Tag Archives: transport

Mark Pack

Liberal Democrat members support proposed changes to planning rules, just

By Mark Pack | Fri 7th October 2011 - 7:25 am

Lib Dem Voice has polled our members-only forum to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 550 party members responded, and we’re currently publishing the full results.

Our latest survey of party members finds a small majority backing the government’s controversial plans for the planning system in England. By a margin of 48% – 39% Liberal Democrat members in the survey supported the scheme to cut central control over planning but also introduce a presumption in favour of development if plans are sustainable and in line with local policies.

However, …

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Jonathan Featonby

Opinion: Hammond is misguided if he wants to raise the speed limit

By Jonathan Featonby | Sat 1st October 2011 - 12:58 pm

So it seems that the media have cottoned on to the fact that the Government is considering increasing the motorway speed limit to 80mph, up from the current 70mph.

If they had been paying attention, they would have realised that this isn’t exactly breaking news. Back in June this year, Mike Penning, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, said that the Department for Transport were looking at the impacts of increasing the speed limit. In response to an Oral Question from Stephen Mosley, he said that:

“The existing limit has been in place since the ’60s. We will weigh

…

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Mark Pack

A tale of two holes – and a £39m price tag

By Mark Pack | Wed 7th September 2011 - 7:54 am

In principle, I have no objection to people digging holes in the ground. Even very expensive holes. Potholes? Bad. But lift shafts, underground tunnels and other such excavations? Good. A big hole that loops back on itself and could* end the universe? That’ll do nicely. The combination of a hole, Bernard Cribbins and Lego? Excellent.

If I had to postulate a general theory of holes, I’d say that a hole that is not used is a bad hole. And two holes that are not used are doubly bad.

Which brings me to the question of the £39 million spent …

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Brian Paddick

Brian Paddick writes: Building a better future for Londoners

By Brian Paddick | Thu 25th August 2011 - 11:54 am

Since I retired from the police I have not had a car. Since then ‘the world is my Oyster card.’ I rely on trains, tubes and buses to get around London and I’m appalled by what I see.

Vanity projects and electoral gimmicks like the new Routemaster and replacing bendy buses are soaking up millions of pounds of the transport budget. The new Routemaster will cost nine times as much as a conventional bus – never mind the millions spent on development! On the right routes and properly regulated so they don’t end up stuck together, bendies do a perfectly adequate …

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Mike Tuffrey

Mike Tuffrey writes… The Big Switch: turning London’s buses and taxis electric

By Mike Tuffrey | Mon 25th July 2011 - 12:53 pm

Rudolf Diesel has a lot to answer for. The compression engine he invented has become the great workhorse of heavy duty vehicles like the buses, taxis and vans which fill our streets. But the nasty side effect of diesel fuel is fine particulate exhaust emissions that are creating a major health crisis. Tiny particles get deep into the lungs, causing thousands of premature deaths and a big increase in ill health.

The biggest culprit in central London, where the health problems are most acute? Yes, buses, taxis …

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Posted in London and Op-eds | Also tagged and | 12 Comments
Andrew Cook

Opinion: Bombardier – the end is nigh?‏

By Andrew Cook | Tue 21st June 2011 - 1:41 pm

Just over a year ago, I wrote on Lib Dem Voice that the future for the Bombardier train building plant at Derby looked precarious. At that time, my fears were around the deep spending cuts that we were being forewarned of. Happily those cuts have not so far seriously affected transport spending. But last week, the same Derby Litchurch Lane Bombardier plant suffered a severe blow when the Department for Transport announced that the order for new trains to work the Thameslink service in London is likely to go to Siemens in Germany. Siemens builds fine trains (although, as …

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Maureen Rigg

Opinion: campaigning for a better rail service

By Maureen Rigg | Wed 13th April 2011 - 3:30 pm

Here at Eaglescliffe we have a great airport on our doorsteps – still known as Teesside Airport to most of us despite the best efforts of the owners to change it to Durham Tees Valley. From my house I can take a 10 minute walk in the other direction to a railway station with a reasonably frequent service going past the airport on its way to Darlington.

The airport has a railway station too – ideal you might think. Think again. Trains stop there once in each direction on Saturdays and now on Sundays too. …

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Norman Baker MP

Norman Baker writes… Towards a smarter public transport system

By Norman Baker MP | Mon 11th April 2011 - 1:23 pm

As readers of Lib Dem Voice will know, it has long been our party’s aim to create a transport system in this country that moves people towards low carbon options, including modal shift to public transport. This is not only crucial to achieve our environmental goals, but is also important to move away from our reliance on oil from, in particular, politically unstable countries.

So how do we do this at a time of austerity, when the Department for Transport has had to reduce its budget by £638million? We need to be smarter. We need to look at …

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Stephen Tall

Flight cancelled or delayed? Reasons to be thankful for EU Regulation 261/2004

By Stephen Tall | Wed 22nd December 2010 - 10:15 am

While the Westminster Village is fixated by the Telegraph-hyped furore that Lib Dem ministers don’t always agree with every aspect of Coalition policy (shock, horror etc), the rest of the country is focused on a British obsession bigger even than the media’s predeliction for attaching the suffix ‘-gate’ to a noun: the weather.

Newspaper and TV pictures have been dominated by images of those hoping for a holiday getaway having their hopes dashed and their tempers frayed by the endless queues and chaos at Heathrow and for the Eurostar. …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged , and | 7 Comments
Peter Jones

Opinion: an easy £25 billion to cut

By Peter Jones | Thu 23rd September 2010 - 1:50 pm

I’m sorry I couldn’t join you at Liverpool, but my absence hopefully left more of the wine lake provided by our generous sponsors for the rest of you. As ‘cuts’ were in the air and in your conversations. I’d like to suggest an easy one.

HS2. Or High Speed (Rail) 2 to give its full title. The proposed new high speed rail link from London past Birmingham to the great cities of the North, such as Leeds. I’m told it may go near somewhere called Manchester as well on its way to Scotland.

Now I am no engineer. If the …

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Alex Marsh

Opinion: railing against the direction of policy

By Alex Marsh | Sat 28th August 2010 - 10:36 am

The media are constantly looking for signs of policy splits within the Coalition. Across policy fields – the economy, welfare, housing, defence – the search is on for contradictions and conflicts, whether real, manufactured or imagined. While many of the stories have been given an airing here, one that passed relatively unnoticed was last week’s discussion of rail fares.

Transport Secretary Philip Hammond hinted that the current fiscal situation is so severe that it may be necessary to re-examine the formula restricting regulated rail fares to increases of no more than RPI+1%. The suggestion was that this might increase …

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David Thorpe

Opinion: Motorway tolls – a step on the road to a progressive, green and Liberal Britain

By David Thorpe | Sat 24th July 2010 - 11:20 am

Privatisation and progressive politics are not always natural bedfellows, so Tory veteran Tim Yeo’s suggestion that motorways could be privatised and tolls erected in the interests of the fight against climate change was always likely to be greeted with a mixture of suspicion and scepticism by Lib Dems.

But like most privatisations – if done correctly – Mr Yeo’s proposals could lead to a fairer, greener and more Liberal Britain.

The existing tax on road usage is road tax, which is essentially regressive as it doesn’t take income and amount of usage of the road network into account. While road tolls …

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Bill Bradshaw

Musings from the Front Bench…

By Bill Bradshaw | Thu 22nd July 2010 - 1:20 pm

I have supported the Liberal Party and its successors since the General Election of 1950, although I did not follow a political career. Instead, I was involved in the railway and bus industries before moving into academia at the Universities of Salford and Oxford.

My entry to the House of Lords was a complete surprise. It took place over a two year period, and the process began with an interview with John Harris and Bill Rodgers, the then Chief Whip and Leader in the House respectively. Having been sworn to secrecy, I was asked firstly whether, if appointed, I would promise …

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Mark Pack

The coalition agreement: transport & universities and further education

By Mark Pack | Sun 6th June 2010 - 5:50 pm

Welcome to the twentieth and last (phew!) in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.

Traditionally the transport sections of party manifestos contain commitments to various expensive, long-term public expenditure projects. In the current financial climate it is no surprise that the coalition agreement’s transport section is rather heavy on matters of regulation and bureaucracy and rather light on directly spending money to improve transport.

So we have a promise to “make Network Rail more accountable to its customers”, a commitment to “fair pricing for rail travel”, a …

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Alex Foster

Daily View 2×2: 11 March 2010

By Alex Foster | Thu 11th March 2010 - 7:34 am

Good morning, and welcome to Daily View.

Today is notable as the day before LDV’s fascinating fringe event on how to make authoritarian MPs pay at the ballot box – do join us tomorrow in Birmingham to find out how.

302 years ago today, Queen Anne was the last British monarch to withhold Royal Assent from a bill of Parliament.

In 1864, Sheffield saw a Great Flood when a dam under construction burst. The ensuing inundation wrecked a number of bridges, destroyed 800 houses and killed 270 people.

People born on March 11th include Laurence Llewellyn Bowen, Harold Wilson and Douglas Adams; and deaths include Alexander Fleming, John Wyndham and Slobodan Milošević.

2 Big Stories

Parties battle over high speed rail

Will Labour’s Y or the Conservative Reverse-S win the day? Find out in The Times

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The Voice

Baker: time to refund passengers forced on to rail replacement buses

By The Voice | Wed 27th January 2010 - 6:50 pm

Ah, the joy of train travel – you buy your ticket, possibly costing you a small fortune unless booked in advance, only to discover you’re chucked off the train and onto a bus if there are repairs being made to the line. Well, no more, says Norman Baker, the Lib Dems’ shadow transport secretary.

Stormin’ Norm is proposing that the Lib Dems would radically overhaul Network Rail, replacing its executives with a ‘Public Interest Board’ made up of representatives of customer watchdog Passenger Focus, the Local Government Association and independent experts. They would be charged with putting the interests of passengers …

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Helen Duffett

Cable: “Liberal Democrats committed to Crossrail”

By Helen Duffett | Tue 19th January 2010 - 6:20 pm

Not exactly breaking news, but a reaffirming today of the Lib Dems’ backing for Crossrail, with a financial caveat:

Vince Cable has told the Evening Standard that the Liberal Democrats are backing Crossrail, the east-west railway now under construction in London:

The Liberal Democrats are fully committed to the Crossrail project and we certainly have no plans to scrap it.

However, as with all projects involving public sector money it is critical that Crossrail stays within its agreed budget.

Caroline Pidgeon, Chair of the London Assembly’s Transport Committee told Lib Dem Voice:

The Liberal Democrats have always been fully committed to

…

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Alex Foster

ID cards trial failure

By Alex Foster | Wed 23rd December 2009 - 7:56 pm

Hot on the tails of the news that P&O refused to recognise an ID card as a European travel document comes this investigation from the Manchester Evening News:

THE national identity card scheme was in chaos last night as an M.E.N investigation revealed some of the country’s biggest travel companies are telling customers that they can not be used instead of passports.

Some 1,736 people in Greater Manchester have bought the £30 cards after the Home Office promised they could be used to travel in Europe.

But customer service staff at nine major travel companies – including British Airways, Eurostar and

…

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Stephen Tall

Swinson: Brits spend as much time commuting as they do on holiday

By Stephen Tall | Mon 31st August 2009 - 2:00 pm

Are you spending half your August Bank Holiday Monday stuck in a traffic jam? Well, just think of it as extra vacation. Lib Dem research has revealed that the average British commuter spends the equivalent of 23 working days per year travelling to and from work; a Londoners’ average yearly commute is 1,370 miles.

Lib Dem MP Jo Swinson, who is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Wellbeing Economics, comments:

Commuting is often an incredibly frustrating experience, whether you are on a crowded train platform staring at your watch, crammed on to a bus or tube train or stuck in a traffic jam. Even moderate commutes make people less happy – something the Government’s own research shows.

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Stephen Tall

The cost of pavement politics

By Stephen Tall | Tue 25th August 2009 - 5:40 pm

What’s cost the taxpayer £82m over the last five years? Answer: compensation claims against county councils and unitary authorities by members of the public who have tripped on pavements. The figures from 90 local authorities were obtained by the Lib Dems under Freedom of Information requests; there are still 10,000 claims unsettled.

Here’s what the Lib Dems’ shadow transport secretary Norman Baker had to say:

With council and household budgets under more pressure than ever, the last thing the local taxpayer needs is to be paying massive compensation claims for injuries caused by dangerous pavements. This is money that could have been spent on improving pavements and preventing these problems in the first place.

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Helen Duffett

Passengers demand return of bendy buses – after a week

By Helen Duffett | Sat 1st August 2009 - 3:45 pm

From the London Paper:

Commuters on the first route to get rid of the controversial bendy buses today declared: “Bring them back.”

Passengers on the 507 complained that the single-decker replacements were overcrowded and failed to provide enough seating.

One told of chaotic scenes when around 100 people crammed on to a Waterloo to Victoria bus during rush-hour.

Another, Andrew Cooper, 39, of Westminster, said: “There are hardly any seats. I’m not sure why they got rid of the bendy.”

Maureen Pullen, 48, of Winchester, said: “The bendy buses’ three doors allowed people to board much faster and brought down journey times.” Sine Msomi,

…

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Helen Duffett

Road safety advice for Londoners: avoid Boris’s bike

By Helen Duffett | Fri 31st July 2009 - 1:37 pm

You might expect the Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Chair of Transport for London to be a law-abiding, safety-conscious example to the rest of us.

Not when it’s London Mayor, Boris Johnson. At the recent “People’s Question Time” in Croydon, this was his answer to the decline of the traditional English pub:

“I have just one idea, if more people rode bicycles and fewer people drove cars you would not have to worry about the drink driving laws and I sincerely believe that. I have absolutely no prohibition about drinking a pint of two of beer

…

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Stephen Tall

Stormin’ Norm: “One in seven MPs in luxurious Government cars”

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th July 2009 - 9:00 pm

Here’s the innocuous-enough sounding press release from the Deprtment of Transport, ‘Cost of Ministerial Cars for 2008’. But look at the bottom-line – well, you could do if they’d published one. What the bottom-line would show is that the cost of ministerial cars has increased to more than £6m, with the number of ministers claiming for cars also increasing.

As you might expect, Lib Dem shadow transport secretary Norman Baker isn’t going to let this one lie:

There are now nearly one in seven MPs enjoying Government largesse at the public expense. Ministers are happy to pump carbon out of their

…

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Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 2 July 2009

By Helen Duffett | Thu 2nd July 2009 - 9:18 am

2 Big Stories

The news has a state vs public ownership flavour at the moment:

Passengers to pay price for crisis on the railways
“A series of big projects are in grave doubt after the collapse of the highest-earning franchise exposed a deepening hole in the rail budget.

National Express East Coast is to be renationalised after the parent company refused to honour a pledge to pay the Department for Transport £1.4 billion in the years to 2015.

The DfT will have to accept a much lower sum when it puts the franchise back out to tender and is likely to be …

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Stephen Tall

Daily View 2×2: 1 July 2009

By Stephen Tall | Wed 1st July 2009 - 9:03 am

2 Big Stories


British economy in worst state in over half a century

Perhaps it’s the sweltering weather, perhaps recession fatigue has set in, but there is little reaction to yesterday’s startling news that the British economy contracted by 2.4% in the first quarter of 2009 – the worst decline in more than 50 years. It isn’t the main story for even one of the newspapers, though it led all last night’s TV news programmes. Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable underscored the seriousness of the data:

The biggest three month fall in GDP in more than half a century is a clear

…

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Stephen Tall

Adonis declares end of the road for road-pricing

By Stephen Tall | Thu 25th June 2009 - 6:00 pm

From today’s FT (well worth reading today for other reasons):

The government will “definitely not” proceed with a national road-user charging scheme if it wins the next election, the new transport secretary has said, in the most comprehensive renunciation so far of a policy adopted in 2004. …

In July 2004, Alistair Darling, then transport secretary, committed the government to a national system of pay-per-mile charging . The scheme was intended to replace charging for road use via taxes on fuel. As cars become more fuel-efficient, taxes produce less revenue per mile driven and any deterrent effect of tax

…

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Stephen Tall

At least the trains are running on time (Or are they?)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 27th May 2009 - 1:18 pm

The news isn’t all doom ‘n’ gloom, y’know – even in the Telegraph:

Trains are more punctual than ever, Network Rail has claimed, with more than nine out of 10 arriving on time over the past year. The figures are the best since the industry started collating punctuality statistics in 1992. Last month the performance was even better than the yearly average, with 93.5 per cent of services classed as running on time. The industry’s definition of punctuality is based on commuter services operating within five minutes of the timetable and for longer distance trains, 10 minutes.

However, Lib Dem …

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The Voice

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

By The Voice | Tue 5th May 2009 - 9:01 pm

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,

…

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Benjamin Mathis

Opinion: Opposition is only half the fight – we must spell out our plan for Heathrow

By Benjamin Mathis | Mon 19th January 2009 - 2:23 pm

What follows is very much not dissent in the ranks or any kind of support for a third runway at Heathrow – if for no other reason than I don’t want to give John McDonnell any excuse to start wielding the Mace again. I fully support and agree with the Lib Dem campaign being ably led by Susan Kramer and Norman Baker against blighting south-west London and surrounding areas with yet more noise, pollution and congestion.

But the Government has now announced its decision on a new runway and Terminal 6 and, while I hope we will be able to …

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Mark Pack

Success for Mike Tuffrey’s campaign to help the unemployed

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th January 2009 - 10:12 pm

The Tory Troll blog brings the good news:

Fair’s fair Boris, you’ve made a good decision here:

“Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today announced that over the next year London’s half-price bus and tram travel scheme will be extended to include thousands of unemployed Londoners in receipt of Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) or the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).”…

Lib Dem Assembly Leader Mike Tuffrey, who campaigned for the extension, said today:

“No one should be forced to turn down an interview because they can’t afford a bus fare. Yet Boris Johnson has put up fares this month by 11% – three times

…

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Posted in London and News | Also tagged and | 3 Comments
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