Not good at TfL

After decades of underinvestment London needs new investment just to keep going and help those already using its transport system. In the area where car ownership is increasingly unaffordable and undesirable - public transport needs to expand.

That assumes that people would want to go elsewhere. Not everyone who lives and works in London hates it.

I thought you were only 25 now!

Totally agree at what you say though as someone who was an import into London about 15 years ago, I still love it here, though it does come at a big cost in terms of time, money and effort. The way that so many people move away when they have a family or long for a quieter pace of life shows that clearly. I assume that’s the same in other big cities though I get the feeling that the Scandinavian countries focus on quality of life a lot more than we do. Zurich, oddly, seems to focus on this a lot too.

Tesco's used to use the phrase "every little counts" until someone (tee hee) posted a picture of one of their bags on FB folded over to read another word without the O.

To go slightly off topic but to add to what was mentioned in an earlier post, the ENTS has cost bus operators a fortune. when the scheme was introduced, the bus operators were told they would be no better off and no worse off. they would be reimbursed for the average fare per route. This was fine at first, but demand increased substantially in some ares with increased pensioner usage causing overcrowding and people being left behind. Operators had to put on extra buses to cope with demand. for instance Stagecoach in Chichester had to put on 4 extra buses to cope with demand. who paid for it? Stagecoach. Who reimbursed them? Nobody, because the average fare went down as pensioners who used to pay a discounted fare, then paid nothing! The same has happened all over the country.

As costs have risen over the 10 years since the ENTS was introduced, the amount of reimbursement has not increased either in line with inflation or the average fares, which have remained fairly static with the increase in free passes. So we are now seeing commercial services outside London being withdrawn as operators try to make routes pay their way. In my area, the Romney Marsh the service was increase from 3bph (buses per hour) to 4 bph. To make end meet, this has been reduced to 3 bph again with much public outcry as some little used commercial services have been withdrawn.

Had the reimbursements kept pace with inflation, there would not have been a problem. London is lucky in the amount that is thrown at public transport of all sorts.

I may have mentioned earlier that a reduction in bph on a high frequency service can often result in a better service with much lower cost. More bph along a road means more chance of additional congestion as they stop to load and unload and bunching of buses which may not be heavily loaded. On TfL routes it is not uncommon to have 20 mins recovery at each end of the route to take into account late running. Speed up the services by reducing the number of bph and you can cut down the stand time at each end. Because buses can then get a long the route quicker, you can still move the same number of passengers per hour with fewer buses.

On most of the rail replacement routes I drive, the number of bph reduces by up to 25% after about 2100 as traffic eases; the same applies to scheduled routes. So it seems logical to reduce the number of bph along Oxford street to speed up the services that remain. whetehr the same would apply to tube services is a moot point. there's a limit to the number of TPH (trains per hour) that can run along a single line and a minimum stop/dwell/start time.

The free travel for pensioners is unlikely to change; pensioners are politically active and viewed with rose tinted glasses.

Reduction on the buses is not surprising, but a symptom of the issues with traffic congestion within central. This in turn adds pressure to the tube. Supposedly, changes to PHV licenses will reduce the number of empty PHVs driving around. I'm quite sure that there's efficiencies in deliveries to be made, I see a huge number of vans going around delivering 1/2 parcels to different places.

Companies can do quite a bit. The organisation for whom I work has moved much of the Accounts and Personnell departments to locations outwith London - most of the business is electronic, so can be done anywhere.

London is a very attractive place to set up shop. It has far better public transport provision than anywhere else in the country and that brings around a third of the UK's working age population within commuting distance which increases the chances of filling vacancies. An office in central London could have people from Southend, Reading, Brighton or Cambridge all working together.

The only way to encourage businesses to relocate outside London is to improve transport provision elsewhere but even if there was massive investment in the North or Midlands London would still attract businesses.

I don't wholly agree that there hasn't been some movement to other cities. Often, this is government lead - for example the DVLC was inaugurated in Swansea. Plus the movement of many BBC functions to Manchester. I anticipate that my own organisation will relocate more staff elsewhere in the country in the next 5 years, as investment is being made at premises elsewhere. However, this is capitalising on existing premises outside the capital, rather than having to acquire from scratch.

I suspect that whilst working from home would reduce the need for office space, there is still value in meeting others face to face, especially those outside your organisation with whom you wish to trade.

MediaCity in Salford works for the BBC because there is a fast (~2hour) frequent (3tph) rail service to the capital. Channel 4 rejected Liverpool over Leeds because it wanted somewhere on HS2 for links to London. There are also about half a dozen trains per hour across the Pennines between Leeds and Manchester allowing 'media types' to easily interact with both the Beeb and C4.

Similar conditions are commonplace in the south as well - even on twelve car trains - over similar journey times.

Spending on railways per passenger in the north is similar to that in the south. And the solutions to overcrowding will be different - in the north longer trains are possible (and are on order). In London, all train are already the maximum length (and frequency) that key parts of the infrastructure can cope with - hence the need for building more and longer platforms, and new lines.

I believe the extra money for Crossrail is a loan from the DfT to TfL which will have to be paid back at some point but apart from just giving up on Crossrail after billions have already been spent and the bulk of the work completed I don't think there's any other choice than finding more money for it. Maybe the Mayor of Great Manchester should ask for a loan to build the extra track as that seems to be the only way to get money out of the DfT at the moment.

I did indeed go from Leeds to Manchester via Hebden Bridge: very pretty, very slow and very crowded.