CommentIsLinked@LDV: Caroline Pidgeon – Boris Johnson’s first year is no cause for celebration

Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson on the London Assembly, writes in today’s Guardian on Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London.

She says that although Johnson has promised much, he has failed to deliver on most of it:

On transport alone there has been a long list of broken promises.

Johnson pledged to establish a new express bus service that would orbit outer London. A year after being elected, not one orbital bus route has even been planned.

The mayor promised to convene an “emergency summit” of the train operating companies to tackle overcrowding and exorbitant fares. A year on, no summit has been held. Under his watch train fares have continued to rise and in January he hiked bus, tram and tube fares by twice the rate of inflation.

Johnson also promised to extend the Freedom Pass so it can be used 24 hours a day, yet he never explained that the whole railway network would be excluded from this significant promise he made to London’s pensioners and disabled people.

He claimed he would fight for new transport projects, yet the last year has seen him cancelling project after project, including the Greenwich waterfront transit scheme, the Cross River tram and proposals to extend the Docklands Light Railway.

You can read the full story here.

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This entry was posted in LibLink and London.
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