Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has been called on to explain how future transport demand will be met in the absence of key projects he recently shelved.
The London Assembly transport committee said Johnson’s draft transport strategy, due for publication in April, should include ‘aspirations’ for schemes well beyond those that were funded to 2017/18 in Transport for London’s 10-year business plan.
It said the mayor’s vision document, Way to go!, did not offer ideas to meet longer-term growth in demand for transport.
TfL’s business plan excluded a number of proposed schemes such as the Thames Gateway Bridge, Crossrail 2 and Cross River Tram, but a spokesman for the mayor recently suggested that some of the projects could be revived, if they were consistent with the mayor’s transport strategy (Surveyor, 22 January).
In its response to Way to go!, which is intended to help shape the mayor’s draft transport strategy, the committee warned: ‘If assumptions for growth in population, employment and daily journeys are not substantially revised, and they were not for TfL’s recent business plan, it raises the question of how future demand will be met in the absence of the [scrapped] projects.’
The committee recommended that if a project such as Crossrail 2 was necessary to cater for future demand, the case for it should be made in the strategy, ‘even though funding does not yet exist for the project’.
It also questioned whether the long-term level of investment outlined in the business plan matched the mayor’s aspirations for cycling.
In order to achieve Johnson’s aim of a 400% increase in cycling on 2000 levels by 2025, more money may be needed for the mayor’s walking and cycling initiatives. ‘The cycling revolution will also need to take place outside central London, from where much of the potential 400% increase will need to come,’ it said.
The strategy should set out the required contribution from transport to CO2 reductions – in order to meet a 60% reduction in emissions by 2025 – and measures to bring about such reductions. ‘It is likely significant cuts in CO2 emissions from road transport will need to be realised,’ it said.
The committee also called for a fuller description of the mayor’s approach to travel demand management, and the extent it would be used to tackle traffic congestion.
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