GLA - Greater London Authority, TfL - Transport for London. You either luv em or you loath em!! Or you have never considered the question "What did the GLA/TfL ever do for us?". Well they may have done some good things like allowing Oyster Card users use overground trains - not rocket science but you still have no confidence in how much money they are really charging you!
But I have a few gripes ("no surprise there" I hear you say!)
Number one, in this age of austerity where just about everyone is tightening their belts (an idiom for loosing weight due to not being able feed ones self!), which Boris sanctioned the £7.8m to be spent on 5 shiny new route master (The Guardian). Lets not forget the joy of the bendy buses - oh what joy - they only accounted for 1,751 accidents in one year (This Is London). How much did that venture cost us and aren't they about to get phased out before they kill to many more people!
Lets not stop there - we have the "normal" Double Decker buses that appear to be growing by an inch in width per year! I love those buses but can you please please please stop them getting wider!! I'm undecided about sending those glorified mini-bus buses down every singly road in London. Yes they do help pensioners get around and that is the only positive thing to be said about them. I feel sorry for those people that don't know that a journey that should be 1 mile and take 7 minutes, now is 7 miles and takes 1 hour!!
And now for the Low Emission Zone on the Greenwich Peninsula - ironic that it's the second highest polluted area in London thanks to the Blackwell Tunnel car park (traffic jam!). If you want to speed up the traffic going from north to south and south to north of the river - hear is a novel idea - why not lift the charge on the Dartford Bridge? Thousands of work hours are lost every day because of the constant traffic jams leading up to the Dartford Bridge and tunnel. We could probably reduce the countries carbon footprint by a whole 1% by dropping the toll! People may arrive at work happier, and return home to their families happier having not spent a couple of hours in the M25 car park! And this may reduce family break up, divorce, the need for fostering and adopting, the list goes on!! There is to much to gain - scrap the river tax!!
Am I the only one that thinks that this toll is crippling the economy of the country? WAKE UP!!!!! The money the government makes from the toll can be gained in business tax where businesses will be doing so much better. And I heard the other day that the toll gates do get lifted IF traffic is backing up for more then 10 miles - generosity!! How many cars is a 10 mile tailback? How many people? How many man hours lost? Come on leaders of the Government, or do you want the country to join the Euro?!!
Back to Boris the Blade, and onto the Cycle Superhighway. How much did it cost - £23m for 2 (BBC). Again, pure genius!! Have more cyclist died since the opening? A complete waste of London money. Paint the road blue and two weeks later it gets dug up and its back to black. Lorries, buses, artics still are limited in the route they can take around a corner. Like it or not they rule the road. They have poor visibility, blind spots, and rely on other smaller road users driving or riding with anticipation. If an artic is turning left, it will take a wide berth but the back wheels are more then lightly to chop across the curb. So why not give cyclist rights on the pavement. A simple "law" - don't cycle past pedestrians - stop and get off the bike and only cycle when the pavement is clear.
Rent-a-bike by Boris - a good idea? I really don't know. They benefit a handful of people but everyone pays for it. Did the majority of Londoners want them? Why cant the handful of people that use them just use the bus or walk (or jog!)? I hate to think how much this scheme cost but I'd rather have the money in my pocket!! This kind of enterprise should be in the hands of the private sector - why isn't it? simple - its not economically viable!! If its cheaper to scrap the scheme then scrap it!!
It's not all grim - the river boat from Woolwich to London is great value. For the first time in years Woolwich is on the map! A serious bit of regeneration going on there - a new Civic Centre, rejuvenation of the Royal Arsenal, New DLR link - fantastic!! DLR, best think since ..... I cant remember the last "best thing"!! Boris - well done for the DLR. Getting to Stratford has never been so easy (Before Westfields there was no real reason to go to Stratford!). An easy transport link to the City Airport, Canary Wharf, ExCeL, O2 - all good news - hats off to the DLR!!
But do we really need Crossrail? How many people actually do this journey from East to West? And how on earth does it generate new jobs? People still have the same amount of money in their pockets! Take Bluewater, generated hundreds of jobs but it drained the local shopping centres - so its a fools economy. Every time a new shopping centre pops up an older one deteriorates. Who will benefit from Crossrail? At the risk of sounding like a killjoy, this seems like an unnecessary luxury which we wont all benefit from. Right now, is this the right time to be spending obscene amounts of money on a traintrack? I know what I would do!!
Back to Boris but not to transport! This time, if I heard it right, he is taking £40m from the Fire Brigade budget and giving it to the Police. DER!! Has the world gone mad or just Boris? People died when you took Fire Appliances off the road over the last dispute. This cut is a big big mistake. You haven't done your home work. Just look at AssetCo - nearly bankrupt where they? Bailed out where they? I sense some funny handshakes going on here!! Looking at the last time you took tenders away for no good reason, you cant have got the full picture of what effect this had. I saw a report that failed to include in its "cooked" statistics the deaths of the two Sri-Lankan ladies in Deptford. Could they have been saved if the tenders were where they should have been? Blood is on someones hands - and not just the manic that started the fire.
Here's an idea Boris, why not take some of your budget and invest in projects that reduces re-offending? If its costing upwards of £37k per year to keep one person in prison, and that over 70% re offend within two years, then why not take £10m off the Police budget and invest it in such projects? Do the maths!! If you've got our money to give to the Police, then you've also got our money to spend on reducing re offending. Another case of fools economy from the GLA!
And I nearly forgot, to help boost the economy let's introduce yet another tax - London 2012 remembered by small business - not for the Olympic revenue, but because its the year of the LEZ (Low Emissions Zone) where the small business that already has small profit margins will get penalised yet again. From January 2012 they could face a £100 to £200 charge (tax!) per day for traveling in the zone. If this is new to you then have a read on the AA website. Who gives a hoot about Carbon emissions from vehicles when you've got volcanic action in Iceland blowing this tax into context. According to Ian Blimer, to quote if I may "Over the past 250 years, humans have added just one part of CO2 in 10,000 to the atmosphere. One volcanic cough can do this in a day." (Australian ABC Net). So Boris, take your foot off the small guy and let London work!!
I find it hard to believe we have empowered the GLA to waste our money on crippling the economy, putting lives in danger, and turning our beautiful city into a police state.
I'll wind my neck back in now!! Enough said.
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