Hmmm – it’s a brave man who stands me up at the last minute, I can tell you!
But I guess Bob Kiley is a brave man. He’d have to be to take on the job of Transport Commissioner for London. And stand me up, he did.
I had arranged a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat Conference last week. “Who Runs Public Transport?” with Bob, Professor David Begg, Chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport, and myself, as speakers.
However, late on the day, he rang to say ‘something’ had come up. He was hugely apologetic, but wouldn’t be able to make it. My theory is that he was knobbled by the Mayor. Why would Ken want to stop him from coming? Well, I expect it had something to do with not wanting any publicity about transport issues from the Lib Dem Conference unless he, Ken – turning up later in the week himself – was the star.
Livingstone may be a successful politician, but he is also completely ruthless about these kind of issues when his re-election is in the offing.
Anyway, more to the point, was the meeting was fabulous. A huge crowd turned up – and they didn’t leave when it was announced that Kiley wasn’t coming. Transport is such a key issue – and people are really engaged (mostly through anger) in what is happening.
My answer to the fringe title’s question, Who Runs Public Transport?, is not the travelling public. If you get stuck in a hot, crowded Tube train for half and hour, wait an hour at peak time for a bus (and then four come together), get badly treated by a bus driver or are attacked at a suburban railway station because it is poorly lit and unmanned, the chances of the public making headway with a complaint is frequently nil.
The travelling public have no power in this, nor in any serious way do their elected representatives – with the dishonourable exception of Gordon Brown. The Mayor was elected to run London. The Mayor appointed Bob Kiley as Commissioner of Transport. The Commissioner of Transport was hired to run our Tube network. He had a successful plan that was tried and tested in New York, to raise money to improve our Tube.
But no – Gordon Brown, with his control freakery to the fore, wouldn’t dare let someone else decide how to finance and run the Tube. Instead, it had to be Labour’s PPP plan to break-up and privatise the network. PPP is not safe, not cheap and not wanted. Voters have regularly had their say against it in the ballot box, but as long as Labour MPs have trooped through the Parliamentary lobbies in favour of PPP it has grinded on.
There isn’t room in this column to run through all of those who do have power in transport. The Treasury, the unions and the media all have more power than the travelling public.
But there is one more answer to who runs public transport and, at the risk of raising my head above the gender parapet, that answer is “men”.
I simply offer the observation that during my two years as Chair of Transport at the London Assembly, virtually 100% of the witnesses we have seen – those with their hands on the levers of transport power – have been men. And nearly all the witnesses from user groups, passengers and disability organisations, have been women.
So it is no surprise when the straps are too high, there is no space for shopping or pushchairs or that there is so little energy or political will behind good lighting in suburban stations, their car parks and the footpaths that surround them or equipping them with CCTV. Nor is it a surprise that the ‘soft’ measures, like green travel plans, are so low on the list.
Because the boys like the big toys – the Crossrails and that old macho game of who’s got the biggest airport.
So perhaps Bob Kiley is relieved that he didn’t turn up to hear me say this in person. But remember Bob – hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Having stood me up, I look forward to seeing how you are going to make it up to me!
