Mayor's Question Time

Since coming to power, Boris Johnson has taken part in two Mayor's Question time sessions. You can read his written answers here and here. Lots of predictable non-answers to awkward questions, but a few interesting things come up:

• The East London Line phase 2 extension does not have funding. If it does get it, the target opening date is December 2011.
• London-wide Oyster PAYG on National Rail is now officially pencilled in for mid-2009 (the January 2009 date has seemed unlikely for some time).
• London Overground carried 29% more passengers in its first 5 months than Silverlink did in the equivalent period a year before.
• Feasibility studies for the Oxford Street Tram will not be going ahead. This answer is notably more negative than that given to the other tram schemes (which are merely "under review"), so don't expect it to happen in the foreseeable future.
• On Cross River Tram, Boris notes "the Government’s 2007 spending review allocation of funds to TfL to 2017 did not provide for the implementation of CRT". It's looking like time to cross that one off the list as well.
• A North London Line extension to Kingston is officially off the table (if it was ever on it).
• Not transport-related, but I think question 1052 (in the second document) may be some sort of secret of code.

I've also listened to some of the webcast of the June 18th meeting. About an hour in there's a long discussion of the Routemaster/bendy bus replacement project, which Boris sounds very keen on pushing ahead with.

During the discussion an assembly member points out that the first wave of bendy bus contracts comes up for renewal next year, which will put the Mayor in a very awkward position. He could renew them (can't do that), replace them with double deckers (not enough capacity) or replace them with lots of double deckers (increasing congestion). An issue to watch, certainly.

Mayor reviewing tram schemes and bus shelter projects

Architects' Journal has a slightly scare-mongering story about the status of the Oxford Street Tram and bus shelter redesign projects:

Boris Johnson has poured cold water on the proposals after he asked for a pan-London review of all the tram schemes currently on the drawing board.

Meanwhile, the TfL-run contest to find a new design to replace London's 12,500 bus shelters – hailed by Design for London boss Peter Bishop 'as the chance to design a new icon' – has failed to come up with a winner.

I don't think it's even news that Boris Johnson is conducting a review of the tram and transit schemes he's inherited (West End Tram, Cross River Tram, East London Transit and Greenwich Waterfront Transit), but I'm surprised to learn Westminster Council is against the West End Tram scheme.

Oxford Street Tram

At a debate last night Ken repeated his ambition to replace the buses on Oxford Street with trams:

If re-elected I intend to start installing a tram running the length of Oxford Street. There are some factors which pose difficulties but we have thought about it and there are ways of overcoming them. It will either be a shuttle tram or will be linked to the Cross River Tram

We would demolish the gyratory system [at Marble Arch], handing part of it back to green land and building two developments on part of it which will fund the project. People getting a taxi would have to use the roads running north and south of Oxford Street. We would phase the buses out slowly and maybe run some along Wigmore Street.

You can find a few more details in this Evening Standard piece, which mentions a £200m cost and a 2012-18 timescale. The article quotes statistics from this New West End Company press release, who sponsored the debate, and are major backers of the proposal. Ken discussed much the same idea in 2006.