Friday Reads – November 24, 2017

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21 comments

  1. “The Victoria line’s quest to be the fastest railway on the world”

    I think you concatenated “on the planet” and “in the world” there…

    [Fixed, cheers! I’m glad you made it all the way down to the end. LBM]

  2. 1] LURVE the “DLR conductor” (!)
    2] “Red Atlas” – has anyone else here seen WWII Nazi maps of Britain? Most interesting, as they say.
    3] Doesn’t that NYC subway article sound/look horribly familiar? And I do hope we are not heading down that same slippery slope (again)
    4] Denver … ???

  3. @Greg

    4) Methinks it’s still early days for the LRT network in Denver, and additional freeway capacity doesn’t help. Transportation network companies (TNCs) ie Uber, Lyft et al are taking an increasing bite out of public transport mode share. From what I saw of Denver in a brief stopover, there are plentiful roads and highways, and urban densification has not gained a large foothold. Tis the American Midwest, with large spaces between buildings and houses…

  4. NYC has just hired Andy Byford from the Toronto Transit Commission to try to fix their system. He’s used to dealing with skimpy budgets and meddling politicians, but it’s a tough ask.

  5. @ James Webber – So Mr Byford has ended up at NYC. I knew him at LUL – a decent chap but a lot younger then. Has clearly progressed very well but I don’t envy him trying to tackle the horrific mess in NYC which is mostly political and partly structural – the governance and funding arrangements are a mess. London is a model of simplicity in comparison.

  6. @ Greg – the NY Times article is very interesting and lookes to be well researched. I have to say that the Tube is in nothing like that state – thankfully. It was in the late 80s and 90s but things have come a long way since then. As I said in another post the politics in NYC / NY State are appalling as evidenced in that article even if you allow for some journalistic bias. I hadn’t appreciated the extent of “pork barrel” antics though – some of it looks like borderline corruption to me (being generous here!).

    One area where I think there are some parallels is the funding scenario. If you replacement “NY State” with “HM Government” then we have seen a progressive move to remove TfL’s revenue grant, to constrain investment grant, to switch funding to a share of non hypothecated business rates and also to remove govt funding of the TfL road network. There is also renewed emphasis on maxing out borrowing by the current Mayor. I have just been through parts of the new TfL Business Plan today and compared it to the last plan (from 2016). There are some worrying changes – virtually no patronage growth for several years on the Tube. Revenue is reduced by £800m. The bus network is even worse – massive cuts to services due over the next 3 years and an envisaged cut of £375m in bus contract costs. Virtually no recovery in bus revenue either. Only Crossrail sees some uplift in assumed revenues – presumably from running more services to Heathrow and Reading.

    What is pretty clear, but unstated, is that TfL are not expecting much growth from economic factors for at least three years. They’ve pulled back all of their assumptions on income and also assuming ongoing cuts to tube and bus costs. The cost of running Overground and Crossrail are assumed to increase year and year but then service volume is also planned to increase. Tube capital investment is £600m lower than the previous plan between 2017/8 and 2021/22.

    If you were to compare the latest plan with the “Boris years” then the difference is vast. Even allowing for different political objectives it’s pretty clear that TfL are in very different circumstances now. Of course some of the “rot” started in Boris’s time as he failed to fend off Mr Osborne’s cuts to grant funding and also laid the foundations for the ruinous decline on the bus network by scrapping bus priority work, “smoothing traffic” and not managing road works properly. The current government has no time whatsoever for Mr Khan’s regime as witnessed in this week’s Budget and continued attrition in funding. The Fares Freeze clearly does not help either – it should be adandoned immediately IMO.

  7. @WW: If the freeze were to be abandoned ‘t were best done quickly… It would also require a P.R. blitz… No doubt Osborne will beat up Khan mercilessly in the Standard.

  8. WW
    AIUI, the problems in NYC are exacerbated by the fact that across the river (Husdon) is a n other US State,New Jersey, & that cross-river transit, of any sort is further complicated by this extra admin-level. Also, the recently-ejected governor of NJ appears to have been a deeply unpleasant person who literally hated some of his own constituents, who had the nerve to want to go to work by train ( “New Jersey Transit” & it’s desperate saga is another horrible story entirely )

    There’s an interesting brief take on TfL’s business plan in today’s Diamond Geezer blog entry, btw.

  9. All very interesting – but “Pyranees” is a typo [now fixed– Malcolm], and if the Victoria line were to be the fastest railway in the world the full Brixton-Walthamstow trip would have to take less than about 4 minutes. Most frequent railway in the world, perhaps? [indeed – overenthusiastic sub-editing perhaps – when you follow the link, all is well. Anyway, that is fixed too. Thanks for your interest. Malcolm]

  10. @Greg: I don’t know exactly how the funding and control (and any pork and barrelling) works over there, but no part of the subway crosses the border into NJ. Hence all the abrupt 90 degree turns… See PATH (PORT AUTHORITY TRANS HUDSON)

    The recently ejected guv’nor of NJ, was initially quite reasonable and welcomed by the general population… It seems he started suffering from a bout of Self-Importance once in office for too long…

  11. SHLR
    Yes, but the idea of co-ordination & inter change stations etc …
    A lot of the NJT passengere work in NYC of course & yes I’m also aware of the role of PATH as an “intermediary” system – yes it’s complicated

  12. The MTA’s problems come from the split to the tax gold mine that is New York and the rust belt Upstate North and countryside. Any extra local taxes for the MTA end up siphoned away one way or another. Combine this with a restrictive union heavy transit and more importantly construction sectors and the cost of building anything civil engineering wise is astronimical. London is considered high compared to many other European countries but on a per mile basis we still build for less than half the cost in New York.

    The MTA also has a terrible record on controlling construction projects with ever mounting delays and increasing costs. Plus it is seen as hidebound reluctant to learn form anyone else, often rejecting practices and technology from other countries etc.

  13. @ Rational Plan – and yet the MTA have just signed off a huge contract to upgrade their ticketing and revenue control system using the licensed software TfL developed for contactless payment cards. Similarly when Metrocard was put in they actually employed the former project manager for LU’s Underground Ticketing System, I know this because I visited said project manager in New York and at his home. I also had a visit to Cubic’s then project office for the Metrocard kit. I know there are some reservations about adopting contactless bank cards as a base form of payment given the lack of take up in America but sometimes you need a big potential user to push people to ask for the technology. Something similar happened in London although there was clearly a level of take up for normal retail transactions.

    I think there are chinks of innovation but your basic points are well made and are clearly also set out in NY Times article. It is just a crying shame that what is essentially a good subway system is hamstrung by political game playing and woeful investment programmes.

  14. Alas Second Avenue Subways is no longer as active it once was, but it’s a great source for the overall malaise that affects the MTA and I’m not sure a new head is going to make much difference, considering the machinations of Cuomo (governer) and the general anti New York Republicans in the State House. On the other hand the MTA just seems to shrug it’s shoulder over the cost of building anything in New York. When New Yorks costs are alreafy 2 times the cost of the rest of the USA, never mind Europe, it fills people with despair ever being alble to afford the subway building needed.

    It makes TFL and DFT relationships look positively cosy.

  15. Some interesting points in the New York Times article:
    New York is the only major city in the world with fewer miles of track than it had during World War II Is an interesting observation. At first I thought that they were having a dig at Los Angeles as not being a ‘major city’, but I believe most of the LA lines were abandoned shortly before the USA entered WWII.

    – The perils of being over-reliant on fare revenue rather than grant income – when ridership goes down, so does your income, without your costs falling to match unless you cut services.

    – Politicians using the MTA as a cash cow for non-transport pet projects – Garden Bridge anyone?

    @SHLR: Cancelling the rail tunnel under the Hudson and using the money to reduce freeway tolls was pretty much Chris Christie’s first act in office so I’m not sure he started out that reasonable. He just served long enough in office that he had to live with the inevitable consequences of his actions.

  16. Building on IanJ’s comments. The cash cow of the Tube will effectively be paying for maintenance of London’s Roads during the coming 5 year Business Plan.

  17. Ian J
    And, as hinted at before, IIRC he consistently refused to allow any spend on the NJ Transit lines, called all it’s commuters the equivalent of “Rich bankers working in NYC” ( With the implication that that was another state & “not our problem”) & several similar declarations & actions.

  18. @ 100&30 – the roads mainteance and renewal programme being funded by the revenue surplus from the Tube / Crossrail is especially irksome. Can you imagine if this applied anywhere else in the country? “Sorry Metrolink and Northern Rail passengers that your fares have just doubled but Mr Burnham has to now pay for all of Greater Manchester’s roads” – I can imagine how that would be treated in Manchester.

    We have the ludicrous situation in the next business plan that the Tube is expected to be earning a annual *operating surplus* of over £1.1bn and Crossrail £350m by the end of the 5 year period. We know Crossrail has to earn a surplus to repay some its construction debt but the Tube situation is ridiculous. One year it comes within £18m of being able to fund its annual investment budget which is also bonkers. Gouging Tube users to the tune of over £1bn in a year is not a sane or rational policy position – forced on London by the Government.

  19. I recall many years ago in the bad old days that tube passengers were less sensitive to fares rises than bus users (elasticity is the technical term). Eventually they discovered the hard way that you can’t do this indefinitely. Today’s situation in London is different, but highlights the risk.

    What is fascinating is how successful the tube has become. All the things the planners said would bring social benefit seem to have delivered financial benefit as well. This is on a network running off-peak services at a frequency that wouldn’t have been bad peak services 20 years ago. Evening services, particularly put National Rail to shame.

    It will be interesting to see how Mayoral candidates for the 2020 election tackle the issue of fares as they can’t stay frozen (-ish) for ever. That is the route to stagnation/decline.

  20. @WW – surely TfL only has to pay for the roads it has a responsibility to maintain (Red Routes and every traffic light controlled junction) rather than every road in Greater London? The boroughs are responsible for the rest of the roads, and pay for it the same way all local government does: via their budgets that come from a mix of local taxation and government grants.

    And while fare income is about half of TfL’s income (and slightly more once the grant goes), there’s no reason why the fares can’t be ringfenced off for use only on public transport, leaving the ~40% that comes from local taxation and loans to fund TfL’s roads division.

    The whole “tube passengers paying for roads” is spin for the Mayor to get VED – which in England will be fenced off for use on the SRN (motorways and trunk roads) after 2020 – devolved to London (11.1.33 in the draft New London Plan).

    There’s definitely a lot of merit in that notion, as the motorways were the only parts of (what’s now) the SRN in Greater London to be kept post-GLA creation, with the rest becoming Red Routes along with some major local roads. Judging by the number of trunk roads ending at the GLA boundary, the network wouldn’t have been as greatly reduced in the ’00s as the rest of the country’s was either. Probably half of Red Routes would be trunk roads if TfL wasn’t created, but won’t get the SRN money as TfL, not Highways England, are responsible for them – that’s got to be a gripe even if there the government grant wasn’t stopping and a fares freeze exacerbated the money problems.

    “Gouging Tube users to the tune of over £1bn in a year is not a sane or rational policy position – forced on London by the Government.”
    Is it the Government though? Fares are frozen, so tube users are gouged to that extent currently despite a grant. And it’s the same everywhere else – Manchester Metrolink has to pay its own way via the fares box and loans (the buses are deregulated and the roads remain in the hands of Highways England and the boroughs, so they aren’t paid for directly by TfGM but there’s also less local tax raising powers).

    And as you say, even with this gouging the tube doesn’t quite make its investment budget. So how can tube users ‘pay for the roads’ when they can’t quite pay for the tube?

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