Caroline was joined by local Assembly Candidate John Russell, Lib Dem leader in Lewisham Cllr Chris Maines and Greenwich Lib Dem campaigner Chris Smith out and about in Greenwich on Friday afternoon, knocking on doors and talking to local people. The team got a great response and ended the day with a wonderful ice cream at Black Vanilla in Blackheath!
Speaking to the Guardian about the costly project to build a cable car link from North Greenwich to the Royal Docks, Caroline Pidgeon said:
"While the cable car will be an attractive addition to London's skyline I question whether it will provide a practical transport link for many people on a daily basis."
Commenting on another major disruption to the Jubilee line during the rush hour on 22nd March, Caroline Pidgeon said:
"This line is critical to ensuring London keeps moving during the Games, but far from seeing improvements, reliability has been falling.
"The Mayor and Transport for London need to detail actions that will be taken in the next three months to turn this round."
And just 4 days later, hundreds of passengers had to walk out of a broken down train and through a darkened tunnel to safety.
Caroline said:
Local Liberal Democrat Councillors Lisa Rajan, David Hubber, Paul Noblet, Simon Hughes MP and myself have been inundated with emails from concerned passengers in Surrey Docks about the future of Greenland Pier. This also affects people who use the service and live just over in Lewisham.
We held a meeting on Monday morning with Gill Davies, Southwark Council's Director of Environment and Leisure. Our main aim for the meeting was to get Southwark Council to stop the temporary closure of the pier on 28th February, and instead keep it open for the Thames Clippers boats to use. We know how vital and valued the commuter boat service is and how many people rely on it. We also wanted to ask for a temporary pontoon to be installed if the existing one really does need to be removed for repairs.
We divided the pier issue into two parts - the immediate future, following the official Notice to Quit served on Thames Clippers, and the longer term future of the pier.
As far as the immediate situation is concerned, the Notice to Thames Clippers was, we were told, a legal requirement to enable the pier to be inspected and repaired as necessary. Thames Clippers should be granted a temporary licence to enable them to continue to use the pier until such time as it may be removed temporarily for any works. We have stressed that there should be no discontinuance of the service on 28 February, nor until it is essential for the pier to be closed, and we were led to believe that this would be the case. We also asked that users should be given one month's notice before the pontoon is actually removed.
As news emerges that TfL has had to pay £25m to the company that owns Canary Wharf in compensation for the major delays to the Jubilee line upgrade, Caroline Pidgeon commented:
"Users of the Jubilee line have faced years of misery as the upgrade programme over-ran. To learn now that millions of pounds has been shelled out to Canary Wharf Group, while passengers have not been compensated, adds insult to injury.
"It is time the Mayor and TfL were honest with Londoners over the real cost of this long-standing fiasco. We are entitled to know the details of every penny that has been spent."
You can read full coverage in the Evening Standard, the Docklands & East London Advertiser and the Wharf website.
The South London Press reports on the overcharging suffered by many passengers who travelled from Blackheath station after the fireworks display on 5th November - when station staff taped over the card readers at the station.
Caroline commented:
"Many would be unaware they had been overcharged and, for those who were, the onus was on them to collect the overcharged amount.
"It beggars belief Southeastern merely taped over the Oyster readers leading to so many people being overcharged on their Oyster cards."
The River Thames is a forgotten highway, a tube line effectively, across the centre of London and yet under-resourced in terms of transport.
In January, the London Assembly Transport Committee is looking into river transport services - so Caroline and other Committee members spent a chilly morning in early December out and about on the river with Thames Clippers from Putney to Erith, looking at the challenges and opportunities to really expand river transport services for Londoners.
Writing for the London24 website, Caroline Pidgeon addresses what needs to be done to make cycling in London safe:
Firstly, we must recognise that the primary cause of cycle fatalities is lorries colliding with cyclists.
The Mayor has announced some limited proposals, including training advice for cyclists, but it is only a start.
The London Assembly Transport Committee has published a report in response to TfL’s new proposals on transport accessibility, showing that step-free access and other accessibility measures fall far short of the growing need for them, with half of bus stops, two thirds of rail stations, and three quarters of tube stations, not fully accessible to people with limited mobility.
The report argues for a range of measures, including low-cost steps such as allowing manual ramps, upgrading pedestrian crossings, providing better training for bus drivers, and improving online and paper maps.
Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, commenting on Boris Johnson’s fare proposals for 2012, which he confirmed today will be set at RPI plus 2 per cent, said:
“This is the fourth year of fare misery that Londoners will face under Boris Johnson.
“He has already hit Londoners hard by hiking up bus fares from 90 pence to £1.30 for a single fare since he arrived at City Hall. Today’s further rise will really hit hard many people, especially those on low incomes.
“Boris Johnson has failed to tackle effective action to tackle fare evasion or cut waste which is widespread throughout TfL. If the Mayor got on top of these issues there would be no need for such severe fare rises, especially for low income Londoners.