I’m hot foot off the plane from New York, and it’s official, Bob Kiley, London’s new Transport Commissioner, heralded by Ken Livingstone as the Saviour of the Western World, does not walk on water. But he comes pretty close.

Four members of the London Assembly went to New York to discover the truth about bonds, safety, service and about Bob Kiley.

Whoever I talked to over there, whether it was the user groups, the transport operators, the authorities, the politicians, the unions or the academics – they universally agreed that Kiley was a good thing. It’s no mean feat to be praised by such a wide range of people. It is clear that under his reign at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) – which runs transport in New York – the disastrous state of the subway was turned around.

However, not all the praise heaped on him is quite true. Two common myths have grown up over here. One is that under him not a single day of industrial action took place. The other is that he was virtually single-handedly responsible for the idea of issuing bonds to raise capital. These turned out to be only true-ish.

In speaking to The Transport Workers Union of America, it was clear that a great deal of the explanation for there being no strikes during the changes that took place was more to do with the State’s punitive laws against strikes than to Kiley himself. For example, the leaders of such a strike could lose their homes and for every day’s strike action, an employee would lose two days pay.

However, in talking about working with Kiley, the unions gave great credit to him as someone who was absolutely fair. He was someone they could do business with. This is a skill that will undoubtedly be needed in the months ahead.

On bonds themselves – long a Liberal Democrat policy – it was in fact Kiley’s predecessor at MTA, who initiated the first bond issue. Kiley did, though, subsequently use bonds to great effect.

It also became clear to me during the trip that he had real talent in two further key areas. Firstly, as a ‘manager’. Universally, the key players acknowledged his skills in this area. Secondly, they referred to his ability to spend money well. Together with Kiley’s ability to get on and do business with all players, it is these skills that have given him such a formidable reputation and that will be absolutely vital in the transformation of our crumbling Tube into a world-class system.

In terms of finance, raising funding for capital transport programs through bond issues in New York, and throughout the USA for that matter, is clearly as simple as falling off a log over there. They cannot understand why we don’t. That is how you raise money in the States outside of taxes. End of story.

It is also, incidentally, how they also do things in France. As recently as late January, a bonds issue was used to raise money for the French railway system. Looking at the French railways, the New York subway and then the mess that passes for public transport in Britain, it looks like they’ve got something right doesn’t it?

The Americans I talked to just couldn’t see a problem with bonds and clearly think we are mad over here not to use them. The people in New York who have used bonds to fund everything from the renovation of Grand Central to the new airport transit link are convinced they are a sensible way of funding projects – and they have the practical experience to back this up.

Bonds for our Tube would make sense in every way, with value for money and leaving the Tube with a unified management structure. There is a problem, however, for the Treasury. If Ken gets to raise finance through bonds for the tube, what else might he be able to fund this way? And what if other public bodies started to raise money in this way. If bond issue becomes a way of financing big projects, the Treasury loses some control over what happens or does not happen. And if the Treasury begins to lose fiscal control, ultimately that means a loss of political control. Therein lies the rub.

Even on financial grounds, Labour’s case for its privatisation plans for the Tube is very weak. However, there is also the matter of safety. Labour’s PPP would split operations from infrastructure. The history of this on our railways is hardly a happy one.

On the tube, we would get chaos just like when every road gets dug up at the same time and the traffic comes to a halt. But, what happens when one of the companies misses its deadlines or something goes wrong? Who takes the blame and who pays the other companies for delays and costs?The fights will be fierce, with endless delays and a bonanza for the lawyers, who will be paid large sums that would be better spent on improving the Tube. Some of my best friends are lawyers and management consultants, but should we really be spending quite so much money on them rather than on the Tube itself?

The need for unified management lies at the heart of the difficulties currently straining relationships in the so-called renegotiations between Kiley and the Government. The PPP funding mechanism means that control will not be unified by definition. There certainly would be a structure in which liability is clear. We would know who has to pay compensation if something goes wrong. But by then it’s too late. What London needs is a structure that prevents things going wrong in the first place rather than a structure that defines who pays compensation when it has gone wrong.

What I heard in New York from the operators and the authorities was that they felt that it made no sense and indeed was dangerous if you don’t have unified management. Transport remains unified and in the public sector in New York under the MTA New York City Transit. The Boston academics who briefed us at the Centre for Transportation Studies at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) took a look at these issues not only across America, but across the world, where both privatisation and public sector transport systems have had varying degrees of failure or success.

They cited a case where 7 tube lines were sold to 7 separate consortia. Whilst this overcame the problems of splitting infrastructure from operations as each line was taken over in its entirety, the seven could not agree on pricing, interchange or co-ordinate when closure for repair was needed. Guess who lost out? From the examples they gave us, it was clear that what succeeded in the short-term often gave way to long-term service decline and ultimate requirement to change once again. Outside of the safety issue, the safeguard against failure was good management and active and sound fiscal control.

So – with a bond issue and a unified structure, what do New Yorkers get bangs for bucks? Not everything in the New York tube garden is lovely. The basic fabric of their subway system is physically quite brutal. They laugh at the idea that we have upholstery on our seats and Rosemary Scanlon, author of London / New York – an economic study of the two cities – said, ‘our system will never be as pretty as yours’. She’s right. All their rolling stock, old and new, is far more utilitarian than ours is. In fact it makes ours look not only pretty but also comfortable by comparison. This isn’t a thought I had previously associated with the Northern Line – pretty and comfortable!

Not only does New York have hard plastic seats, but also a much lower grade of finish on everything and, whilst the graffiti has gone from the body of the subway, the windows are now covered with the etched equivalent of graffiti – scratching. Standing on the platforms, I was suddenly aware how clear the visibility the length of our London platforms is compared with New York. The platforms there are riddled with structural columns, obscuring a clear view. It is utilitarian and still quite user-hostile.

The signing is confusing. Of course, we do have world-acclaimed graphics for our tube both in identity and information. In New York there are very few stations that have information boards letting you know which train is comin
g and how long it will be. In fact although I travelled the subway all the time, I never saw one. We here are used to having that facility, and you sure miss it when it isn’t there. They will however be introducing such a system-wide in due course.

On the other hand, except for the Sunday, in Manhattan and one journey back from Brooklyn, I never had to wait more than a few moments for a train during daytime hours – so perhaps the need to know or to keep me informed so that I didn’t fret was less.

New York is clearly a work in progress, but the state it was in the 1970s was clearly far worse than our current state and the struggle continues on bring in a decent standard throughout the system. In its worst period, something like one out of every two trains was having to be taken out of service for one reason or another, fires on the lines every day, and so on. Our catastrophe waiting to happen is overcrowding and the exacerbation of the failure rate – spiralling to disaster. A tube train every 90 seconds would solve the immediate problems here in London. Let’s get the infrastructure sorted. Tarting up operations should be secondary – although important in the long run.

New York runs a 24-hour service with night trains every 20 minutes. This timing means that these trains right through the night are full, and therefore the numbers of people using them enhances safety. We need to assess our own requirements if we are looking to provide a 24-hour service. We also need to understand that the program we will embark on will be long term and will mean lines out of operation during the renovation period – so transport alternatives need planning. We also need to understand the length of time this will all take.

Where New York transport is weak is on long-term planning for capacity to cope with forecast growth. The other glaring fault line is the lack of integration between the different bodies who control New York. There is no single overarching body as we now have in London which links planning, economic development and transport – let alone paying heed to overarching themes of sustainability, equalities and health as enshrined in the Act for the Greater London Authority.

So in the tale of two cities, what can I bring back from New York to London? Obviously, a deeper and wider knowledge of our soon to be sister city, a city whose economy, populations and life patterns are so similar to our own. All of us on the trip gained knowledge about transport modes as well as some very specific and real ideas on design, accessibility, customer service, and perhaps on how to work with a ‘strong mayor’ model in perhaps a more constructive way than New York’s Mayor and City Council.

Our report will be ready in a month and come to the Transport Policy Committee that I chair.

The Transport Policy Committee’s major investigation into ‘Funding, Safety and Service Issues on the London Tube’ will come after the general election. But in the meantime, voters in London will have the chance to cast their own verdict on Labour’s privatisation plans. We’ve already had four wasted years with little to show for it other than Minister for London Keith Hill’s energetic letter writing to the Evening Standard defending privatisation. It’s about time Kiley was allowed to get on and do for London what he did for New York.

(c) Lynne Featherstone, 2001