http://www.cnplus.co.uk/sectors/transport/govt-to-spend-£7m-on-high-speed-two-plans/5201223.article
he Government is set to spend more than £7 million on plans for High Speed Two in the financial year 2009/10.
In January transport secretary Geoff Hoon announced the creation of a new company – High Speed Two, chaired by Sir David Rowlands – to help consider the case for new high speed rail services between London and Scotland.
Staff costs for the year will total £2.65 million, according to a question answered by the parliamentary under secretary of state for transport Paul Clark in the House of Commons last week.
Project costs and consultancy costs stand at £3.94 million, while board costs and facility costs total £209,226 and £175,393 respectively.
Initially the company was tasked with developing a proposal for an entirely new line between London and the West Midlands, which could link to Heathrow and Crossrail through a new international interchange station.
It will need to assess the likely environmental impact and business case of different routes, with work on the case for High Speed Two expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The Government will then assess the options, enabling them to choose a proposed route for development.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! action flashback [2]: Simon Jenkins, ex-editor of EVENING STANDARD, calls on Boris to 'Kill' Crossrail
Crossrail will eat money. Kill it, Boris, and save the bankrupt Tube instead
Simon Jenkins
28.04.09
Kill Crossrail. Kill it now. Offer it up as London's gift to public sector sanity, while there is still time to avoid millions of pounds climbing into billions on a project that London does not need. What London needs is a fully working, modernised Tube. So kill Crossrail to save the Tube.
Crossrail, with a completely new rail tunnel from Paddington to Liverpool Street, has few friends. It has been stopped and restarted too many times to count over the past quarter-century. When Gordon Brown said in 2007 that "it will definitely proceed", sceptics sensed the cold hand of death grip its throat.
When Whitehall set out a tripartite funding package for the line in 2008, the caveats and qualifications grew in number. In an interview in February the transport minister, Lord Adonis, warned the world that, if Londoners do not raise their two-thirds share, "the Mayor understands that Crossrail will collapse ... ".
Mention Crossrail to Boris Johnson and his normally open, cheerful visage changes to that of a parent just told his kids are on drugs. He starts to shake. When reminded that he once said Crossrail was "one of those times you have to say, get in that hole and keep digging" the look becomes a rictus.
At a farewell dinner at City Hall earlier this month, the outgoing head of Transport for London, Tim O'Toole, hinted at his known private view that Crossrail is capital madness. He pleaded with his colleagues to fight instead for the existing Tube, now teetering on the brink of insolvency. TfL executives know that continuing with Crossrail will eat money and distract management for a decade.
It would yield nothing but bad news stories, while severely disrupting traffic in central London just when it will be recovering from the water mains chaos. Test drilling is already upheaving St Giles.
Crossrail is no longer a railway that makes sense. Back in the Eighties it was way behind the Jubilee line and the then (and now) top priority, a new northeast/southwest line from Hackney to Chelsea and beyond. Lines were needed to fill the Tube-less no-man's-lands of Greenwich and Chelsea/Fulham.
It took Margaret Thatcher to force through the Jubilee line to help the Reichman brothers build Canary Wharf. Chelsea/Hackney has no such power backers.
This project's only real friends have been in the City, eager to fend off the "threat" from Docklands and garner the bulk of the 900,000 extra office jobs predicted for London a decade ago. Nobody expects that need now. The Central line's parallel capacity can easily be increased by station improvements and better management.
Crossrail's backers have duly fallen back on that catch-all for any extravagant project, "urban regeneration". But that involves taking the line far out to the east, at further cost. For all the efforts of consultants to prove otherwise, this line is neither profitable nor a priority for economic renewal.
Boris Johnson now has a golden chance. He knows the capital must tighten its belt somehow - especially after he failed to curb the gargantuan appetite of the Olympics (costing more than half the £16billion total for Crossrail).
Johnson has already had to end his predecessor's costly fantasies, the Thames Gateway bridge, the Cross-river tram and the Dagenham light railway extension.
The Government has offered £5.6billion to the Crossrail budget. The rest must come from a raised London business rate (£3.5billion), borrowing against so-called train access charges (£2.3billion) and £2.7billion from TfL, this time borrowing against future fares.
Given the recent history of Tube finances, these figures are wholly unreal. TfL is close to technical bankruptcy. Borrowing against future revenue is mad, especially when it has already been assigned to meet Crossrail's running costs. Has London learned nothing about dodgy accounting from the past five years of such projects?
Meanwhile the City Corporation is offering a meagre £200million, on top of which is budgeted £150million from City businesses and, once upon a time, £230million from the airports authority, BAA. Lord Adonis claims this amounts to a further £750million, which is inconceivable. The truth is that Crossrail is another financial pig in a poke.
The Government has already poured £2billion in extra guilt money into the Tube to finance its public-private partnership (PPP), the sunk cost of this now largely aborted scheme. No minister or official has ever taken responsibility for it - indeed the official, Shriti Vadera, has been rewarded with both a peerage and a ministry.
In addition, the Government has pledged a huge £39billion to TfL over the next decade, a sum higher than anything conceived during nationalisation. This, it says, will have to embrace the completion of the PPP scheme and Crossrail. But the latter is not formally ring-fenced.
This is the Mayor's great opportunity. He has a £1.4billion hole in his transport budget already and must somehow fund £3billion of debt left over from the Treasury's collapsed Metronet infrastructure company.
Adonis said last November that there was no way he would plug this hole, despite it being one of the Government's own creation. He could hardly have given a more direct indication of his willingness to see Crossrail crash.
Johnson could now argue that the £5.6billion for Crossrail be switched to other Tube projects, such as resignalling the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines and replacing Metropolitan line stock, projects that may anyway have to be postponed to meet the cost of Crossrail. Cancelling the latter would relieve the Tube budget of a tidal wave of uncertain costs now advancing down the track.
This would enable Johnson to declare himself the saviour of London's Underground railway, after a decade of mismanagement and financial chaos.
By liberating himself from Crossrail and demanding that London be allowed to keep its transport grant, he could begin to reconstruct TfL's finances and meet its voracious appetite for new signals, stations and rolling stock. He could declare a clean slate.
Johnson need not fear the Government on this: if ministers wanted Crossrail they would have paid for it. He need not fear the City.
He can use the recession as an excuse to put this white elephant to sleep while garnering the popularity of restoring London's transport system to sanity. But first he must kill Crossrail.
Simon Jenkins
28.04.09
Kill Crossrail. Kill it now. Offer it up as London's gift to public sector sanity, while there is still time to avoid millions of pounds climbing into billions on a project that London does not need. What London needs is a fully working, modernised Tube. So kill Crossrail to save the Tube.
Crossrail, with a completely new rail tunnel from Paddington to Liverpool Street, has few friends. It has been stopped and restarted too many times to count over the past quarter-century. When Gordon Brown said in 2007 that "it will definitely proceed", sceptics sensed the cold hand of death grip its throat.
When Whitehall set out a tripartite funding package for the line in 2008, the caveats and qualifications grew in number. In an interview in February the transport minister, Lord Adonis, warned the world that, if Londoners do not raise their two-thirds share, "the Mayor understands that Crossrail will collapse ... ".
Mention Crossrail to Boris Johnson and his normally open, cheerful visage changes to that of a parent just told his kids are on drugs. He starts to shake. When reminded that he once said Crossrail was "one of those times you have to say, get in that hole and keep digging" the look becomes a rictus.
At a farewell dinner at City Hall earlier this month, the outgoing head of Transport for London, Tim O'Toole, hinted at his known private view that Crossrail is capital madness. He pleaded with his colleagues to fight instead for the existing Tube, now teetering on the brink of insolvency. TfL executives know that continuing with Crossrail will eat money and distract management for a decade.
It would yield nothing but bad news stories, while severely disrupting traffic in central London just when it will be recovering from the water mains chaos. Test drilling is already upheaving St Giles.
Crossrail is no longer a railway that makes sense. Back in the Eighties it was way behind the Jubilee line and the then (and now) top priority, a new northeast/southwest line from Hackney to Chelsea and beyond. Lines were needed to fill the Tube-less no-man's-lands of Greenwich and Chelsea/Fulham.
It took Margaret Thatcher to force through the Jubilee line to help the Reichman brothers build Canary Wharf. Chelsea/Hackney has no such power backers.
This project's only real friends have been in the City, eager to fend off the "threat" from Docklands and garner the bulk of the 900,000 extra office jobs predicted for London a decade ago. Nobody expects that need now. The Central line's parallel capacity can easily be increased by station improvements and better management.
Crossrail's backers have duly fallen back on that catch-all for any extravagant project, "urban regeneration". But that involves taking the line far out to the east, at further cost. For all the efforts of consultants to prove otherwise, this line is neither profitable nor a priority for economic renewal.
Boris Johnson now has a golden chance. He knows the capital must tighten its belt somehow - especially after he failed to curb the gargantuan appetite of the Olympics (costing more than half the £16billion total for Crossrail).
Johnson has already had to end his predecessor's costly fantasies, the Thames Gateway bridge, the Cross-river tram and the Dagenham light railway extension.
The Government has offered £5.6billion to the Crossrail budget. The rest must come from a raised London business rate (£3.5billion), borrowing against so-called train access charges (£2.3billion) and £2.7billion from TfL, this time borrowing against future fares.
Given the recent history of Tube finances, these figures are wholly unreal. TfL is close to technical bankruptcy. Borrowing against future revenue is mad, especially when it has already been assigned to meet Crossrail's running costs. Has London learned nothing about dodgy accounting from the past five years of such projects?
Meanwhile the City Corporation is offering a meagre £200million, on top of which is budgeted £150million from City businesses and, once upon a time, £230million from the airports authority, BAA. Lord Adonis claims this amounts to a further £750million, which is inconceivable. The truth is that Crossrail is another financial pig in a poke.
The Government has already poured £2billion in extra guilt money into the Tube to finance its public-private partnership (PPP), the sunk cost of this now largely aborted scheme. No minister or official has ever taken responsibility for it - indeed the official, Shriti Vadera, has been rewarded with both a peerage and a ministry.
In addition, the Government has pledged a huge £39billion to TfL over the next decade, a sum higher than anything conceived during nationalisation. This, it says, will have to embrace the completion of the PPP scheme and Crossrail. But the latter is not formally ring-fenced.
This is the Mayor's great opportunity. He has a £1.4billion hole in his transport budget already and must somehow fund £3billion of debt left over from the Treasury's collapsed Metronet infrastructure company.
Adonis said last November that there was no way he would plug this hole, despite it being one of the Government's own creation. He could hardly have given a more direct indication of his willingness to see Crossrail crash.
Johnson could now argue that the £5.6billion for Crossrail be switched to other Tube projects, such as resignalling the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines and replacing Metropolitan line stock, projects that may anyway have to be postponed to meet the cost of Crossrail. Cancelling the latter would relieve the Tube budget of a tidal wave of uncertain costs now advancing down the track.
This would enable Johnson to declare himself the saviour of London's Underground railway, after a decade of mismanagement and financial chaos.
By liberating himself from Crossrail and demanding that London be allowed to keep its transport grant, he could begin to reconstruct TfL's finances and meet its voracious appetite for new signals, stations and rolling stock. He could declare a clean slate.
Johnson need not fear the Government on this: if ministers wanted Crossrail they would have paid for it. He need not fear the City.
He can use the recession as an excuse to put this white elephant to sleep while garnering the popularity of restoring London's transport system to sanity. But first he must kill Crossrail.
KHOODEELAAR! action flashback: Nigel Nelson, Pol Editor, SUNDAY PEOPLE 22 March 2009 calls for scrapping Crossrail
"
22 March 2009
BLACK HOLE COSTS YOU £25,000
EXCLUSIVE Here's how they might claw it back
By Nigel Nelson Political Editor
Every British taxpayer faces a debt of £25,000 to pay for Alistair Darling's borrowing binge.
New forecasts say the Chancellor needs to splash out £704billion on the nation's credit card over the next five years.
That will leave each taxpayer with a bill equal to the current UK average wage, say economists Ernst & Young.
Advertisement
And it will be FIVE times the amount of debt run up over the last five years, which worked out at just £5,000 per taxpayer.
The predictions from forecasting group the Item Club say Mr Darling will need £180billion this year alone, exceeding his own estimate by £62billion.
They are so significant because the Item Club uses the same forecasting model as the Treasury.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "This is the worst fiscal mess any British government has created in peacetime.
"Tax receipts have collapsed but there is a great deal of scope for spending restraint."
Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable added: "Spending will rise sharply over the coming months as unemployment surges.
"And the steep fall in output will continue to reduce tax revenues."
Last week the International Monetary Fund said the UK will have to borrow 11 per cent of national income this year, the most of all the world's top G7 industrialised nations. Ernst & Young say it will be 1.6 per cent WORSE.
Item Club chief economist Peter Spencer said: "The outlook is bleak. The Chancellor must present an unambiguous plan for restoring the public finances to health.
"We are all going to find ourselves paying a lot more tax once the recovery begins and our children will be paying that tax for a very long time to come."
The researchers say Mr Darling must now pump more cash into manufacturing to save jobs.
In April's Budget he is expected to cut taxes to encourage spending, as The People said last week.
But once the recession is over the Government will have to claw the money back. And we have some suggestions, see right, for doing it.
For instance Mr Darling could RAISE tax by 5p, SCRAP the Crossrail plan for new London train links or SUPPLY school meals free to cut obesity in kids.
Total £704 billion
Raise income tax by 5p £100 billion
Put VAT up to 25 per cent £240 billion
Cancel Trident missile defence £25 billion
Nationalise the banks £44 billion
Health screening for over 20s £75 billion
Trim Government waste £170 billion
Abandon Crossrail project £16 billion
Free school meals to save on obesity £18 billion
Cut civil service pay 1 per cent £7 billion
Scrap widening of M25 £5 billion
Cancel our new aircraft carrier order £4 billion
"
22 March 2009
BLACK HOLE COSTS YOU £25,000
EXCLUSIVE Here's how they might claw it back
By Nigel Nelson Political Editor
Every British taxpayer faces a debt of £25,000 to pay for Alistair Darling's borrowing binge.
New forecasts say the Chancellor needs to splash out £704billion on the nation's credit card over the next five years.
That will leave each taxpayer with a bill equal to the current UK average wage, say economists Ernst & Young.
Advertisement
And it will be FIVE times the amount of debt run up over the last five years, which worked out at just £5,000 per taxpayer.
The predictions from forecasting group the Item Club say Mr Darling will need £180billion this year alone, exceeding his own estimate by £62billion.
They are so significant because the Item Club uses the same forecasting model as the Treasury.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "This is the worst fiscal mess any British government has created in peacetime.
"Tax receipts have collapsed but there is a great deal of scope for spending restraint."
Lib Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable added: "Spending will rise sharply over the coming months as unemployment surges.
"And the steep fall in output will continue to reduce tax revenues."
Last week the International Monetary Fund said the UK will have to borrow 11 per cent of national income this year, the most of all the world's top G7 industrialised nations. Ernst & Young say it will be 1.6 per cent WORSE.
Item Club chief economist Peter Spencer said: "The outlook is bleak. The Chancellor must present an unambiguous plan for restoring the public finances to health.
"We are all going to find ourselves paying a lot more tax once the recovery begins and our children will be paying that tax for a very long time to come."
The researchers say Mr Darling must now pump more cash into manufacturing to save jobs.
In April's Budget he is expected to cut taxes to encourage spending, as The People said last week.
But once the recession is over the Government will have to claw the money back. And we have some suggestions, see right, for doing it.
For instance Mr Darling could RAISE tax by 5p, SCRAP the Crossrail plan for new London train links or SUPPLY school meals free to cut obesity in kids.
Total £704 billion
Raise income tax by 5p £100 billion
Put VAT up to 25 per cent £240 billion
Cancel Trident missile defence £25 billion
Nationalise the banks £44 billion
Health screening for over 20s £75 billion
Trim Government waste £170 billion
Abandon Crossrail project £16 billion
Free school meals to save on obesity £18 billion
Cut civil service pay 1 per cent £7 billion
Scrap widening of M25 £5 billion
Cancel our new aircraft carrier order £4 billion
"
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! exposed Crass role-playing, CRASS-rail-hole-scam-inviting clique on T hamlets Council
1245 GMT London Wednesday 29 April 2009
"
KHOODEELAAR! exposed Crass role-playing, CRASS-rail-hole-scam-inviting clique on T hamlets Council
ACTION ARCHIVE updater at 1240 GMT London Wednesday 29 April 2009
Today's confession by the London FT that CROSSRAIl is crassly conceived and even more crassly peddled in financing terms, is NOTR news. At every stage in the past 5 years and 4 months of our dissection of the crassly conceived Crossrail,w e have pointed this out. With evidence. Of contemporary crass behaviour by each and every one of the relevant peddler of the scam.
Here is how we TOLD the world bout the crassness of the Crassrail-hole-scam backing Tower Hamlets Council clique in 2007:
By Muhammad Haque 1440 Hrs GMT London Saturday 13 October 2007
Khoodeelaar! Examination of the Tower Hamlets Council’s confession that the Council [=the controlling clique and the controlling bureaucracy that in fact makes the ‘policy’ on that Council and the one that has in effect done so for the duration of the main Crossrail hole plot-inviting years, say, going back to 1998-99 onwards] has been a collective, institutional] tout for the Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London here shortly
What has been the confession? Answer The confession is that Tower Hamlets Council has been used as a willing stooge for the Crossrail hole pt against the East End.
This is how the controlling clique on the Council made the confession in its written answer to my question as put to the ‘Council’ as part of the ‘published agenda ‘ for the ‘full council’ meeting held on Tuesday 11 September 2007
“ Ultimately, Council must respect Crossrail’s overarching duty to have regard to the paramount importance of the health and safety of Crossrail passengers and workers which will dictate the location of such shafts.”
What was my question to which the above dictatorial command statement FOR Crossrail was issued VIA the controlling bureaucracy on Tower Hamlets Council on 11 September 2007? The question was in fact the same as the Khoodeelaar! Campaign had been asking right fro the start. But for clarity and for accountability and for compliance with constitutionality, the Khoodeelaar! Question was as endorsed by the community 2 years into the khoodeelaar! Campaign – and rousingly backed on Sunday 22 January 2006 when I had put it for the community’s endorsement at the meeting held at the Brady Centre in Hanbury Street on that date and against the CrossRail hole Bill attacks upon the community.
"
"
KHOODEELAAR! exposed Crass role-playing, CRASS-rail-hole-scam-inviting clique on T hamlets Council
ACTION ARCHIVE updater at 1240 GMT London Wednesday 29 April 2009
Today's confession by the London FT that CROSSRAIl is crassly conceived and even more crassly peddled in financing terms, is NOTR news. At every stage in the past 5 years and 4 months of our dissection of the crassly conceived Crossrail,w e have pointed this out. With evidence. Of contemporary crass behaviour by each and every one of the relevant peddler of the scam.
Here is how we TOLD the world bout the crassness of the Crassrail-hole-scam backing Tower Hamlets Council clique in 2007:
By Muhammad Haque 1440 Hrs GMT London Saturday 13 October 2007
Khoodeelaar! Examination of the Tower Hamlets Council’s confession that the Council [=the controlling clique and the controlling bureaucracy that in fact makes the ‘policy’ on that Council and the one that has in effect done so for the duration of the main Crossrail hole plot-inviting years, say, going back to 1998-99 onwards] has been a collective, institutional] tout for the Crossrail hole attacks on the East End of London here shortly
What has been the confession? Answer The confession is that Tower Hamlets Council has been used as a willing stooge for the Crossrail hole pt against the East End.
This is how the controlling clique on the Council made the confession in its written answer to my question as put to the ‘Council’ as part of the ‘published agenda ‘ for the ‘full council’ meeting held on Tuesday 11 September 2007
“ Ultimately, Council must respect Crossrail’s overarching duty to have regard to the paramount importance of the health and safety of Crossrail passengers and workers which will dictate the location of such shafts.”
What was my question to which the above dictatorial command statement FOR Crossrail was issued VIA the controlling bureaucracy on Tower Hamlets Council on 11 September 2007? The question was in fact the same as the Khoodeelaar! Campaign had been asking right fro the start. But for clarity and for accountability and for compliance with constitutionality, the Khoodeelaar! Question was as endorsed by the community 2 years into the khoodeelaar! Campaign – and rousingly backed on Sunday 22 January 2006 when I had put it for the community’s endorsement at the meeting held at the Brady Centre in Hanbury Street on that date and against the CrossRail hole Bill attacks upon the community.
"
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD the London FT that it was wrong to plug Big Business scam Crassrail. We are 'pleased' to welcome sense appear on the FT [2]
0430 GMT London Weds 29 April 2009:
KHOODEELAAR! is anticipating newer instances of confessions on CRASSrail during today and later this week.....on the FURTHER vindication of our diagnosis that Crossrail remains crass, wasteful, debts=causing, poverty-aggravating and must be scrapped .. We expect other members of the bureaucracy to confess and add to the list now containing Tim O’Toole, Simon Jenkins, the FT.... all agreeing that Crossrail is crass and is an unfundable, wasteful debts-causing OBSTRUCTION to and a serious diversion and deviation from funding the EXISTING London transport network..
Thus echoing the KHOODEELAAR! original analyses and exclusive diagnoses and dissections carried out and published by ourselves [AADHIKAR MEDia in association with KHOODEELAAR!] on the internet and in print over the past 5 years and 4 months..
[To be continued]
KHOODEELAAR! is anticipating newer instances of confessions on CRASSrail during today and later this week.....on the FURTHER vindication of our diagnosis that Crossrail remains crass, wasteful, debts=causing, poverty-aggravating and must be scrapped .. We expect other members of the bureaucracy to confess and add to the list now containing Tim O’Toole, Simon Jenkins, the FT.... all agreeing that Crossrail is crass and is an unfundable, wasteful debts-causing OBSTRUCTION to and a serious diversion and deviation from funding the EXISTING London transport network..
Thus echoing the KHOODEELAAR! original analyses and exclusive diagnoses and dissections carried out and published by ourselves [AADHIKAR MEDia in association with KHOODEELAAR!] on the internet and in print over the past 5 years and 4 months..
[To be continued]
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD the London FT that it was wrong top plug Big Business scam Crassrail. We are 'pleased' to welcome sense appear on the FT
0410 Hrs GMT London Wednesday 29 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD the London FT that it was wrong top plug Big Business scam Crassrail. We are 'pleased' to welcome sense appear on the FT
[To be continued]
From the web site of the London Financial Times:
Londoners warned of upgrade threat on Underground
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
Published: April 29 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 03:00
The economic slowdown could threaten a programme to improve train speeds and frequencies across much of the London Underground, says the organisation's outgoing managing director.
Tim O'Toole said Londoners should "scream bloody murder" if plans for a new signalling system on the older, sub-surface lines were scaled back or postponed.
The availability of funding for resignalling of the Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines would be a barometer of politicians' general willingness to fund the system's upgrade, he said.
The sub-surface lines are the oldest parts of the Underground, built before the tunnelling techniques used on later deep-level Tube lines were developed.
Mr O'Toole has been managing director since 2003, when Transport for London, the London mayor's transport organisation, took over running the network. Richard Parry, currently the organisation's director of strategy and service development, will take over as interim managing director on Friday while a permanent replacement is sought.
At a farewell event at London Transport Museum, Mr O'Toole said the protection of funding for such upgrade work had been scrapped in 2007 in a deal that had agreed financing for the east-west Crossrail project across London. "Ever since the ring-fencing of financing was taken away from the Underground and put around Crossrail, we will always be at risk," he said.
The new signalling system, which could cost about £1bn, will increase the lines' capacity by 40 per cent. But the upgrade has been in question ever since Metronet Rail, the company meant to carry out work on two-thirds of the system, collapsed in July 2007 amid soaring costs.
Mr O'Toole said the upgrade programme had been complicated by the government's insistence on using a complex public-private partnership scheme.
"You have to make sure that this programme goes forward," he told his audience. "I'm going to tell you what to look for. If you see the sub-surface line resignalling programme put off, you should scream bloody murder."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD the London FT that it was wrong top plug Big Business scam Crassrail. We are 'pleased' to welcome sense appear on the FT
[To be continued]
From the web site of the London Financial Times:
Londoners warned of upgrade threat on Underground
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
Published: April 29 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 03:00
The economic slowdown could threaten a programme to improve train speeds and frequencies across much of the London Underground, says the organisation's outgoing managing director.
Tim O'Toole said Londoners should "scream bloody murder" if plans for a new signalling system on the older, sub-surface lines were scaled back or postponed.
The availability of funding for resignalling of the Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines would be a barometer of politicians' general willingness to fund the system's upgrade, he said.
The sub-surface lines are the oldest parts of the Underground, built before the tunnelling techniques used on later deep-level Tube lines were developed.
Mr O'Toole has been managing director since 2003, when Transport for London, the London mayor's transport organisation, took over running the network. Richard Parry, currently the organisation's director of strategy and service development, will take over as interim managing director on Friday while a permanent replacement is sought.
At a farewell event at London Transport Museum, Mr O'Toole said the protection of funding for such upgrade work had been scrapped in 2007 in a deal that had agreed financing for the east-west Crossrail project across London. "Ever since the ring-fencing of financing was taken away from the Underground and put around Crossrail, we will always be at risk," he said.
The new signalling system, which could cost about £1bn, will increase the lines' capacity by 40 per cent. But the upgrade has been in question ever since Metronet Rail, the company meant to carry out work on two-thirds of the system, collapsed in July 2007 amid soaring costs.
Mr O'Toole said the upgrade programme had been complicated by the government's insistence on using a complex public-private partnership scheme.
"You have to make sure that this programme goes forward," he told his audience. "I'm going to tell you what to look for. If you see the sub-surface line resignalling programme put off, you should scream bloody murder."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD Tim O'Toole so! that Crossrail WAS Crass! We note O'Toole belatedly agrees with our diagnosis that Livingstone had LIED
0400 Hrs GMT
London Wednesday 29 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD Tim O'Toole so! that Crossrail WAS Crass! We note O'Toole belatedly agrees with our diagnosis that Livingstone had LIED for Big Business Crossrail because Livingstone had become politically bankrupt and was lost in a mire of immorality and careerism...
[To be continued]
FRom the web site of the London Financial Times, Wednesday 29 April 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df7b4018-3456-11de-9eea-00144feabdc0.html
Londoners warned of upgrade threat on Underground
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
Published: April 29 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 03:00
The economic slowdown could threaten a programme to improve train speeds and frequencies across much of the London Underground, says the organisation's outgoing managing director.
Tim O'Toole said Londoners should "scream bloody murder" if plans for a new signalling system on the older, sub-surface lines were scaled back or postponed.
The availability of funding for resignalling of the Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines would be a barometer of politicians' general willingness to fund the system's upgrade, he said.
The sub-surface lines are the oldest parts of the Underground, built before the tunnelling techniques used on later deep-level Tube lines were developed.
Mr O'Toole has been managing director since 2003, when Transport for London, the London mayor's transport organisation, took over running the network. Richard Parry, currently the organisation's director of strategy and service development, will take over as interim managing director on Friday while a permanent replacement is sought.
At a farewell event at London Transport Museum, Mr O'Toole said the protection of funding for such upgrade work had been scrapped in 2007 in a deal that had agreed financing for the east-west Crossrail project across London. "Ever since the ring-fencing of financing was taken away from the Underground and put around Crossrail, we will always be at risk," he said.
The new signalling system, which could cost about £1bn, will increase the lines' capacity by 40 per cent. But the upgrade has been in question ever since Metronet Rail, the company meant to carry out work on two-thirds of the system, collapsed in July 2007 amid soaring costs.
Mr O'Toole said the upgrade programme had been complicated by the government's insistence on using a complex public-private partnership scheme.
"You have to make sure that this programme goes forward," he told his audience. "I'm going to tell you what to look for. If you see the sub-surface line resignalling programme put off, you should scream bloody murder."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
London Wednesday 29 April 2009
KHOODEELAAR! HAD TOLD Tim O'Toole so! that Crossrail WAS Crass! We note O'Toole belatedly agrees with our diagnosis that Livingstone had LIED for Big Business Crossrail because Livingstone had become politically bankrupt and was lost in a mire of immorality and careerism...
[To be continued]
FRom the web site of the London Financial Times, Wednesday 29 April 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df7b4018-3456-11de-9eea-00144feabdc0.html
Londoners warned of upgrade threat on Underground
By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
Published: April 29 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 29 2009 03:00
The economic slowdown could threaten a programme to improve train speeds and frequencies across much of the London Underground, says the organisation's outgoing managing director.
Tim O'Toole said Londoners should "scream bloody murder" if plans for a new signalling system on the older, sub-surface lines were scaled back or postponed.
The availability of funding for resignalling of the Metropolitan, District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines would be a barometer of politicians' general willingness to fund the system's upgrade, he said.
The sub-surface lines are the oldest parts of the Underground, built before the tunnelling techniques used on later deep-level Tube lines were developed.
Mr O'Toole has been managing director since 2003, when Transport for London, the London mayor's transport organisation, took over running the network. Richard Parry, currently the organisation's director of strategy and service development, will take over as interim managing director on Friday while a permanent replacement is sought.
At a farewell event at London Transport Museum, Mr O'Toole said the protection of funding for such upgrade work had been scrapped in 2007 in a deal that had agreed financing for the east-west Crossrail project across London. "Ever since the ring-fencing of financing was taken away from the Underground and put around Crossrail, we will always be at risk," he said.
The new signalling system, which could cost about £1bn, will increase the lines' capacity by 40 per cent. But the upgrade has been in question ever since Metronet Rail, the company meant to carry out work on two-thirds of the system, collapsed in July 2007 amid soaring costs.
Mr O'Toole said the upgrade programme had been complicated by the government's insistence on using a complex public-private partnership scheme.
"You have to make sure that this programme goes forward," he told his audience. "I'm going to tell you what to look for. If you see the sub-surface line resignalling programme put off, you should scream bloody murder."
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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