Government using Covid as an excuse to force TFL to cut young and old concession

[Sebastian Cobb]

Article about cutting for pensioners:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tfl-bus-london-underground-fare-free-travel-bailout-sadiq-khan-b1058724.html

Article about cutting for kids:
https://news.sky.com/story/government-offers-transport-for-london-further-1631bn-bailout-12105037?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter

There's a school of thought that it's largely done to damage Sadiq Khan.

You could argue that few, if any places give kids free travel outside of London, but that's not the point is it? Making things unfair for kids in London wouldn't make things fair. Also I believe the point as to why it's done in London is their travel network is naturally that good that they can do this without having to run school buses, unlike lots of other places where the public transport is too crap to facilitate that.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Instead of levelling up, the Tories are levelling down - attempting to making London transport as crap as transport outside London.

[Gurke and Hare]

There's a school of thought that it's largely done to damage Sadiq Khan.

It absolutely is - Shaun Bailey, the Tory mayoral candidate who gives Johnson a run for his money in the lying bastard stakes keeps tweeting lies that this is something Khan is doing, and that if he gets in he'll sort it all out.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Didn't Livingstone want to extend the congestion charge zone, and Johnson opposed this when he was mayor of London? I'm not sure if Livingstone wanted to extend is as far as the Tories propose now though.

Boris Johnson, said: 'The people of west London had the Western Extension unfairly foisted upon them and they have now voiced their antipathy for it loud and clear on several occasions.

Bailey is already trying to blame Khan for what the Tory Government want: https://twitter.com/ShaunBaileyUK/status/1316027134096236547

He also tried to blame Khan for fans not being allowed into football stadiums in London, which is surely the decision of the Government. And it's also right that fans aren't allowed into football stadiums given the pandemic.

No doubt he'll be Prime Minister/the current dictator in ten years' time.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Khan did remove exemptions from private hire cars, which seems like a misstep really.

[olliebean]

Khan did remove exemptions from private hire cars, which seems like a misstep really.

Does it? Surely private hire cars cause as much congestion and pollution as people driving their own cars. More, in fact, as they're not just driving from A to B, but from wherever they were before to A, and from B to wherever they need to be next.

Of course the government (be it Johnson's or Khan's) should ensure that the company rather than the individual drivers have to pay it, but I don't see an issue with charging it in principle.

[Gurke and Hare]

Black cabs don't have to pay it though, I don't think, which seems an unfair advantage.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Does it? Surely private hire cars cause as much congestion and pollution as people driving their own cars. More, in fact, as they're not just driving from A to B, but from wherever they were before to A, and from B to wherever they need to be next.

Of course the government (be it Johnson's or Khan's) should ensure that the company rather than the individual drivers have to pay it, but I don't see an issue with charging it in principle.

It's not about whether individual journeys are more or less bad it's about displacing car ownership, since making a car is about as bad as driving 170k miles and if someone doesn't have a car they're probably going to use public transport alongside the odd PH journey. If they still owned a car they'd probably drive everywhere and make more unnecessary driven journeys when they could have taken PT, PH or walked.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I thought this might be an interesting post on Shaun Bailey's latest antics, from the excellent Diamond Geezer blog: https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2020/10/shaun-4-watford.html

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm confused as the BBC report that the government have given Tfl a £1.8bn grant, but Tfl describe it as "a "core amount of £1bn", consisting of a £905m grant and £95m of borrowing". So where is the other £0.8bn coming from?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54768723

The congestion charge will not be extended - I wonder if it has anything to do with this story:

London's biggest business groups today launched a direct challenge to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps amid fears that the Government could impose damaging hikes in fares and the congestion charge to fill the financial hole caused by Covid-19.

In a letter seen by the Evening Standard, the business leaders express alarm that the Government appears to be keeping secret an independent report by accountants KPMG into the state of Transport for London's finances and the causes.

They warn that "trust and co-operation" are at stake and insist the report be published in full before major decisions are taken that could damage jobs and trade.

"One of the key inputs to these conversations is the work that the Government has commissioned from KPMG," said the business leaders. "For the sake of building trust and cooperation between the London and the country that our capital serves, this report should be published immediately."

The Department for Transport (DfT) told the Standard it would be "inappropriate" to publish details of the report at present.

The business intervention reflects concerns among business groups after a leaked letter from Mr Shapps suggested that the Government is leaning on TfL to put up ticket prices and massively extend the congestion charge zone to raise more cash...

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/transport-for-london-report-fare-hikes-a4573391.html

Meanwhile Shaun Bailey's latest ad is a Great British Bakeoff parody. He and "Sadiq Khan" bake "cakes", and Bailey's is much bigger and more exciting than Khan. The judges keep seeing things in the cake that aren't obvious to the viewer. It's impressively crap.

[Fambo Number Mive]

A Bailey campaign leaflet which seems designed to look like a Tfl publication at first glance: https://mobile.twitter.com/helenedwardcwo/status/1322557009955295234

[steveh]

The deal requires TfL to investigate driverless trains. Again. That's another Johnson obsession in the face of compelling evidence against isn't it.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I wonder how many jobs would be lost if driverless trains were brought in across the network. Of course it also weakens the power of the RMT union which is also bad.

[itsfredtitmus]

get it all cut