Category Archives: Blog

Sorting out a traffic junction

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8am and I was at the corner of Archway Road and Shepherds Hill, having organised a meeting with Transport for London officers. It’s a terrible junction. The Green Man phase just about allows me (fit and relatively able) to leg it diagonally across . Absolutely no chance of doing it properly one road at a time. And if you are old, disabled or with children or buggies – no chance!

At least the TfL officers admitted it was a sub-standard junction and it will be dealt with now by upgrading the electronics and adding a few seconds to the all green phase.

And as for those badly behaved motorists who block the yellow junction every phase – after next autumn they will get done by the camera which already watches the junction, but until the new legislation has not been able to issue tickets. That will start happening around October – so hopefully this particular junction will be much better.

TV debate

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Appeared on Carlton TV’s ‘The Week’. Always apprehensive before live TV. I was invited as the ‘sweet voice of reason’ and Chair of the Assembly Transport Committee – head to head with the Chair of the Association of British Motorists.

Needless to say we did not see eye to eye. He was clearly annoyed by bus lanes, speed limits, traffic wardens, congestion charging and so on. Lucky then that he lived in Kings Langsley and doesn’t have to suffer the reality of everyday life for Londoners.

He wasn’t all bad – just from another world where his and his co-motorists freedoms seemed paramount – regardless of road safety and congestion. He tried to argue that speed didn’t kill. We batted statistics at each other for a while – but the truth is- common sense tells you that if you drive fast you are likely to have less time to get out of difficulties if they arise – and if you crash – that it will be more serious than if you were going slowly. I think that’s where his argument fell down!

Anyway – it was good fun. Lasted about 5 minutes – which is a real insult to genuine debate. There were lots of good subjects that real need a bash around, but that format is really just entertainment masquerading as news and politics on a Sunday.

The make-up is fab though!

Cornering people at receptions

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Reception held by Metronet and Tubelines, the two private consortia now running our tube infra structure. They made positive speeches about their effort and commitment and seemed so genuine. Such a shock and horror then when you see the statistics showing a deterioration in their performance since takeover.

They spent a good chunk of the reception saying that they didn’t recognise the figures published in the newspapers and that they were not accurate. Well – they would – wouldn’t they? That is one of the big problems on the tube – no accurate baseline. No accurate targets that are understandable. No measurable indicators for normal human beings.

Tim O’Toole (Transport for London’s Managing Director of London Underground) was there too. I nobbled him in a corner because my scrutiny officers had said that he didn’t want to come and give evidence to my committee ‘again’. I had hauled him into to answer questions following the tube derailment – rightly!

When cornered – he gracefully conceded that of course he wanted to come. He didn’t know where I got the idea from that he didn’t Of course, it would be better if he came after his report on performance came out in a few weeks. OK! A compromise is fine by me.

Mayor's Question Time

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Mayor’s Question Time with Livingstone and Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley this morning.

Wily Kiley! He is a clever operator. The Mayor, however, did a bunk on his westward extension of the congestion charge. I came out against the expansion months ago – wrong system, wrong place, £100 million outlay and no return – just hopeless. Not like the original and stunningly successful central congestion charging scheme.

However, the Mayor used the opportunity of my questioning him about priorities for this £100 million to begin his slippery slide into not going ahead with it. He conceded that it was no longer ‘high priority’ but now some sort of middling priority. So – it’s basically off the agenda for now – as it should be.

New bus at last

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Bucketing with rain, pitch black – but the sun was shining inside as I ventured on the inaugural voyage of the 603, Muswell Hill to Swiss Cottage bus route.

It was fantastic. Loads of kids, parents waiting on the Broadway – and the bus turned up only a minute after the 7.30am schedule. There was quite a party atmosphere on the bus and lots of happy people, despite the appalling traffic delays created by a combination of foul weather and road works on Highgate West Hill tailing back to the roundabout at the Gatehouse Pub in Highgate.

I got off in Highgate to go and kick my own children off to school. But I gather the bus was quite behind time on the first run. However, later that day I got a message from a local mother whose boy had caught the bus back in the afternoon from Highgate to Muswell Hill saying, ‘there was a load of South Hampstead and UCS kids on the bus and it was packed’. So I guess it will build and be a successful trial – the challenge being to then get it expanded to a full route which is what everybody wants.

But a great day for all who campaigned over the six years to get this far.

Alexandra Palace

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Tottered around Alexandra Palace with Simon Hughes whilst LibDem Cllr Bob Hare briefed him on the upcoming debate in Parliament on the Palace. Haringey are trying to flog it off for 125 years – privatising the Pally because of their own incompetence in trying to run it. Debt is the only thing Labour in Haringey know how to build! And then they sure know how to pass on the cost to the council tax payers.

Simon was excellent and grasped the facts extremely fast. He will be one of the Members of Parliament speaking in the debate on Wednesday.

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Banging headache – so laid in bed feeling sorry for myself. Eventually staggered to my computer and cleared emails and paperwork and then collapsed again.

Fortified with extra-strong, super-duper level Panadol, I get up to go to a Policing Planning Panel meeting. After that I would have to go straight onto the Mansion House for the Lord Mayor of London’s Dinner for London Government.

I had telephoned Richard Sumray (a magistrate member of the Metropolitan Police Authority) and Chair of the Police Planning Panel the night before and left a plaintive cry on his message recorder. Something to the tone of – ‘are you going to wear evening dress to the meeting and can we share a taxi to the Mansion House’. I usually feel extremely guilty if I use a taxi – but there comes a point on a rainy night, with no time between commitments and very high heels – when I gracefully give in.

Richard ‘phoned back to ask which dress he should wear? Of course it was black tie for him (it’s so easy for men) – but I decided that the short red cocktail dress was too much for a police meeting, and wore a more demure trouser suit with evening top. I know this is girlie stuff – but such is political life and the demands of dress code.

Of course, dress code didn’t bother Mayor Livingstone. He didn’t bother with black tie – in fact he didn’t bother with a tie at all. The old judge sitting on my left nearly had apoplexy at the cheek of the bugger! He fulfilled all my prejudices about judges I have to say. However, on my other side was the chair of a big financial group of companies who was a

live wire – and who it was a pleasure to spend most of the evening talking too.

You are sooooooooo dependent on who you get sat next to. Over the five dinners for London Government that have happened since we were first elected, I have gone from very near the outlying tables at the far flung end to the inner ones at the top table end. At anywhere but the Corporation of London one might think this a random effect – but I think

it is deeply significant.

The think I love (and the reason I staggered from my sickbed) to this dinner is, whilst I trash tradition, eschew formality and all of that – no one does it like the Corporation. Men in uniform holding metal pikes adorn our avenue as we are announced. The service is impeccable and the processing and timing immaculate.

The rumours were that Mayor Livingstone would produce a ‘surprise’ in his speech. Well – surprise, surprise – the Government would come up with £200 million of PFI credits for the Thames Gateway Bridge. Staggered I was.

That the Government would seal its remarriage with a dowry!

Thereafter – a stirrup cup in the ante room – and then home to bed!

Ken's back

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Still suffering from the mother of all viruses that attacked me for the whole Xmas period, I add to my misery with two hours in the dentists’ chair a la root canal. Not happy! Onto City Hall and our weekly Liberal Democrat Group meeting where we decide who will take up what issue and pose which questions. Transport, transport, transport! As always. The Mayor will come the following week as Chair of Transport to London to answer our questions.

But, of course, he is a Labour Mayor now – which changes the entire dynamic of the Assembly as Labour will now not hear a word of criticism against the Mayor, their new best friend! Simon Hughes called it ‘a remarriage of convenience’ – which I hope London sees for what it is. New Labour trying to stitch up an election – shock, horror!