The future of Transport in London

Written by Lynne Featherstone and published in Speech to the Institute of Civil Engineers on Fri 17th Sep 2004

Thursday 16 September 6pm

Institution of Civil Engineers, One George Street, Westminster

Every time I walk away from City Hall, the home of the London Assembly, a poster faces me as I head towards London Bridge Station.

It is a challenge: the slogan reads "IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY" ?

It's a question any Chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee needs to have constantly in mind. For her own journeys certainly: but also for every one of the other 7.3 million residents of London. Of course it's war-time poster, and decorates a museum on Tooley Street devoted to how London survived the Second World War.

I was pleased to see the ICE flagging up this same question in its excellent document Agenda for Change. You talk about the need for a "reduction in the overall need to travel".

It is arguably your most radical statement in the document - and as a radical politician I welcome the challenge it poses.

Far too much energy and agony goes into millions of Londoners having to travel every weekday - six million a day on the buses, three million on the Tube - with all the delays, breakdowns and frustration that this involves. You're lucky as a Londoner if you can get to work in under an hour - very occasionally I can manage it in forty minutes.

Don't you ever, on a crowded Tube train, with an elbow in your ribs and your nose pressed into somebody's armpit, wonder whether we have the design of our society right, and whether there isn't a better way than having millions of people fighting each other to travel for hours to and from work ?

We have e-mails, we have mobile phones with pictures, we have blackberries to which I often feel like sending a raspberry, we have video-conferencing and host of ways of being in touch which would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago.

Yet for the most part we haven't begun to adjust mentally. Our offices are all too often knee-deep in piles of paper; far too few of us work from home; most of the time we struggle across town for face-to-face meetings. Technically we are in the space age: mentally most of us are still in the nineteenth-century.

Building communities where people can walk to work in a matter of minutes is not easy in central London as we know it - though more can yet be done. In New York's financial district 25,000 people now live within walking distance of the banks. For the first time, New Yorkers will be able to own a flat on Wall Street. Perhaps the City of London should be rethinking its philosophy.

However a very much bigger opportunity offers itself in the Thames Gateway.

Here the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is proposing regeneration involving building a new community east of London the size of the city of Leeds. 95,000 new households by 2016 - 28,000 of them within the GLA boundary. They are planning for 293,000 new jobs.

And I ask myself: how many of the new households will be within walking or cycling distance of the new jobs ? Indeed, how many of the new households will be designed as live/work spaces so you don't even need to leave home ?

In the Thames Gateway we have a brilliant opportunity to pioneer a different kind of thinking about communities and transport. We could build a series of sustainable "urban villages" north and south of the river linked by a state-of-the-art modern tramway. They could be powered by a combination of solar, wind and water generated electricity so that instead of making demands on the National Grid they contribute to it. They could digest their own waste like the excellent BedZed project in Sutton. Local industries could focus on processing waste and manufacturing "green" technologies.

What I fear however (and we have already seen the beginnings of it) is an endless wasteland of old-style 20th century housing estates - Barrett Homes for twenty miles in all directions - all needing double garages and endless access roads and roundabouts, inadequately insulated and costing the earth to heat. Thamesmead all over again. No wonder all those years ago Stanley Kubrick filmed "Clockwork Orange" there with its scary images of the brutalised young.

Is there a master-plan for Thames Gateway ? If there is, how do the thousand and one different agencies, councils, government departments, Mayor's office and so forth ever get to co-ordinate it ? Where is the vision ?

ODPM is looking at extending East London as far as Southend to the north and the Medway to the south of the river. Yet it seems it will be administered by a patchwork of authorities - I hope not as poorly integrated as they are at present. The Mayor of London seems to have been sidelined to a remarkable extent.

Is there not a powerful case - which would give real clout and meaning to devolution for the London Region - to put all the territory inside the M25 and the Thames Gateway under London's elected government: and then give that government some real powers inside of being micro-managed from Whitehall ?

Forgive me for labouring the point. Perhaps at least it gives you a steer on where I'm coming from on integrating our transport policies and some of my aims for the London we already have to manage.

My own work as Chair of London Assembly's Transport Committee is chiefly focused around scrutiny - scrutiny of the Mayor's Transport strategy and policies - especially of the work of Transport for London. As someone with a professional background in design I suppose I have an approach not unlike that of the authors of Agenda for Change - I am looking for coherent, designed, planned, integrated solutions.

Our job at the Assembly is to get at hard information and to be determined in exposing what the bureaucrats would like to hide. Often getting information out of Transport for London is like getting blood out of a stone - transport engineers hide behind the rubberised wall of TfL Public Affairs which they use to bounce questions back.

Trying to speak to an actual human being responsible for anything is like entering the minotaur's maze. Unless he's an American: the Americans, raised on freedom of information, don't have this anal-retentive problem. TfL's finances are a total nightmare - no wonder they can't give us sensible answers as I suspect they don't know the answers themselves. Their figures give the impression of having been dreamed up on the back of an envelope.

Much more positive has been the work we've done in the seminars we have run - for instance on trams and light rail, and on green travel plans - where we have been able to invite experts from across the UK and worldwide to come and talk to us about key transport issues.

The Transport Committee needs to stay positive: we are strongest when we write reports which come out with positive recommendations about the direction the Mayor and the other leading agencies handling London's transport should go. We have a role in leading and forming opinion and speaking out on behalf of Londoners.

I'd like to pick up on the points you raise on transport in Agenda for Change and respond with some of our own positive policy positions.

You talk about integrating mainline stations into the overall transport network.

A couple of years ago Liberal Democrats at the London Assembly proposed a Commuter Rail Authority for Greater London. Comprehensively rubbished by the train operating companies. Before very long, Bob Kiley stood up at a transport conference and launched Ken Livingstone's proposals for his London Regional Rail Authority. No surprise there: we're used to being used as a "think tank" and although Ken hates pigeons, he himself is a kind of political jackdaw, shamelessly pinching any proposal that looks bright and attractive.

What we both propose is that Greater London and its four airports should become a Regional Rail Authority in its own right. The Mayor and Transport for London can then at last integrate rail timetables and ticketing into the Tube, bus, tram, cab and river services. We can then move to cashless ticketing by smart card across the whole public transport network, making trips easier and speedier, and cutting fare dodging, which loses us megabucks every year.

London does have serious claims on Britain's rail network. One third of all rail journeys are made wholly within London, and if you include Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted, the London Regional Rail Authority area would cover 52% of all rail journeys. More than 70% of all rail journeys start or finish in London, and Londoners make seven times more rail journeys than people in other UK cities.

For too long, the Strategic Rail Authority, which has neither been strategic nor an authority and was run by accountants instead of rail people, has kowtowed to train operating companies who want to give primacy to lucrative inter-city trains. They treat the commuters like cattle, believing them to be helpless and without options. Certainly the Mayor will have to cooperate with surrounding local authorities and take the needs of long-haul rail seriously, but Agenda for Change is dead right about integrating mainline rail stations into the overall transport network.

You mention the Channel Tunnel Rail Link which really looks as if it will be ready to open on time in 2007 - I found a visit to the enormous "Stratford box" where they are building the new Stratford International station most impressive.

The usefulness of CTRL will be very much enhanced if it can be effectively connected to the rest of the UK's rail network. We have been pressing for northern connections via Tottenham Hale to Stansted Airport and beyond - there is a little used line which could readily be developed. They run what were nicknamed "Parliamentary Trains" on it - there's a joke about them in Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Mikado' - they are the minimum service Parliament permits if you are to keep a line open. That line now needs upgrading and bringing into the 21st century.

I have to laugh at Transport for London's enthusiastic claims ahead of the Olympic bid for 2012 that visitors to the Olympic village will be able to reach central London in seven minutes. I don't dispute their timing, but since when has St Pancras Station - the Hogwarts of London transport - been central London ? Fine if the Olympic spectators want to use the British Library. Otherwise they're looking at an introduction to that star of the Underground firmament - the Northern Line !

Which brings us, really, to Crossrail. And Paddington. Another of London's quite remarkably inaccessible mainline rail terminals. For over thirty years we've been struggling to get a rail line built to connect the western rail networks of UK to the eastern networks - a tunnel from Paddington to Liverpool Street.

I'm beginning to believe that this may yet really happen. But don't hold your breath. The lack of imagination is remarkable. They are still talking about special rolling stock so that Crossrail will be a special outfit all of its own with its own particular stations Heathrow to Shenfield and Ebbsfleet. They reject any thoughts of developing the hugely valuable spaces above and around their new underground stations in the City, which could be so lucrative if there was any sense of enterprise.

Our own bottom line is that we want the central tunnels designed in such a way that the rolling stock which is by 2013 used all over the networks can run through them. We want to see the Heathrow Express become the Heathrow-Stansted shuttle. We also want Farringdon to be developed as London's airport terminal for all four of London's airports - Heathrow and Stansted by Crossrail, Luton and Gatwick by Thameslink.

You rightly give prominence to the role of old father Thames in your document. In Tudor times the river was THE highway in London, but it is absurdly underused today. I welcome the new Twin Star ferry connecting Canary Wharf with Rotherhithe. You can also link up with TfL's river services to the City and Embankment. Some moves have been made, but the whole thing needs to use Oystercard and travelcard, to be regular and reliable. The river could do far more. Not least it could be used, as could the London canal system, to shift bulk freight, and to transport waste.

How we manage London's streets is another major issue you raise in Agenda for Change.

The recent Traffic Management Bill in Parliament is going to give the Mayor extended powers over the 32 London Boroughs and the Corporation of London and some worthwhile controls over the way the utilities can dig up the streets in a quite unplanned and uncoordinated way. We still have a long way to go on this.

As with London's sewers, London's streets need high quality maintenance - in some parts of central London surfaces are a spine-jangling patchwork quilt of mending and making do.

One of the consequences of the highly successful congestion charging scheme for central London - which we strongly supported from the outset - has been a 30% increase in journeys made by bike by cyclists into the central zone over the last two years. We still have a very long way to go. 30% of journeys in Copenhagen are by bike, in London we're still struggling to get to 3%. London's streets are not safe for cyclists - when you compare London to cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen, or Strasbourg with its dedicated safe routes for cyclists you certainly can't say that "all users are enabled".

Liberal Democrats have proposed what we call our "Take-A-Bike" scheme based on successful operations like that of Adshel in Rennes, in France. Racks of specially-designed city bikes are located at key locations like main rail stations and can be accessed by Oystercard, travelcard or credit card. You can then "drop off" the bike at a different 'docking station' - say, near your office.

We are also very keen to promote 'car clubs' on a similar principle. You join the club for a standard monthly fee and can access a car when you need it at locations close to where you are without the need to own and park your own vehicle. Increasingly popular in Germany.

I was very pleased to see that Agenda for Change championed the importance of light rail and tram schemes for London - properly integrated with our other public transport provision. The Croydon Tramlink is a huge success in moving large numbers of people swiftly, quietly and without harmful emissions. It has regenerated parts of central Croydon and made it possible for people marooned out on the Addington housing estates to get to work opportunities which used to be beyond their reach.

The Croydon Tramlink is now making an operating profit, though it may never be free of the excessive construction costs which were largely caused by its PFI. I hope we can learn the lesson that such schemes are much cheaper and more effectively managed "in-house" - Alistair Darling is clearly seized by the need to get a handle on tram scheme costs. Private sector partners will always load on costs to protect themselves against risk - and yet in practice risk always really stays with the public sector. PFIs are too often a rip-off in which the taxpayer gets the worst of both worlds.

The Assembly Transport Committee has been scrutinising the West London Tram project and indeed we toured the whole route last week as well as going down to Croydon to look at a successful scheme. Some of us still have real worries about how all the traffic that wants to access locations all along the narrow and congested Uxbridge Road can be managed.

If ever a street in London was crying out for a modern state-of-the-art tram, it's Oxford Street. They say that at certain times of day it would be quicker to run along the roofs of the double-decker buses which are stationary nose-to-tail along the length of Oxford Street. We timed one journey recently by bus from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch in the late afternoon and it took 23 minutes. To say nothing of the pollution and fuel costs with double decker buses doing 4 miles per gallon under these conditions.

The Mayor proposes a Camden-Peckham tram which will run through central London down Southampton Row and Aldwych. We propose a £65 million spur from this route which will run the length of Oxford Street to a new transport interchange at Marble Arch, - with all the current bus services diverted or reorganised. This would make it possible to pedestrianise Oxford Street apart from the tram - and transform the shopping district with trees, benches and pavement cafes. All sections of Oxford Street can be accessed by cabs and other vehicles by using the north-south crossings, but we really have to be a bit more ambitious and visionary about UK's leading shopping street.

I am intrigued by your reference to technology which would enable trams to switch to battery operation, and to the possibility of using modern trolleybuses on certain routes: it may well be that we can start to move to hybrid power systems for public transport. We do now have hydrogen cell buses operating along Tooley Street outside City Hall though I was alarmed to see the other day one of these new buses belching out clouds from its vertical exhaust - I don't understand the technology but I hope it was just steam !!

If tram and light rail routes can be opened up, it's a huge benefit. We look forward to the extension of the Dockland Light Railway south under the river to Woolwich and into the Thames Gateway areas of Barking and Dagenham. DLR has yet again won the award as the 'Best London Suburban Operator' at the National Rail awards recently. Their performance was commended as 'near perfect'. DLR has created a 6% growth in journeys last year, 83% of it at off-peak times, - the highest level of growth of light rail systems across the whole of the UK.

Of course it benefits from new technology and design: all its platforms, stations and car doors are wheelchair accessible. The trains don't need drivers - perhaps the most radical answer to Bob Crow and the RMT. Yet the camera and public address system is so smart that controllers sitting in Poplar can actually yell at kids fooling about on the platform in Deptford. And Serco, the DLR operator, pledges to remove all graffiti within 24 hours. So - as John Kerry puts it - "bring it on".

At City Hall we have all agonised and debated how we can get better value out of the wretched PPP contracts that the Government saddled us with. I think we should set ourselves the aim of embracing DLR technology for the Underground and working towards making the Tube driverless by the date of the 2012 Olympics. Automated systems have been highly successful across the world - Copenhagen is a good example - and Bob Kiley should be well aware of the plan to introduce driverless trains in New York.

It is time for the Mayor and Transport for London to examine the introduction of the Communications Based Train Control system (CBTC) that is being introduced on the in New York 'L' Line as a possible model for the Tube, - or developing their own system if that proves unsuitable.

My next point appears to be about roads but is really about trains, driverless or otherwise.

A word about major routes into London. Perhaps I misunderstood what was meant, but

I was a little perplexed by your line in the document about major routes from the M25 into London being brought within the Mayor's control. All the TLRN routes - the Red Routes - and generally they are the major radial routes ARE under Transport for London and the Mayor. The new legislation makes it easier to bring in any that are still under the Boroughs.

However, we ourselves are also struck by the fact that eighteen separate rail lines cross the M25 coming into London. Surely it is time that the Mayor had another look at his proposal in his original Transport Strategy to establish Park and Ride arrangements around the M25 ? To be able to filter off the M25 into dedicated underground car parks which would not despoil the Green Belt, and to pick up a fast train straight into central London would surely make life easier, both for long-distance commuters and for congested Greater London ?

One of the key phrases in your document - in the context of streets was "all users enabled". Can I say as a woman that I heartily endorse this line. Just look around you at this audience - and it's always the same whenever I address transport planners. The audience is nearly all MEN.

I do have to say that transport planning and engineering as long-held male fiefdoms has given public transport a focus women - and mothers - wouldn't tolerate.

There is - perhaps inevitably - a fascination with "Boys' Toys", a conviction that high cost new technical solutions are always the way to go, rather than changing people's behaviour, or attitudes, or priorities. There is a longing for tall buildings and deep tunnels - and I won't begin to start exploring why boys find either of these fascinating.

When you look at quite minor bits of design, - say on the very latest double-decker buses - you know at a glance no woman has been involved. I don't know who designed these new buses with the seats facing each other at the back, but it certainly wasn't an elderly lady with arthritis with nothing to hang on to as she tries to get to her feet…….

Under my leadership the Transport Committee looked into "green travel plans" - schemes which reduce traffic by organising individualised plans for getting to and from work by leaving the car at home and using public transport alternatives.

A scheme like this pioneered in Perth, Australia reduced car traffic by much the same percentage as Ken's congestion charge. Bus drivers visited people's homes to explain the mysteries of bus routes and timetables - the feedback even improved the bus services. Similar schemes in London - for example at the Whittington Hospital at Archway - have had great success, and Transport for London is running its own trials in four London boroughs.

So note: no Boys' Toys here, but simply getting out into the community and meeting real people face to face and developing relationships with them, and using this to change attitudes and behaviour, so our transport networks are used differently and to everyone's benefit.

I am entirely confident that the Institution of Civil Engineers can engage with politicians on these key issues of transport and planning and developing our capital city - and that particularly the young ones among you should have the confidence to do that.

You should look out whenever consultations come along on major projects - whether it's central government, the Mayor of London, the Boroughs are whatever - and submit your own opinions, which will obviously be much better informed technically than most that get sent in.

You don't have to wait for consultations, either: any more than Agenda for Change did. Wade in and brief politicians pro-actively on technical solutions to transport and community - my door is always open, and I want to hear about battery powered trolleybuses - but a lot of other politicians would welcome more input too.

Keep an eye on forthcoming legislation - Green and White Papers always help - lobby Government and brief the Opposition. You really can make a difference.

You can go on producing high quality material like Agenda for Change because what we are really short of is a radical vision and at times there is a need to raise our sights beyond mere technical advice and look at the wider social picture.

Because, - and I think this is really my message to you this evening - civil engineering is really about people, and communities, and democracy. Your most successful and innovative work comes when you engage with people in their communities, and use your expertise and technical know-how to work with them to develop solutions to the problems they face. Engineering is about democracy because there comes a point where communities have to decide between alternatives - but they need help to understand what the alternatives will mean for their lives.

Agenda for Change certainly shows that this message can and has been understood by civil engineers and I look forward to working with you and with others to take it forward.

ENDS