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?

Most civilised people would accept that this man’s crime was different from that of, say, Fred West. They would support the rehabilitation of the mentally ill. They would not, provided the man is judged well and safe, object to his working in, say, an office. But schizophrenic killers should never be allowed to take stressful jobs which put them in daily, unsupervised, one-on-one contact with total strangers. It is depressing, but not surprising, that Transport for London cannot understand this.

The second thread running through TfL is how, for some parts of the public sector, the spending of money has become an end in itself, with no real attempt to connect that spending to outcomes. In the most difficult of circumstances, with falling passenger revenues, stingy banks and an unhelpful Chancellor, TfL will soon need to find many billions for a project of genuine importance, Crossrail. But with its step-free access programme and all its other accesses, sorry excesses, it may simply no longer be able to afford it. With its 163 staff paid over £100,000 a year (the Treasury, responsible for the entire British economy, manages with 15), TfL is the RBS of public transport, a bloated behemoth walking dangerously close to the third rail.

You may object that for all these quintessentially New Labour tendencies, TfL has for the last year and a half been in the hands of a Tory Mayor. Boris Johnson was indeed elected to put a stop to this kind of thing, but has failed to do so. Transport is the alpha and omega of the London mayoralty; Boris has staked his credibility on Crossrail; and unless he can rein in ‘Transport for Livingstone’, it may come to cost him even more than a step-free escalator.

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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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