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Month: Sep 2007
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11am – still 5 services out
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10am – still 6 down
It is 8.30am and still only the three Tubelines services are running properly.
Most people need to have started their journey to work by now to work by now but all of the Metronet lines are still having problems and 6 out of 9 are still suspended.
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Keep taking the cocoa
At 8am this morning TfL is still reporting that 9 out of 12 Tube lines are out of use. TfL and RMT had 9 hours of talks yesterday from 2.30pm to near midnight.
In the nice cup of cocoa city, London, it seems our public transport quango is incapable of robust contingency planning.
In spite of having curtailed services at 5pm, an hour ahead of the strike on Monday, to get trains back to depots it still can’t get them going again quickly. You might imagine that this vital public service could work through the night to get us all back to work this morning but no.
Keep taking the cocoa.
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Don’t panic – walk
Ken Livingstone’s Transport for London seems to be notably phlegmatic this morning in the face of the substantial collapse of its Tube network last night. It seems that the combination of 2,300 RMT workers at Metronet, a desire by TfL to get all their trains back to depots and a hyper-sensitive safety culture have contrived to take out most of the Tube network from 5pm yesterday afternoon. TfL seem to be resigned on our behalf for this disruption to continue until the end of Thursday – they see no prospect of service on Thursday evening although the strike is meant to be over at 6pm. Not so much the city that never sleeps as the city that goes to bed early with a nice cup of cocoa.
TfL talk about the Piccadilly line being part suspended but anyone west of Hyde Park Corner has no service so Northfield people are screwed like everyone else.
In one of their press releases TfL say: “Transport for London also advised that walking should be considered as an alternative for short journeys.” Great health advice but not much use to millions of Londoners with no alternative to the Tube this morning.
Ultimately the person we should blame is Mayor and Chairman of the TfL board, Ken Livingstone.
In the meantime if you want to throw rocks at Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT, go to the Department of Transport at 11.30am this morning. Crow will be leading a lobby of RMT members calling for an end to the part-privatisation of the Tube and for Underground maintenance to be brought back in-house.
The lobby takes place at Great Minster House, 76 Marsham Street, London SW1 4DR, between 11:30 and 13:00.
At the very least lean out of your office window and shout abuse at these idiots. If you are a bit braver go and poke this man in the chest and tell him he is a freak.
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Borisvision
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Boris kicks off
I was invited to take part in Boris Johnson’s launch this morning. It took place at the old council chamber at County Hall. Things got off to a shakey start when the sound on the video was missing. After this was sorted all went well. Boris gave a bravura performance delighting 100 odd of his supporters who had turned out to see him along with the press. It is clear that he intends to be a mayor for all Londoners and focus on three core issues of housing, transport and crime.
He talked about making sure that London’s youngsters benefit from the Olympics and making London safer and more civilised. He spent a lot of time talking about housing which is a key issue for him, especially housing for families rather than rabbit hutches. He rightly points out that we manage to combine very low housing densities with very tiny flats. Doh!
I have put up a link to his campaign on the sidebar, right. If you think Livingstone has had his day and that it is time to have a mayor that cares about Londoners and delivers then go and have a look.
See Telegraph commentary which has majored on his comments about people having a go in the face of anti-social behaviour.
Phil Taylor 