TfL's submission to the Comprehensive Spending Review

[aslefshrugged]

If anyone else knows where to put this then please feel free to move it

In TfL's submission to the government's Comprehensive Spending Review they discuss TfL's funding problems, how TfL benefit's the rest of the UK and why public transport is better than private transport.

They are proposing the following

- rolling stock for Bakerloo, Central and Jubilee Lines (with 1996s switched to Northern Line)
- Piccadilly signals upgrade and Holborn upgrade
- separation of the Northern Line and Camden Town upgrade
- North Acton and Canning Town upgrades
- DLR to Thamesmead

Note that the Bakerloo extension and Crossrail 2 aren't mentioned. Also stuff about roads, flyovers and bridges that need work (not Hammersmith), 100% electric buses by 2030, etc.

content.tfl.gov.uk/fc-20200930-supp-agenda-public.pdf

[revupminster]

Boris likes buses. They carry more passengers than the tube (176.8m bus against 117.5m tube pre covid). The buses have to be renewed more often so for politicians the fix is seen quicker. So I would expect to see an electric bus fleet sooner than all the other upgrades.

Up until 1970 the buses were the senior service. Splitting country buses and green line saw the decline.

[goldenarrow]

Looking through the finance committees submission, it's clear that the timeframes have been very carefully chosen to only talk about projects deliverable within this decade to appeal to the kind of short term planning the Central Government machine is living by at the present time.

I suppose it would be intivatble in the current climate for this to be a survival mode pitch aimed at preserving the fabric of the network which is probably why the Bakerloo line extension was omitted as even its most optimistic time frames would have put it past 2030. What this whittled down proposal shows is that you really can't shirk upgrade works on a system like LU for too long before the network is compromised.

Given Andy Byford's track record in New York, I hope he can pull it out the hat in London too. This really does feel like last chance saloon for TfL.

[aslefshrugged]

Oct 2, 2020 13:18:51 GMT goldenarrow said:

Looking through the finance committees submission, it's clear that the timeframes have been very carefully chosen to only talk about projects deliverable within this decade to appeal to the kind of short term planning the Central Government machine is living by at the present time.

I suppose it would be intivatble in the current climate for this to be a survival mode pitch aimed at preserving the fabric of the network which is probably why the Bakerloo line extension was omitted as even its most optimistic time frames would have put it past 2030. What this whittled down proposal shows is that you really can't shirk upgrade works on a system like LU for too long before the network is compromised.

Given Andy Byford's track record in New York, I hope he can pull it out the hat in London too. This really does feel like last chance saloon for TfL.

I don't see why this is the "last chance saloon", if responsibility for transport in London is taken away from TfL then it becomes the responsibility of the DfT, the Secretary of State for Transport and ultimately the Prime Minister.

Much easier for the government to hand over the money and let the Mayor take the blame when things go wrong!

[goldenarrow]

aslefshrugged , Agreed, I was thinking more of the name/brand of TfL rather than everything that falls under it. I doubt any government hack would shy away from a glossy rebranding if they had near total control going forwards.

[brigham]

London must be one of the last places where buses are still a major force in everyday transport.
Everywhere else, they are not just of minor importance, but scarcely even credible!

[phil]

Oct 2, 2020 13:18:51 GMT goldenarrow said:

Looking through the finance committees submission, it's clear that the timeframes have been very carefully chosen to only talk about projects deliverable within this decade to appeal to the kind of short term planning the Central Government machine is living by at the present time.

And which unlock opportunities for development. The DLR to Thamesmead has been cited as an example of this and stands as the odd man out amongst the plans given everything else is about maximising the use of the current network.

Unfortunately because the already the Bakerloo extension passes through is already heavily built up, opportunities for big housing developments are limited meaning that the overall BCR is relatively poor compared to other initiatives which although not seemingly that impressive require far less in the way of infrastructure costs. 

[phil]

Oct 2, 2020 17:06:52 GMT brigham said:

London must be one of the last places where buses are still a major force in everyday transport.
Everywhere else, they are not just of minor importance, but scarcely even credible!

I doubt it.

Have a look at a map of the Leeds - area the areas to the north of the city have no railways so unless you own a car the bus is the only option. The density of housing probably generates significant custom.

Granted once you move away from big cities or are talking about corridors within cities that have good rail / tram services then bus usage may well be relatively low by comparison.

[aslefshrugged]

Oct 2, 2020 17:09:48 GMT phil said:

Oct 2, 2020 13:18:51 GMT goldenarrow said:

Looking through the finance committees submission, it's clear that the timeframes have been very carefully chosen to only talk about projects deliverable within this decade to appeal to the kind of short term planning the Central Government machine is living by at the present time.

And which unlock opportunities for development. The DLR to Thamesmead has been cited as an example of this and stands as the odd man out amongst the plans given everything else is about maximising the use of the current network.

Unfortunately because the already the Bakerloo extension passes through is already heavily built up, opportunities for big housing developments are limited meaning that the overall BCR is relatively poor compared to other initiatives which although not seemingly that impressive require far less in the way of infrastructure costs. 

According to the proposal there's lots of scope for development:-

Piccadilly Line signals "Enables more than 20,000 homes to be delivered."

New trains on the Jubilee Line "This  supports delivery of 15,000 new homes and frees up the current Jubilee line fleet to be used on the Northern line.

DLR extension "Supporting up to 20,000 new homes across the Thamesmead and Abbey Wood and Royal Docks and Beckton Riverside Opportunity Areas."

North Acton Station Upgrade "This development, supporting 6,000  homes"

Canning Town Station Upgrade "This scheme, which will support up to  10,000 homes planned within walking distance of the station"

West London Orbital "This new orbital connection, supporting 14,000 housing units".

[revupminster]

Riverside areas have been housing development area for 30 years. No one wants to live there. Went to A West Ham- Rainham pre season friendly 30 years ago and the players and spectators were bitten alive by flies and midges. West Ham never went again.

Now if talk was of developing land round eastern central line stations, Fairlop, Barkingside, Hainault. the nimby's would be up in arms All part of a new forest stretching down into Dagenham. A horse racing track was thrown out years ago.

The DLR into the Royal Docks never brought the prosperity that was expected.

[Tom]

Oct 2, 2020 13:34:23 GMT aslefshrugged said:

[I don't see why this is the "last chance saloon", if responsibility for transport in London is taken away from TfL then it becomes the responsibility of the DfT, the Secretary of State for Transport and ultimately the Prime Minister.

Much easier for the government to hand over the money and let the Mayor take the blame when things go wrong!

Indeed, and there are historical parallels with a Conservative government stripping a powerful Labour local authority of their transport responsibilities to weaken them - Thatcher did it to Ken Livingstone's GLC in 1984.

This might well be a last-chance saloon for TfL in its current guise, however, depending on what will there is within the Government to 'punish' the mayor.

[whistlekiller2000]

I’ve shifted the above here from the CV19 thread seeing as it all went off on a bit of a tangent. Mods, if you want to move it again to somewhere else more appropriate please feel free. 

[sawb]

Oct 2, 2020 12:35:11 GMT aslefshrugged said:

If anyone else knows where to put this then please feel free to move it

In TfL's submission to the government's Comprehensive Spending Review they discuss TfL's funding problems, how TfL benefit's the rest of the UK and why public transport is better than private transport.

They are proposing the following

- rolling stock for Bakerloo, Central and Jubilee Lines (with 1996s switched to Northern Line)
- Piccadilly signals upgrade and Holborn upgrade
- separation of the Northern Line and Camden Town upgrade
- North Acton and Canning Town upgrades
- DLR to Thamesmead

Note that the Bakerloo extension and Crossrail 2 aren't mentioned. Also stuff about roads, flyovers and bridges that need work (not Hammersmith), 100% electric buses by 2030, etc.

content.tfl.gov.uk/fc-20200930-supp-agenda-public.pdf

Does anyone have a link to this document please? I've tried the link that's been posted multiple times, but every time get a message "Your internet access has been blocked". Tried a few other pages and it seems to be this specific link. 

[rincew1nd]

Oct 2, 2020 17:06:52 GMT brigham said:

London must be one of the last places where buses are still a major force in everyday transport.
Everywhere else, they are not just of minor importance, but scarcely even credible!

Erm..... Not sure how you define "everywhere else" but I can think of several northern towns who are entirely reliant on a bus network. I can also think of several northern cities where busses and trains work in tandem to move the masses.

[revupminster]

I do wonder who is going to live in these houses or units especially after covid. Thousands of homes are being built in the shire counties and jobs will follow them exacerbating white flight from London who now are only 45% of the London population. London is France's 6th biggest city.

Exeter, a city with 8 railway stations population has grown by 12,000 to 130,000 in 9 years with the jobs to go with it and is still expected to grow. Thousands of houses around Taunton and Tiverton. The Devon Metro is being promoted by Devon County Council but GWR has not got the capacity to service it so still remains a slowly evolving dream. The whole West Country including Cornwall is building thousands of houses.

[North End]

Oct 2, 2020 18:48:12 GMT Tom said:

Oct 2, 2020 13:34:23 GMT aslefshrugged said:

[I don't see why this is the "last chance saloon", if responsibility for transport in London is taken away from TfL then it becomes the responsibility of the DfT, the Secretary of State for Transport and ultimately the Prime Minister.

Much easier for the government to hand over the money and let the Mayor take the blame when things go wrong!

Indeed, and there are historical parallels with a Conservative government stripping a powerful Labour local authority of their transport responsibilities to weaken them - Thatcher did it to Ken Livingstone's GLC in 1984.

This might well be a last-chance saloon for TfL in its current guise, however, depending on what will there is within the Government to 'punish' the mayor.

If done well it could be a positive thing. TFL has always been a political organisation rather than a transport one, and in my view hasn’t been all the better for it. How about a return to LT with just Underground, buses, and perhaps Overground / Crossrail?

Being cynical I don’t think that’s what we’d get unfortunately. Instead we’re probably going to see more games played, at least until the mayoral election is out the way.

[Tom]

Strange you should say that; I was thinking the same when reading the funding presentation! TfL's aims and objectives seem to be increasingly tied to political or social objectives rather than day to day service delivery, I do wonder if a new focus on service provision is needed.

[North End]

Oct 2, 2020 21:04:09 GMT Tom said:

Strange you should say that; I was thinking the same when reading the funding presentation! TfL's aims and objectives seem to be increasingly tied to political or social objectives rather than day to day service delivery, I do wonder if a new focus on service provision is needed.

I’m sure it’s the first time a resignalling scheme (I presume that’s what they’re looking at for the Picc) has been tied to a number of homes. It’s farcical.

A focus on delivery wouldn’t go amiss at all.

Unfortunately I doubt that’s what we’ll see though. Just replacing one set of short-term political cycle objectives with another. As we see with how long the SSR resignalling has dragged on such projects tend to outlive political cycles just a bit!

The difference in political party between mayor and government *could* work to LU’s advantage, even if only by accident rather than design.

I remember an old-school service control manager (who is still around I think, in some form) once threw a working timetable on his desk and said pointedly “our role is to deliver this, not this”, pointing to some political-type paperwork that had arrived in his office. Some lines could do well to have a greater prevalence of such attitudes, something like the Central is a string of cancellations every day and has been like it for years now.

[vincenture]

Oct 2, 2020 18:41:38 GMT revupminster said:

Riverside areas have been housing development area for 30 years. No one wants to live there. Went to A West Ham- Rainham pre season friendly 30 years ago and the players and spectators were bitten alive by flies and midges. West Ham never went again.

Now if talk was of developing land round eastern central line stations, Fairlop, Barkingside, Hainault. the nimby's would be up in arms All part of a new forest stretching down into Dagenham. A horse racing track was thrown out years ago.

The DLR into the Royal Docks never brought the prosperity that was expected.

I wonder if Barkingside would get a new ramp from the road north of the station onto the westbound platform.

[brigham]

Oct 2, 2020 19:38:17 GMT rincew1nd said:

Oct 2, 2020 17:06:52 GMT brigham said:

London must be one of the last places where buses are still a major force in everyday transport.
Everywhere else, they are not just of minor importance, but scarcely even credible!

Erm..... Not sure how you define "everywhere else" but I can think of several northern towns who are entirely reliant on a bus network. I can also think of several northern cities where busses and trains work in tandem to move the masses.

I can think of several Northern towns where buses are the exclusive domain of pensioners, drunks and the professionally unemployed.
London is certainly exceptional,as far as transport is concerned. Is there anywhere else where people in the 40% tax bracket ride on buses?

[rincew1nd]

Yes.

But this is not a bus forum, so back on topic please.

[sawb]

I'd be interested to know TfL's reasoning for prioritising DLR to Thamesmead over Bakerloo line to Hayes. Seems Bakerloo line is more "shovel ready" than the DLR extension.

I'm struggling to find the details of what the planned benefits are for the upgrades of North Action and Canning Town are. Does anyone know please?

[goldenarrow]

Oct 3, 2020 15:33:48 GMT sawb said:

I'd be interested to know TfL's reasoning for prioritising DLR to Thamesmead over Bakerloo line to Hayes. Seems Bakerloo line is more "shovel ready" than the DLR extension.

I'm struggling to find the details of what the planned benefits are for the upgrades of North Action and Canning Town are. Does anyone know please?

Unfortunately the 'sell' factor for Central Government grants tend to orbit more around unlocking housing developments than unlocking wider journey potential and the insane/naive assumption that these factors are somehow separable. The Bakerloo Line Extension falls into the latter. Despite its obvious wider benefits to connectivity for swathes of South East London it remains a long term investment whereas DLR to Thamesmead along with North Acton and Canning Town are comparatively quick shot projects even though they have limited scope for wider connectivity going forwards.

It's a blatant corruption of logic, but I think logic is a wild horse when it comes to public transport policy in this country.

[aslefshrugged]

Oct 3, 2020 15:33:48 GMT sawb said:

I'd be interested to know TfL's reasoning for prioritising DLR to Thamesmead over Bakerloo line to Hayes. Seems Bakerloo line is more "shovel ready" than the DLR extension.

I'm struggling to find the details of what the planned benefits are for the upgrades of North Action and Canning Town are. Does anyone know please?

The estimated cost of the DLR extension is "Around £800m" with delivery scheduled for "2026-2030"

The Bakerloo extension would cost an estimated £2-3bn but is dependent on new trains as there isn't enough 1972 stock to run an extended service.  Also if the extension is built I somehow doubt they'll be installing coloured lights and tripcocks so the rest of the Bakerloo would need a signal upgrade.



From page 32 of the proposal

North Acton Station Upgrade

This development, supporting 6,000  homes, provides additional capacity, stepfree access and a new station entrance  and bridge to the HS2 development site.  Developer contributions are committed for the station upgrade and further contributions are expected. However, the scheme cannot be progressed until a full funding package is in place.

Canning Town Station Upgrade

This scheme, which will support up to 10,000 homes planned within walking distance of the station, is critical to supporting the future operation of the station in the context of growth and the communities that the various lines intersects. The scheme would enable opportunities in the Royal Docks Enterprise Zone and opportunity area.

[Tom]

Oct 2, 2020 21:20:01 GMT North End said:

Oct 2, 2020 21:04:09 GMT Tom said:

Strange you should say that; I was thinking the same when reading the funding presentation! TfL's aims and objectives seem to be increasingly tied to political or social objectives rather than day to day service delivery, I do wonder if a new focus on service provision is needed.

I’m sure it’s the first time a resignalling scheme (I presume that’s what they’re looking at for the Picc) has been tied to a number of homes. It’s farcical.

And that's a completely new way of thinking and justifying change.

In the old days, we would say passenger numbers are x, we need y trains per hour to cope with demand, the signalling system can only cope with z. (The common assumption being that y<z).

This seems to be saying we need to resignal in order to grow traffic - which is quite odd considering the majority of the Piccadilly line signalling dates from the 1970s and 80s when traffic levels were falling! It can't cope with current demand, yet that alone is no longer a reason to do the work? (I could understand if the arguments was that to do it would enable the system to cope with predicted demand, but this seems to be an enabler for the housing which will then increase demand?)

If I were a current Piccadilly line commuter, I would find such a statement rather disingenuous.

[philthetube]

Oct 3, 2020 18:01:00 GMT aslefshrugged said:

Oct 3, 2020 15:33:48 GMT sawb said:

The Bakerloo extension would cost an estimated £2-3bn but is dependent on new trains as there isn't enough 1972 stock to run an extended service.  Also if the extension is built I somehow doubt they'll be installing coloured lights and tripcocks so the rest of the Bakerloo would need a signal upgrade.



F

dosen't have to be, the MET is currently running with transition points at Finchley Rd. and Euston Square, and it sounds as if the point at Moor Park may end up permanent.

[Tom]

Oct 3, 2020 20:08:57 GMT philthetube said:

Oct 3, 2020 18:01:00 GMT aslefshrugged said:

The Bakerloo extension would cost an estimated £2-3bn but is dependent on new trains as there isn't enough 1972 stock to run an extended service.  Also if the extension is built I somehow doubt they'll be installing coloured lights and tripcocks so the rest of the Bakerloo would need a signal upgrade.

dosen't have to be, the MET is currently running with transition points at Finchley Rd. and Euston Square, and it sounds as if the point at Moor Park may end up permanent.

Pre-lockdown the discussion was along the lines of a fixed block system using axle counters rather than track circuits.

[jimbo]

A higher capacity Jubilee line fleet to follow upon the new Picc trains must mean new platform edge door layout, and overnight change from old to new trains at the extension tunnel stations. I believe the change from 6-car to 7-car trains was done over the Christmas/New Year break.

[aslefshrugged]

Oct 7, 2020 4:44:37 GMT jimbo said:

A higher capacity Jubilee line fleet to follow upon the new Picc trains must mean new platform edge door layout, and overnight change from old to new trains at the extension tunnel stations. I believe the change from 6-car to 7-car trains was done over the Christmas/New Year break.

I imagine that the door layout of the new trains will be identical to that of the 1996 stock as changing the PEDs would be ridiculously expensive, would take weeks/months with massive disruption to services.

[rincew1nd]

We've discussed the JLE PED situation with regards to new stock several times elsewhere with a variety of theories as to how it would be implemented.