24 7 Parking News

Archive for September, 2008

Mind the gap! Tube upgrade faces funding hurdles

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

A preliminary assessment of the cost of improvements to three London Underground lines, to be carried out between 2010 and 2017, reveals a huge gap between the proposed budget and projected costs. A price-tag of £5.1 billion–£5.5 billion has been suggested by the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arbiter, Chris Bolt, which is a compromise figure between the £4.1 billion cost hoped for by Transport for London (TfL) and the £7.2 billion estimated by Tube Lines, the consortium of companies that will carry out the work.

The extra £1 billion–£1.4 billion needed to be found by TfL for the upgrade is the chief concern for Londoners, who are already facing a 6% fares increase and who were against the unwieldy PPP scheme from the start. In 2007, Metronet, the consortium responsible for work on the rest of the Tube network, went bankrupt when its costs overran by some £1.7 billion. While TfL was forced by the government to repay this amount to Metronet’s banks, it was reiumbursed by the Treasury, a move which TfL says it expects to happen again, especially in view of the fact that the PPP was foisted on London by the government, even though city officials were against it.

However, given the economic climate, TfL privately admits that a billion-pound reimbursement by an already cash-strapped Treasury is unlikely, and therefore other alternatives need to be considered. The option of reducing the scope of the contract with Tube Lines has been categorically rejected by London Underground’s boss, Tim O’Toole, who has argued that the steady rise in passenger numbers flatly precludes any scaling back in the work. This view is supported by Stephen Glaister, a former member of TfL’s board and now a transport expert at Imperial College London, who concurs with O’Toole that any cuts in the proposed work could jeopardize the running of the entire Tube network.

With no room for cutting back on the scope of the work, additional funds will have to be sought. A further hike in fares, besides being very unpopular with Londoners, would not be sufficient to raise these funds, which only leaves the option of taking cash from other projects to channel into this one. One such possible target is Crossrail, a scheme (first mooted in 1989) for a new rail route to link the east and west of London at a cost of £16 billion. Though London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, is against this, maintaining that Crossrail is an equally important priority for the city, some analysts see this as a viable option for bridging the funding gap, pointing out that the business tax designed to fund Crossrail could be diverted for a few years to help pay for the Underground’s upgrade.

Whichever solution is found, the brunt of the high costs, funding complexities, and inevitable delays involved in improvements to the Tube network will no doubt fall on the long-suffering users of the capital’s overpriced and underfunded public transport system.

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24 7 Parking carries out daily surveys of the national media to provide up-to-date news and commentary on UK transport.

Road trumps rail as commuter trains worsen

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

“Cattle class” is how beleaguered commuters refer to their severely overcrowded rush-hour train services, some of which are running with more than 300 passengers above seating capacity. Among the most crowded trains, according to figures from the Department for Transport, are the 8.02 am Woking to Waterloo service, which runs through Surbiton, and the 7.32 am Waterloo sister service. On the Woking service, some 865 passengers are squeezed into space allocated for 492 people, while on the latter train, despite four extra carriages, there are also over 300 additional passengers standing.

Also among the worst services is the 7.15 am train from Cambridge to King’s Cross, which runs at 76% above capacity, with 870 passengers crammed into eight carriages designed to carry only 495 people.

South West Trains, which operates the Waterloo routes, said the 8.02 train had been increased to 12 carriages but extra ones couldn’t be added because of the length of the station platforms. Increasing the length of the platforms to accommodate longer trains, starting with Waterloo station, is seen as the way forward to tackle the overcrowding problems.

It seems that passengers are not even complaining much about the abysmal service, perhaps because they have come to accept the dreadful conditions. “It’s probably a case of them being comfortably numb,” said a platform kiosk vendor, John Greig, in Surbiton, who sees people being crammed into carriages every morning. For these embattled passengers, their commute has become a struggle to simply get on the train, let alone find a seat.

With no signs of imminent improvement, and faced with the prospect of rising rail fares, many commuters may choose to return to the comfort and convenience of their cars rather than face the twice-daily misery and discomfort of rail journeys standing in packed carriages. As it is, some 72% of people said they would not stop using their cars unless public transport is free, according to a recent survey by market information company TNS UK.

Aside from the clear benefits of comfort, privacy and flexibility afforded by car travel, commuters travelling into London also have the enormous advantage of being able to obtain a parking contract with private parking firms, which guarantees a secure and conveniently located parking spot. Such benefits can make all the difference between a highly stressful and uncomfortable start to one’s day and arriving to work relaxed and rested.