Ken Livingstone on transport as a public service

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From The Morning Star - written by a former mayor of London who has considerable experience in public transport

Transport should be run as a public service for everyone’s benefit

Labour is right to stand for bringing our railways back into public ownership so they are run in the interests of passengers, not private profit, writes KEN LIVINGSTONE ...

Lots of views in the (quite long article) ...and facts and views somewhat merged into each other so that the boundaries are woolly.  I would certainly agree that transport should have the passenger's benefit as one of its primary aims - perhaps the key aim. I would go wider and add in potential new passenger's benefit, and the benefit of those who's lives those passengers benefit by being able to travel well.

[Reginald25]

Politics aside, Ken Livingstone achieved much for London when mayor. If you've traveled on the Overground south of Shoreditch, what a transformation. And this is reflected in the number of passengers.

[Red Squirrel]

Each year the Tories try to pass the buck when it comes to these rail hikes, yet the reality is that the amount by which train companies can raise regulated fares is the responsibility of the Transport Secretary.

Of course this would no longer be the case if the railways were nationalised, because... um... er... Squirrel!

[CyclingSid]

Wot, no newts!

[TaplowGreen]

Impossible to take the author or the source seriously, given the disgrace in which the former left public life which casts a long shadow over anything he may have achieved and the (historic and current) agenda of the latter.

I'm reminded, with some irony, of the general contempt for journalism and newspapers generally on display within this forum - but yes of course nationalisation would solve everything! 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm reminded, with some irony, of the general contempt for journalism and newspapers generally on display within this forum...

Not all journalists, and not all newspapers... though even the best get it wrogn sometimes.

[TaplowGreen]

I'm reminded, with some irony, of the general contempt for journalism and newspapers generally on display within this forum...

Not all journalists, and not all newspapers... though even the best get it wrogn sometimes.

Indeed - hence my use of the word "general" - as in mainly, with some exceptions - the irony comes with the citation of the Morning Star, barely in circulation (since the Soviets stopped buying it), even less taken seriously, but still retaining a reputation for bone headed Stalinism.

[TonyK]

Thank you for posting that, grahame - the Morning Star is not my usual chip-wrapper. Nor many other peoples, for that matter.

As a piece of journalism, that article weighs heavily on rhetoric and ideology rather than research and facts, but I wouldn't have expected anything else, given the readership, most of whom will probably have spoken to Ken in person within the past 12 months or so. It has the tone of an angry letter to the Bristol Post about it, as the author extols the virtues of having a civil servant driving the train.

Methinks the author is trying to get back in the good books of the current labour leadership.

[Bmblbzzz]

In the 70s and 80s I spent many hours examining the Morning Star in Swindon waiting room. Along with its sister engine the North Star.

[IndustryInsider]

In the 70s and 80s I spent many hours examining the Morning Star in Swindon waiting room. Along with its sister engine the North Star.

Perhaps if the Morning Star ever ceases publication, they'll also call the last edition 'Evening Star'? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_Standard_Class_9F_92220_Evening_Star

[TaplowGreen]

In the 70s and 80s I spent many hours examining the Morning Star in Swindon waiting room. Along with its sister engine the North Star.

Perhaps if the Morning Star ever ceases publication, they'll also call the last edition 'Evening Star'? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_Standard_Class_9F_92220_Evening_Star

I've had a few evenings in the North Star in Ealing, often when the trains fell over and I was stuck at Ealing Broadway - sadly a pale shadow of its former self now.

[Red Squirrel]

In the 70s and 80s I spent many hours examining the Morning Star in Swindon waiting room. Along with its sister engine the North Star.

Perhaps if the Morning Star ever ceases publication, they'll also call the last edition 'Evening Star'? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BR_Standard_Class_9F_92220_Evening_Star

Of course the Evening Star is the Morning Star - and there's a lesson there for all of us, he said profoundly...

[ChrisB]

Politics aside, Ken Livingstone achieved much for London when mayor. If you've traveled on the Overground south of Shoreditch, what a transformation. And this is reflected in the number of passengers.

Like removing the sequencing of traffic lights on London's major highways so you now stop at more lights than before....and they haven't been fully resequenced, even now

[TaplowGreen]

Politics aside, Ken Livingstone achieved much for London when mayor. If you've traveled on the Overground south of Shoreditch, what a transformation. And this is reflected in the number of passengers.

Like removing the sequencing of traffic lights on London's major highways so you now stop at more lights than before....and they haven't been fully resequenced, even now

He's been stuck on red for decades (.......I'm here all week, twice on Fridays, try the fish)

[Red Squirrel]

Politics aside, Ken Livingstone achieved much for London when mayor. If you've traveled on the Overground south of Shoreditch, what a transformation. And this is reflected in the number of passengers.

Like removing the sequencing of traffic lights on London's major highways so you now stop at more lights than before....and they haven't been fully resequenced, even now

I'm intrigued by this statement. One person's red light is another's green, and 'greens all the way' on one route suggest other routes must wait longer. I found this piece in The Independent which, whilst initially suggesting that Livingstone fiddled with traffic light sequencing to make the Congestion Charge more palatable, goes on to half-admit that pedestrian phases had previously been set too short - which, based on the form of post-war highways engineers, seems fairly likely.

Modern traffic signalling systems tend to use SCOOT to optimise traffic flows; prior to SCOOT signal timing was pretty crude. Many authorities (including London presumably) have adopted a hierarchy of transport users¹ with pedestrians and cyclists at the top; this hierarchy is programmed into SCOOT and may give drivers, with their in-group bias, the feeling that they are being short-changed.

_{1. See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/341513/pdfmanforstreets.pdf, table 3.2}