Mayor's Question Time: July 2008

A few interesting items from the most recent Mayor's Question Time:

• Trains on the Gospel Oak to Barking Line will be lengthened to three cars by 2010. Electrification of the line is too expensive.
  
• Bus roofs are being painted white to help keep them cool.
  
• Boris likes Greenwich Waterfront Transit.
  
• This list of South London transport improvements includes things like Greenwich Waterfront Transport but conspicuously not Cross River Tram. Nail, coffin, etc.
  
• Croydon's tram system will be getting deep cleaned and refurbished, as well as a new livery and new seat moquettes.
  
• The first three bus routes to be unbendied will be the 38, 507 and 521, with "appropriate" capacity to be provided by the double deckers (note not "the same" capacity).
  
• The DLR is set to go back to normal  on August 25 (at least on the Lewisham route) , rather than there being a different set of closures.
  
• The redeveloped King's Cross may include a new footbridge to allow continued access from York Way.
  
• The Mayor has met with Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly to ask for money for the East London Line phase 2 extension.
  

February Board Papers: Miscellaneous notes

I've already posted separately about ELL Phase 2, the Southern franchise takeover and Shepherd's Bush Overground but there are a lot of other things worth noting:

• Another follow-on order for new London Overground Electrostars is planned for this month.
• Roll out of Oyster PAYG to the whole London rail network is still pencilled in for next January.
• The renaming of Shepherd's Bush (H&C) to Shepherd's Bush Market will happen when Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) reopens, not when Wood Lane opens (which may be earlier) as previously announced. There's likely only weeks in it.
• The King's Cross St Pancras tmporary tunnel is known as the 'Hockey stick'.
• Royal assent for the Crossrail Bill is expected by the end of July. A Lords committee will consider petitions from 19 Feb until mid May.
• Purchase time at tube ticket machines is down to "0.28 minutes".
• The East London Line officially ceased to be a London Underground line on 22 January, when they finished clearing their things and handed it over to contractors.
• Replacement signalling (and ultimately Automatic Train Operation) is due on the Jubilee and Northern Lines by December 2009 and September 2011 respectively, with the first part of the Jubilee commissioned this October.
• A tender for new Piccadilly Line trains has just been issued.
• The first S-Stock train is due for delivery for testing in January 2009.
• The first new DLR train was delivered on 22 December. The whole first 'Woolwich Arsenal' batch is due in service by September, with a follow-on 'Olympic' batch coming next.
• They're still deciding how to progress the Cross River Tram scheme.
• They're pressing on with Greenwich Waterfront Transit and East London Transit, and are due to start October 2009 and July 2011 respectively,

You can read more in the board papers PDF.

Board Papers time again

The notes from this month's TfL board meeting have been published. A few things of note:

• TfL have started ordering Oyster equipment for the roll out to the whole National Rail network in 2009
• London Bridge may not have capacity for South London Line trains when it's rebuilt for Thameslink (there'll be fewer terminus platforms). TfL suggest the East London Line phase 2 should go ahead ASAP to solve this problem.
• Major DLR works will happen at Stratford during the Christmas closure on Liverpool St (this probably actually means the new North London Line platforms).
• An "Oyster Control Centre" has been setup, whose main job seems to be reprogramming the gatelines to fix unresolved journeys after station evacuations and other events.
• The first new Piccadilly Line train is due in 2011, with the upgrade progamme finsihed by 2014
• TfL are having doubts about how feasible it is to extend Circle Line stations for 7 car trains, and are investigating other options.
• TfL are still deciding whether to go with the "Harmony" or SLC2k service patterns for the North London Line upgrade. No idea what either of these are.
• The future of the Cross River Tram and Crystal Palace Tramlink extension looks very murky
• "The review of a number of projects in the Planning directorate continued this quarter, including tram and bus transit schemes. The outputs of these reviews are expected to be made available at the end of the year."
• The East London Transit project (Ilford-Barking-Dagenham) appears to be progressing, but isn't due to start in October 2009.
• Greenwich Waterfront Transit is still in public consultation, and will take even longer.
• A TWA application for the DLR Dagenham Dock extension will be made early next year, but the project has no funding after that.

The last few bits are from the appendices.

Update: The document has been updated with a load of extra bits tacked on, including enormous tables of Travelcard and London Overground prices.

The Millennium Busway

The latest Smoke has a write-up of London's only subaquatic bus route, the 108 (Stratford-North Greenwich-Lewisham), and by my reckoning one of very few that pass the same point 3 times during their run. Anyway, the article briefly mentions the Millennium Busway, built to speed passengers from Charlton station to the Dome. Having no recollection of what this engineering marvel amounts to and finding little online, I decided to take a look while I was in East London yesterday.

The answer: not much. Here it is on a map. Very nearly three quarters of a mile of, well, bus lane, stretching all the way from North Greenwich station to North Greenwich Odeon.

The northern half runs adjacent to one of the Dome's gridlocked access roads and has no stops - the only building it passes is this isolated pub with a terrace of houses behind it.

The southern half runs around the back of Greenwich Millennium Village (where there are two lonely stops), then terminates at a junction with Bugsby's Way (pictured). Buses cross from here into the retail park with that Millennium eco-Sainsbury's. Then it's out onto normal streets.

Under the "Millennium Transit" plans it was intended that buses on the route would be guided electronically, following a buried cable, but the technology was abandoned before public service commenced, partly because of safety concerns. The busway is now used by ordinary buses to get passengers to North Greenwich station slightly quicker, but one day will be part of Greenwich Waterfront Transit, and far in the future that could be converted to trams, finally fulfilling the busway's destiny.