Public transport for the capital

Speech by Lynne Featherstone delivered to Capital Transport Campaign meeting on Sat 29th Nov 2003

Public transport is not just an element in planning how Londoners get about their city - it is the KEY element. With three million trips per weekday, London Underground carries roughly the same number of passengers as the entire National Rail Network. 70% of bus users do not own or have access to a car. Commuter rail is vital to many Londoners, especially those swathes of south London where the Tube does not run.

Liberal Democrats say public transport has to meet three key tests: it must be safe, it must be reliable, it must be affordable.

The new Mayor will need to bring a new vision to public transport planning for the capital. Clearly we cannot go on as we are. Public transport is not in the hands of the people - it is imposed on them by bureaucrats and faceless suits. The Mayor has to be a vigorous advocate on the people's behalf and give strong political leadership so that the people are listened to when decisions are taken about their buses, their Tube, their trains.

Above all, the Mayor needs to stand up to Transport for London, which has become a law unto itself - far too often quite impenetrable to ordinary mortals. And if Transport for London's Windsor House is the Kremlin of bus tube and tram, then as far as the Strategic Rail Authority is concerned - think North Korea. We simply have to find a way of getting some serious influence on the SRA for London's rail commuters.

Take two small examples - both perfectly illustrate what Londoners are up against. In East Dulwich there is a useful local bus called the P13 which runs between Streatham and Surrey Quays. It has been routed through a maze of small residential streets at Grove Hill all lined with residents' parked cars as no other parking is available. Buses are having to reverse in tight spaces with endless delays, damage to vehicles and danger to pedestrians and children.

Every kind of protest has been mounted by hundreds of local residents. An alternative route which would not only be more socially inclusive and - vitally - would give bus users a connection to the rail station at Denmark Hill - has been put forward to Transport for London. The Liberal Democrat transport lead on Southwark Borough has pressed for this as has Lynne Featherstone's team at the London Assembly.

All this meets the brick wall of TfL. They have made a revision to the route which if anything makes things worse and does nothing for the council estate or the rail station.

A Mayor who was able to focus outside Zone One would direct TfL to listen to the people.

The other example is the North London Line - our orbital local rail route across North London from Richmond through Islington and Hackney to Stratford and North Woolwich. If you want an example of why we can't go on as we are - this is it. The line is run down, the stations are in an appalling state, the fares are rarely collected, and the trains are horribly overcrowded at peak times.

The Mayor wants to put money in so the platforms can be extended to take longer trains. The Strategic Rail Authority won't accept it - because this would involve higher maintenance costs which they are not willing to meet out of SRA funds. And under the legislation that New Labour cooked up to ensure that devolution doesn't really work - the Mayor does not have the powers to direct the SRA to do what London's passengers need.

The North London Line urgently needs re-signalling so that passengers trains can be made more frequent - a lot of freight uses the line and more traffic needs accommodating. TfL would like to be able to step up train frequency if the Olympic bid is successful - but this is just pie in the sky unless the Mayor is given some real influence.

A Mayor with real political vision would be shouting from the house tops that Londoners need a say in a the planning of commuter rail and the state of our trains and stations.

So the first message from the Simon Hughes campaign is this : THINK CUSTOMER. The Mayor simply has to put himself in the position of the Londoner who USES public transport, and listen to them, and fight for them. And he must make sure that the bureaucrats at Transport for London THINK CUSTOMER too.

The second message, which connects powerfully with the first, is that the Mayor must THINK LOCAL. We cannot go on with a situation where the Mayor of London is obsessed with central London. Of course, central London is very beguiling - it's where the press and television are, it's where the exciting big players operate.

But the GLA is the Greater London Authority. There are 32 Boroughs as well as the City of London. The next Mayor has got to start paying serious attention to public transport needs across the whole of London.

A dead give away of the current Mayor's attitude is found on page 12 of his Transport Strategy where he says in terms "in outer London, the car will continue to remain the main means of transport."

So it is no surprise that for Londoners living out "in the wilds" of Beckenham and Barnet, of Edmonton and Enfield, Sutton and Southgate don't find transport very easy, very frequent or very cheap. East-west travel - orbital journeys - are notoriously difficult and tortuous in outer London. A huge wedge of south London is hopelessly dependant on overground rail for reaching the centre in any kind of reasonable time.

We need to look seriously at re-zoning London, we need to look at targeting congestion hot-spots in London's dozens of town centres and high streets so that buses can move more rapidly and efficiently. We need to be sure we're running buses when and where people want them, so that we are not wasting public subsidies on buses that run nearly empty when there are long queues elsewhere.

Perhaps we also need to look at an expansion of 'dial-a-ride' services where people can ring up for a minibus to come and collect them for off-peak trips to shops and family.

Certainly we need action and leadership to make sure our trains, our Tube and our buses are safe for passengers, especially during the hours of darkness. We need a visible police presence - whether British Transport Police or police community support officers, patrolling trains, Tubes and travelling on the buses. A start has been made, but there is still much more to do.

Energy and initiative is needed to come up with new solutions to getting Londoners home safe after midnight. Vulnerable users of public transport - women especially - really do need to be able to reach their front door safely.

The next Mayor will need to work far more effectively with the Boroughs - and with local neighbourhoods and communities - so he understands on an ongoing basis what Londoners in both inner and outer London need for their public transport. The next Mayor has to THINK LOCAL - and ensure there are LOCAL SOLUTIONS FOR LOCAL PROBLEMS - not some ruling handed down by the TfL bureaucrats at Windsor House.

Finally, the new Mayor really does have to THINK ENVIRONMENT. Our long baking summer in London is unlikely to be an accident - any more than the monsoon type rain in the last two weeks where we've had a month's rainfall in 48 hours. Global warming and environmental degradation has to be tackled if Kyoto is to be any kind of reality - and London as a world city has to take a lead.

"Soft measures" in transport planning (someone really ought to come up with a better term !) involve giving people the information they need so they can use public transport instead of the car. Individual transport plans - first piloted so successfully in Perth, Australia - and now much more widely in continental Europe - have reduced private car traffic by up to 15% (as successful as congestion charging in central London).

Thanks to Liberal Democrat pressure and negotiation, trials are being carried out as we speak in four London boroughs with groups of 1,000 residents, to see if by giving them individualised travel plans to get them about their daily business by public transport, we can gain this crucial modal shift. Early results look very encouraging.

Large employers - like hospitals, for example - can be very pro-active in managing both staff and visitors so that car use is minimised. Heathrow Airport in particular needs the most determined political leadership if the horrendous pollution caused by car and vehicle movements around the airport are to be reduced as much as possible. The Simon Hughes campaign is resolutely opposed to the building of a third runway at Heathrow.

The smaller scale environment - the state of our rail stations and embankments, the graffiti on trains, Tube and buses - also needs determined attention.

Liberal Democrats in London have worked hard to listen to the needs of Londoners and the Simon Hughes campaign will take on that vital role. If we are to have safe, reliable and affordable public transport we need to think customer, think local and think environment. It can't be about grabbing headlines, it certainly can't be about Jarvis, and it has to be practical and affordable.

I believe we can go forward into the 21st century with public transport that really works - for the WHOLE of London.