Transports of delight? Not with this Mayor...
Picture the scene. A young woman walks contentedly to her local Tube station, breathing in the clean air of traffic-free streets, basking in birdsong, nodding cheerfully at the procession of fit, dynamic cyclists that cross her fortunate path.
Momentarily the peace is disturbed by a bus, full – but not too full – of equally blessed souls on their way to work. The driver swerves to avoid a child, recalling with a shudder the bad old days before the Mayor’s Transport Strategy when he would simply have mown the kid down.
Meanwhile the woman arrives at the station. From force of bad habit she goes to the ticket office and hands over a tenner, whereupon the horrified assistant flings it back at her.
“Put your money away, love!” he exclaims. “Haven’t you heard about Mayor Khan making public transport more affordable? It’s 20p into London now!”
Sound like a fantasy? Well, according to the aforementioned Strategy, public consultation for which ends on Oct 2 – and no, I wasn’t aware of that either until last month – something like this utopian scene is, if not quite the expected destination, then certainly the direction of travel.
Needless to say, the less-than-fabled document is not exactly the sexiest read since Lolita. Instead, it is full of predictable buzzwords – the London of tomorrow will not only be healthier, but also fairer and more sustainable – whimsically random targets (no one to be killed by a bus after 2030) and thinly veiled assaults on the motorist, underscored by an authoritarian desire to lick Londoners into shape.
To be fair, nothing is set in stone: this is vision, not policy. Read between the lines, however, and all manner of grisly spectres appear, such as the removal of parking spaces, hikes in road tax (with power to set the level transferred to the Mayor) and an extension of the Congestion Charge to Outer London. That’s us.
For some, Khanworld would be Xanadu: a fume-free city of safe squares, cycle racks and silence. But any gains from the Strategy would surely be won at the cost of an erosion of freedom and justified by a dishonest, vaguely Orwellian rationale.
The Strategy flags up the “opportunity to reduce car use”. But if this translates as ‘making car trips an expensive nightmare with nowhere to park at the end’, then the “opportunity” reduces to an offer one can scarcely refuse.
Similarly, the document trumpets the health benefits of travelling on foot or by bike. Let me break this gently. At around the age of two, I discovered the delight to be had from placing one foot in front of the other and have striven to milk the situation ever since – and all that while owning a car and without any fatherly advice from Mayor Khan.
London’s transport system is far from perfect. But it’s not exactly a car crash either. So if change is simply to be used as a cover for social engineering, it may be best to slam the brakes on right now.
- For further info and to respond visit cantpaywontpay.london before Oct 2
You can have a look at another one of Richard Nye's columns by clicking here
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