Boris appoints new deputy mayor
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 at
7:31 pm
The Evening Standard reports that Boris has appointed an ‘alpha female’ as his new Deputy Mayor with a remit to get tough on tube modernisation.
Interestingly, Kulveer Ranger is moving to the environmental brief…is this a demotion or…?
Without doubt, users of London Underground have endured weekend closures for too long – what does this new appointee plan to do to speed up the modernisation and repair of the network?
Time will tell.
Tagged with: Lib Dems London • London • Politics • TfL
Filed under: LibDemBlogs • London • London Life posting
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So, after the fiasco yesterday on the much fated Jubilee Line, Boris has pledged super human efforts to get the upgrades and work all completed by Summer. I am not sure which Summer he’s referring to though… Will the new Alpha Female transport guru take charge of this and steer this through to completion?
2000 passengers stuck in trains, with operators apparently unable to open the train doors to let them off is not a good start to her new position.
We are in the 21st century, but do we have a network fit for purpose? I think not. Surely the first passengers from Baker Street over a hundred years ago where promised and delivered a service far superior to that on offer now.
I understand fully the need for upgrades and repairs, as well as station modernisation, but surely there firstly, has to be a better way to do this and secondly, where is the measure that the public can compare the progress of these works against?
Under-investment in the transport infrastructure of London is not new – it has been going on for decades – but ‘Joe Public’ has by now had enough of the delays, the over-runs, the disasterous PPI partnerships (which all failed) and most importantly, the said same Joe Public has completely run out of patience with a Mayor who has a unglued transport policy which has no forward planning and is seemingly in tatters.
Next year we host one of the most important dates in decades – the Olympic Games. What promises can we extract from our Mayor that he will have sorted out the Tube, sorted out the appalling industrial relations he has fostered and, most importantly, what will he have done to restore the confidence of the daily commuters who need to use the network on a daily basis in order to get to and from work, school and elsewhere?
The stage is yours Mr Mayor – tell us what you plan to do, how, when and by what means we can measure your achievements!