thus run through this ridiculous story. The first is the perversion of the noble goal of equality. The purpose of TfL’s policy is not to make life easier for the disabled. It’s to make a political statement. It’s to satisfy lobbyists and bien-pensants. It is a gesture to a wholly abstract notion of equality, taken without practical consideration for the actual needs of the people it is supposed to help, which will neither increase the mobility, nor diminish the disadvantage, of a single disabled Londoner.

TfL’s elevation of a symbolic equality agenda over common sense was also clear in its recent decision to allow a paranoid schizophrenic and convicted wife-strangler to take the Knowledge exam to become a London taxi-driver. TfL’s response when my then newspaper broke the story was to launch an inquiry not just into its own decision, but into the ‘disappointing breach’ of the killer’s right to privacy. Those protesting at the taxi decision have been attacked by some mental health campaigners as evil reactionaries, determined to ‘stigmatise’ the mentally ill. Well, yes, if they’ve killed someone.

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Vettekulla

September 23rd, 2009 3:51pm Report this comment

I always find disabled access facilities, particularly kerb-side ramps so thoughtfully provided throughout London, immensely helpful for the international traveler's ubiquitous suitcase-on-wheels. The only draw-back is having to share these ramps occasionally with anti-social cyclists. To make the Tube wheelie friendly will be a godsend. No more heaving that 23 kilo suitcase up and down steps. We owe a great debt to the disabled whom one rarely sees enjoying the benefits of these large investments.

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