Yesterday, Boris Johnson and I launched a new pamphlet for the Policy Exchange think-tank, At A Rate of Knots, advocating a dramatic expansion of the Thames Clipper commuter riverboat service. I confess that, given the weather forecast, we had high hopes last night of a repeat of February’s total snow shutdown – when Thames Clippers was more or less the only public transport in London that kept going, and certainly the only link between Greenwich and the rest of the world. What more demonstration of the river’s usefulness could you ask?
Looking at the fairly light snowfall in inner London yesterday, I thought we were destined to be disappointed; and certainly the main roads were clear, with buses, DLR and Tube running well. I reckoned without the unique and seismic hopelessness of Southeastern Trains.
This ridiculous company decided on Tuesday night to axe two-thirds of its daytime service and its entire evening service, hours before so much as a flake of snow even fell. The daytime frequency was cut to half-hourly and the last train from London to Greenwich was at 7.47pm. It is doing exactly the same today, even though there has at the time of writing been no snow for eighteen hours and none is forecast until a very light shower at 3pm.
Southeastern (in its earlier guise as Connex) is of course the company that cancelled trains because the sun was shining, memorably described by Connex announcers as “adverse weather conditions” (it got in the drivers’ eyes, or warped the rails, or something.) But this performance over the snowfall, or in south-east London the snow-dust, is far worse. As far as I can tell from their websites, every single other London commuter operator – including those in areas of the capital with much heavier snowfall, such as South West Trains – is trying to operate a proper service today, though there will no doubt be cancellations. Southeastern isn’t even trying, even though there’s not actually that much snow in its part of London.
Since Southeastern can no longer be seen as a serious transport operator for several months of the year, it has made my case about the river for me. I confess that I didn’t go to the launch last night by Thames Clipper – I used my lovely new Boardman mountain bike – but I should have done. (The bike’s thick tyres and the full suspension are more suitable for this weather than my normal hybrid – but it doesn’t, unfortunately, have mudguards, meaning that I arrived at the high-powered event with a brown stain down the back of my trousers.)
The riverbus would have whisked me from the launch at the Shell Centre, Waterloo, to Greenwich in about 35 minutes – about the same time as the train, now you nearly always have to change at London Bridge (another Southeastern triumph.) They run every 20 minutes during the day, and every 30 minutes in the evenings, with the last one from Waterloo Pier at 12.15am – half an hour later than Southeastern, even on a normal day. That last boat, and the entire service, ran normally yesterday and is expecting to run normally today.
If Southeastern stops bothering with us, it is time to stop bothering with them. If you travel every day between Greenwich and central London, the riverbus price is almost exactly the same as travelling by train. And it is about a million times nicer, with a guaranteed seat, even in the rush-hour, guaranteed no jams or points failures, an on-board coffee bar and a view of the world’s greatest city unfolding before your eyes.
Our pamphlet proposes that the service be jacked up to operate every ten minutes, and that there be a second, westerly route between central London and Putney – making the riverbus the equivalent, in passengers carried, of about half a new Underground line, in a tenth of the time and for about a thousandth of the cost.
Look at our pamphlet and try the riverbus – here’s the timetable. You have nothing to lose but your trains.
I would of course be quite willing to go by river bus, were it the case that the river (flumen) were to go through Welling High Street. That would of course give the eco warming warriors something to really worry about bearing in mind that it is currently some 60 feet above the river level if not more. It would be ideal if I lived near water, but having a healthy respect for the effects of inundation I tend to live on a hill.
Moreover Southeastern having shifted their emphasis to the new high speed line realy highlights the plight of the southeastern London traveller for which the only real advance has been the DLR. Unfortunately for all its either that or my trusty old 4×4 and while you are at it please tell Boris that the state of some of the roads in london now necessitate one especially around tower Bridge and St Pancras
So, that’s Gilligan pushing another amateur hour transport idea in the Standard, the Telegraph, his Greenwich blog as well as for the ghastly incompetent neocons at Policy Exchange. You can’t say he doesn’t work hard for whatever people he’s sucking up to just at the moment.
Anyway, I thought the Routemaster would save us all, or something? Do you think TfL has a bottomless budget for bonkers ideas, or something? Do tell.
While the riverbus is definitely A Good Thing – and a lot more reliable than SouthEastern at this time of year – it will only ever be of limited use for those people who don’t live very near the piers. If I’m going to go though the pain of getting a bus to take me to the river, I may as well go to the Tube and benefit from the more frequent (and cheaper service).
And it is bloody freezing waiting on those piers in the winter…
I wouldn’t disagree with you for an instant that the Clippers are a nice way to travel (although real-time information can be abysmal and their ticket-selling arrangements need a lot of work) and they’ve rescued me from a snow-bound city twice now. Nor would I disagree that Southeastern’s performance this week his been atrocious (although I wouldn’t criticise them over the rails buckling in the heat issue because a: it’s a genuine problem that could lead to a potentially fatal accident, and b: Connex is a completely different company who plumbed nadirs of customer service well below any yet reached by Southeastern).
But I’m afraid I would find it very hard to justify Policy Exchange’s proposals for massively increased subsidies for river boat services – and lest we forget, Policy Exchange is a heavily-rightwards leaning thinktank whose leading lights turn up their noses at anything as socialistic as subsidies for common-or-garden buses (unless they’ve got an open platform at the back, that is). Given the physically limited scope for river boat services, the 180 degree catchment from piers (compared to 360 degrees for most stations or bus stops), issues of tides, speed limits (many of which, contrary to the report’s claims, are justified), the questionable environmental efficiency of fast boats, and limited connectivity with other transport modes, it is very hard to see how the river can be a major player in London’s transport network. Publicly funded expansion of river services is not a new idea – it was kept under pretty much constant review by TfL ever since that organisation’s inception. The conclusion of every study has been that the money it would cost would be far more beneficial if spent on bus, underground, road or light rail projects that could benefit a far greater catchment area.
I think a key failing of your argument, however, is your constant citing of the current pleasant Clipper experience and then extrapolating that to a water-borne Tube service. If the river is going to become a mass-transit system, charged at the comparatively low TfL fare levels for land transport, it is going to have to become like mass-transit to be economic. In other words, a waterborne Tube will have to be like the real Tube: no more generously apportioned, comfortable seats; indeed, probably no guaranteed seating at all; no bar; most of the seating/standing capacity well away from any potential view of London; an increased risk of congestion relating to breakdowns at piers; customer-facing functions automated rather than provided by friendly staff. Mass-transit, like most aspects of urban living, is about compromise. The higher fares and elite service of the current Clipper service allows you to opt out of some of these compromises, but integrating it fully into the transport system will end that.
Ah, Tom: as calm and measured as ever, I see! You should learn from Political Animal, who at least makes a reasoned argument, rather than spraying silly abuse.
Political Animal: the amount of subsidy required for the riverbus is very far from “massive.” Policy Exchange believes in subsidies for public transport, as the report says; where did you get the idea that they don’t? What we also believe in is getting value for that subsidy. The riverbus delivers far more transport, far more imaginatively, across a far wider area, and is thus far greater value, than for instance your beloved Greenwich Waterfront Transit bus route – whose cost would have been about the same as the expansion of the riverbus.
The objection about 180-degree catchment areas could apply nearly as much to railway stations or bus stops on a route which runs close to the river – such as the rail line that runs through Greenwich and Woolwich, or the Waterfront Transit. The real limiter of the catchment area is the river itself and a riverbus also, of course, crosses the river much more easily than another mode can, picking up passengers on both sides.
I think you raise an interesting point about the comfort levels of the service, and I agree that they would definitely have to fall if river is to become a mass option. The key advantage of the Clippers, however, is not the comfort levels – but that they are not subject to any of the other miseries of land public transport, such as delays or slow-moving traffic.
Andrew – thanks for the response. I think I said ‘massively increased subsidies’ rather than ‘massive subsidies’. As the report calls for the subsidy per passenger on the river to be raised to the bus/DLR level, then using the figures in the report, that’s an increase from 14p to 33p per passenger – a 135% increase, which I think counts as massive in anyone’s book. Plenty of people around Policy Exchange, including your co-author Steve Norris, have complained about the level of subsidy for buses in London and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen stuff from yourself saying that the subsidy had gone too high under Livingstone – but now the report uses the current bus subsidy level as an apparently acceptable level to subsidise boat services at.
And yes, if you were to provide me with a straight choice between GWT and a water-borne Tube, I’d choose GWT anytime. After all, it improves transport links to deprived areas where they are currently woefully inadequate, rather than simply congestion busting on transport axes that already exist.
Your point regarding stations or bus stops close to the river also having limited catchments is fair – but the simple fact is that in London, very few such locations exist – rail routes and main bus-carrying roads tend to be set some way back from the river (obviously for historical reasons relating to pre-Barrier flooding), so their catchment extends far further into the hinterland away from the river than a pier can. Compare, for example Greenwich mainline/DLR station with Greenwich pier. The former’s catchment covers the whole of that of the pier, plus significant areas to the south. I’d suggest, therefore, that investment to improve the rail services would be of much greater overall benefit than for the boats. And yes – boats can cross the river more easily, and I’d certainly like to see them used to provide more river crossings in this bridge-deprived area. But the problem is that the more frequently boats cross the river to stop at piers on either side, the slower their speed and the less useful they become for longer journeys compared to other means.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against the boats at all, and I think Thames Clippers have done a pretty good job in building up their service, with their efforts being boosted by subsidy from TfL (and that has been ratcheted up under both Mayors, not just Boris). But I’m not sure much more subsidy can be justified – like you and Policy Exchange I want to see value for subsidy: I’m far from convinced that a system with such limited reach as the river provides that value.
While granting that the river service is not perfect. I think PA’s points, while valid, are eclipsed by the fact that the improvements Gilligan et al. are suggesting are comparatively very cheap.
The recommendations of the Policy Exchange report are quick and easy wins in comparison to most other transport projects. An improved river service would improve transport capacity both across and along the river and relieve existing congested rail and bus routes. A benefit to those living both within and without the catchment area of the piers.
I think there is potential to, at least in part, fund the required investment without recourse to the public purse. For example a small levy could be raised on developments within pier catchment areas. While not denying the importance of TFL’s subsidy. Most of the investment which has driven Thames Clippers’ expansion to-date has been private rather than public.
Animal: we’ve been over the GWT arguments before; as you must know, it would not have “improved transport links” to anywhere, but was merely a very costly rebranding of the 472 bus route. What’s depressing is that you seem to judge projects not on their merits but by who’s proposed them: Ken-era TfL good, centre-right thinktank bad.
Indeed, we’ve both been over the GWT arguments. And I’m afraid I disagree that it’s simply a costly rebranding of the 472. It’s a bus priority scheme with a positive benefit cost ratio, based on highly succesful schemes of a similar nature elsewhere in the country, which improves transport links to one of the most transport-starved bits of South East London.
I’m always happy to judge schemes on their merits, but part of the merit of any scheme is the track record of the originating body in bringing forward succesful projects. So, if we put Ken-era TfL (which brought forward a massive expansion of London’s bus network, the East London Line extension, the Congestion Charge, the lobbying for and development of Crossrail, the DLR extensions to Woolwich and Stratford International, London Overground, etc) against Policy Exchange (vague proposals for a new bus) and I think I know which one’s proposals I’ll take more seriously. Sorry, and all.
What was striking about London under Labour was how modest the improvements to transport infrastructure actually were. The last ten years of the horrible, evil Tories saw approval given and the money committed for the Jubilee Line extension, the DLR and its extensions to Beckton and Lewisham, the Croydon Tramlink, the Heathrow Express and Thameslink.
In London, the first ten years of the Labour government saw the Tube PPP (£8 billion spent so far, providing little more than new wall tiles at stations) and the City Airport extension of the DLR. Barely a sod of earth has yet been turned on Crossrail, except for a bit which is being privately funded. There were, indeed, more buses and the congestion charge, but neither did much to address the problem at the heart of London’s transport – inadequate infrastructure and capacity. The river could.
I live in Charlton and work in Westminster and would use the river every day if it were covered by my travelcard.
I’ve a nasty feeling I’ve led this conversation well off topic – we now seem to be discussing the comparative merits of Labour and Tory governments. Sorry. So, hopefully my final twopenny-worth, in bullet point form:
– Indeed, the list you provide are all Tory acheivements, most of which were completed after their term of office ended. So it is likely to be with this government: Crossrail, the Thameslink Project, East London Line Extension, HS1 (OK, that’s already open).
– I agree with you that PPP is a disaster-zone, but the ‘wall tiles’ line is well worn and far from accurate. Actually, it’s delivered significant quantities of track and signalling work – there is a reason half the Tube is closed most weekends – invisible to the travelling public, but essential. I don’t doubt that work could have been delivered more quickly and cheaply using good old-fashioned public sector borrowing, but the simple fact remains that a knackered Tube system is a Tory legacy.
– I’m afraid you and I are evidently reading from a completely different page if you don’t think that improving London’s buses didn’t amount to addressing problems at the heart of the transport system. We know you don’t like using buses, but they do account for 50% of all public transport journeys in London (2006 figure and including Tramlink, but that’s the most recent and accurate I could quickly lay my finger on). They’re not sexy, but they’re crucial. And unlike boats, they serve the entire city and serve the full socio-economic spectrum. It is improvements in buses that delivered the unthinkable: a modal shift away from cars in a 21st century city: nowhere else has achieved that, before or since. For the nth time, I *like* boats (I used to live on one, for crying out loud), but in terms of London’s transport they are always going to pale into insignificance compared to buses.
Whilst River Buses are of course a good idea, I do not believe they should attract any subsidy diverted away from buses or the tube. I believe they should be self-funding.
I use buses throughout London, including the 180 through Greenwich and they are just as busy despite the recession. In fact I’d go so far as to say many are using the bus due to recession and their apparent joblessness. Buses, tubes and trains go where people live and travel where people generally want to go. A river bus can only serve waterside communities effectively, for the rest of us it would be too much bother.
It’s in this context that Boris Johnson’s plans to cut bus routes and frequencies is highly dangerous for Londoners and their economy. How exactly will millions like me who rely on bus services, get to work if we cannot get on a bus due to cuts ? It’s difficult enough as it is right now. I’m afraid these plans and those that support them, suffer from a total misunderstanding of what makes London tick and what London needs.
I feel defrauded. At least Ken Livingston initiated a whole raft of improvements that will be delivered like Oyster, ELL, Crossrail, supported Thameslink, London Overground, DLR extensions and more buses. What exactly has Boris delivered for that well-meaning vote I cast for him back in 2008 ? Cut TfL’s funding from the Western CC and polluting vehicles and delivered a new Routemaster no one needs. It’s made decsion making at the next election easy.
Andrew is right in referring to capacity, particularly with reference to railways and specially in the capacity of their London termini. The roads are hardly any better and this has particular relevance to East West routes.
I think it was in 2004 that I photographed the eastbound traffic stream on Creek Road, in Greenwich, at about 5:00 pm. The result made the M25 look like a speedway. I than walked down to the Thames and took an upstream view of a virtually unused river.
Increasing road capacity on south east London roads would not just be a matter of very considerable cost but of the compulsory purchase of wide swathes of housing. A few years ago, TfL and Greenwich Council devised a truly wondrous scheme to improve local bus services, a waterside rapid transit system made up of new bus lanes. Unfortunately nobody seemed to notice that Trafalgar Road is 3 lane and that it is bordered by the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Park, to the south, and the Royal Naval College on the north. On the other side of Greenwich, towards Deptford, it only gets worse.
I’m sure that there will be many who will ask why so much money should be spent to improve the lot of the good citizens of Greenwich but there are only two significant thoroughfares Central London bound that serve communities way out to the east of the Borough. Furthermore, because riverside land provides an attractive opportunity to developers, housing development is dense and getting rapidly more dense.
The problem is that a wide east – west river provides a partial but significant barrier to the construction of interlinked alternatives. Well, no actually! The river provides that alternative conduit and, like most other things, the price of use depends on the scale of use. The more punters, the less the unit cost.
There is another economic argument, too: roads require expensive regular maintenance and are subject, not just to this maintenance, but to maintenance by all of the providers of services that are buried under the road. The cost is not just of buses and train rolling stock, nor even the addition of the initial construction. These costs appear elsewhere so they don’t get factored in either the economic cost nor the carbon emissions. The Thames, on the other hand doesn’t require resurfacing and doesn’t get regularly dug up.
Crossrail demonstrates, far better than any argument that I can provide, the huge cost of providing a new transit artery through the densely crowded Capital. River transport costs are not so great as they, at first, appear.
Buses aren’t the answer because they’re not an attractive enough alternative to the car to deliver significant modal shift. The modal shift achieved in London is much more modest than you claim, and has been greatly exaggerated by a no doubt deliberate quirk of TfL’s counting.
In their travel censuses, they count “journey stages” rather than journeys. Each change to a new mode counts as a new stage. If I travelled from Greenwich to Oxford Circus by car, it would count as a single journey stage. If I modally shifted to public transport, it would involve a walk to the station, followed by a rail and tube journey, and would thus count as three journey stages. The effect of this is therefore to exaggerate the effects of my modal shift threefold. Just one of the many ways in which a lot of Ken’s claimed achievements didn’t quite stack up when held to the light!
Andrew
One comment in your post has me confused: “If Southeastern stops bothering with us, it is time to stop bothering with them. If you travel every day between Greenwich and central London, the riverbus price is almost exactly the same as travelling by train.”
This comment left me feeling a little annoyed with myself that I had just bought a train season ticket when I could have got a river one (I agree, the service is much better). I travel every weekday from Maze Hill to Charing Cross and would dearly love to stop bothering with Southeastern.
My recently renewed season ticket cost £760 (it was only about £400 3-4 years ago, but that’s another story). A season ticket on Thames Clippers http://www.thamesclippers.com/images/pdf/season-ticket-form-dec09.pdf costs £1,120, or almost 50% more. The differential for a rail ticket from Greenwich is presumably bigger.
So I made the right choice. What did you have in mind when you made your ‘almost exactly the same’ comment? I’d love to find out how I can get the river in every day without spending any more.
Political Animal – I can’t really see what’s to lose with helping Thames Clipper develop and I don’t understand why it should receive any less of a subsidy than any particular tube or bus line. So what that it only helps people who live near the river. The number 4 bus only helps people who live near the number 4 bus route etc etc…if the subsidy stands up to cost/benefit scrutiny in whatever way they measure these things then that’s surely good enough. No one is suggesting the river will rival the bus network as the major mover of people, but it just seems a bit of an obvious way to maybe help things in this area a bit. You need to be able to see over your political barricades occasionally
Noel – If that had been said five or so years ago, chances are I’d have broadly agreed with your stance. The problem is that we are now told the money has run out, and that any new spending will have to come at the expense of something else. Leaving aside that Policy Exchange’s costings for both building up river capacity and cutting fares to Travelcard levels seem astoundingly low, they still come to multi-millions of pounds. Which other mode’s investment are we going to cut to find the cash?
So lets suggest for one moment that the cash is sitting there in TfL’s coffers. Are boats the best place for the money to go? The key route they will serve is Central London – Docklands – Greenwich – Woolwich. This is an axis served by both the Jubilee Line and the DLR, both of which have significant multi-million capacity increases coming on stream in the next year or so. Yes, Southeastern has it’s moments of utter crapness and there isn’t a huge amount of scope for capacity increases there – but both Woolwich and Docklands will have the extra capacity provided by Crossrail in (in transport investment terms) the medium term. I’m afraid that this simply isn’t an area that is going to be top of anyone’s priority list for further large scale investment – it’s basically quite well served. I’m not sure if I have political barricades, but I do have political priorities – and I’m afraid that means prioritising genuinely public transport deprived areas like Thamesmead or Camberwell before, say, Greenwich.
“No one is suggesting the river will rival the bus network as the major mover of people.” – indeed, no one sensible is. Sadly, that seems to be Gilligan’s position. According to him, buses aren’t the answer, but boats somehow are. Hmmm.
And as I’ve come back to the discussion, I might as well respond to Andrew Gilligan’s last comment…
I don’t entirely see how else you’d go about measuring modal transport share – I know everything’s a Livingstone plot with you, but this is the system also used by ONS. It is accepted by the National Audit Office, and this supposed figure fiddling has evidently pulled the wool over the eyes of transport practitioners, specialists and academics worldwide. No, the overall modal shift isn’t huge (I never said it was), but it doesn’t have to be in order to be unique: no comparable city has managed any modal shift away from the car at all.
And you say that buses ‘aren’t the answer’. If they aren’t, what is? How is a boat going to get me from Westcombe Park to, say, Lewisham? From Peckham to Greenwich? From Holborn to London Bridge? I don’t think anyone is about to pay for an ‘attractive’ light rail scheme or an underground for all the journeys that can only be made by bus. To my mind, therefore, improving buses is the most effective use of any spare cash that happens to be floating around. But maybe I’m wrong. You’ve told us that buses aren’t the answer. What is?
URGENT! URGENT! Please get someone to ask Alastair Campbell whether he was security cleared to have dealings with such sensitive security material. Did he sign the official secrets Act?