The Evening Standard reports that Transport for London has spend £18 million over the last year in providing replacement buses during Tube, DLR and Overground closures due to engineering work.
Caroline Pidgeon told the Evening Standard:
The London Assembly’s Transport Committee, led by Caroline Pidgeon has written to Southeastern trains seeking an explanation for the severe delays yesterday evening, and how passengers – some of whom left the train and walked along the tracks to escape the sweltering conditions – will be compensated.
A broken down train in Dartford caused significant delays to Southeastern services during the evening rush hour, and left passengers on one train stuck just outside Bexleyheath for almost two hours on the hottest day of the year.
Following on from extensive work by Caroline Pidgeon on Oyster overcharging, London Travelwatch have now looked at the issue and discovered that 8 million passengers are overcharged every month.
The Evening Standard covers the story here, and discussed the situation with Caroline:
Speaking to the London Assembly Transport Committee, the Managing Director of the London Underground has publicly acknowledged that problems on the Tube over the past year have resulted in an increase in lost customer hours on almost every line.
Chair of the Transport Committee, Caroline Pidgeon AM, said:
We recognise the challenges London Underground is facing as it works to deliver an extensive upgrade programme while carrying more and more passengers, but the past year has seen an unreliable service for passengers who are exceptionally frustrated by their daily commute.
While we heard today that if you go back several years things are generally improving, the recent performance of the Tube has undoubtedly deteriorated and is not good enough.
With major upgrade work about to start on the Northern line we hope lessons have been learned so that passengers who use it will not have to deal with the levels of disruption seen on the Jubilee and Victoria line upgrades.
The full reopening of Greenwich foot tunnel has been delayed once again, with users facing night time closures and no lifts throughout the Summer until September. At the same time work on the Woolwich foot tunnel, which has been completely closed since last year, is not set to be finished until August.
Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, discovered this information buried away on Greenwich Council’s website. The explanation for the six-month delay to the Greenwich foot tunnel is put down on the website to “additional works and problems with materials used in the repairs.” At present, no information at all has been provided by Greenwich Council about why the works at Woolwich foot tunnel are so far behind schedule.
Caroline Pidgeon is continuing to support action to tackle the high number of accidents and fatalities that face cyclists on London's roads. London faces an especially serious problem with accidents involving collisions between lorries and cyclists at junctions.
A recent question asked by Caroline to the Mayor revealed that in 2009 six cyclists were killed on London's roads in accidents involving a Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV), and with a further two cyclists killed in accidents involving a refuse lorry and a cement mixer. In 2010 there were two cyclists killed in accidents involving vehicles and two further two fatal collisions including a skip lorry and a cement truck.
Caroline has already given her full support to the campaign by the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) for better training for lorry drivers and recently received the petition that had already gathered more than 10,000 signatures. Read more information about the campaign here.
Caroline Pidgeon AM joined Oval Lib Dem Cllr Ishbel Brown and Streatham Cllr Jeremy Clyne visiting the exhibition for the proposed Northern Line extension from Kennington to Battersea Power Station via Vauxhall Nine Elms.
“The exhibition showed the planned route but still left many questions unanswered and meant residents were very concerned about the impact on their homes and during the construction. I was pleased to hear that residents in Kennington – both Southwark and Lambeth - will have a further exhibition explaining details of the proposals for construction shafts which could cause real disruption to local people” commented Caroline.
Caroline Pidgeon has sharply criticised Southeastern's plans to scale back local train services during the 2012 Games. Commenting on Southeastern's proposals to reduce the frequency of some train services and to even remove some stations from their timetable, Caroline said:
"Ensuring more people can get into London to visit Olympic venues will of course create challenges for Southeastern, however Southeastern's approach to tackling these challenges is completely wrong. Putting on extra carriages and extra staff at stations is the best way to ensure that the needs of local commuters and visitors are both met, while ensuring a reliable service is also maintained.
"Southeastern must listen to the outrage they have created amongst residents in Greenwich and Deptford and back down over their completely daft proposals."
Last Autumn saw the dreadful news that the late night service on the Clipper service was being removed from the winter timetable.
The good news is that following an excellent campaign run by commuters, Southwark Liberal Democrat Councillors and Caroline (read more on Caroline's site here and here) an evening service has now returned, starting from the 1st April.
Caroline Pidgeon has exposed the immense waste by Transport for London (TfL) in allowing buildings in Catford to remain empty for almost 25 years.
Transport for London have been urged by Caroline Pidgeon and Lewisham Liberal Democrat Councillors to either refurbish the buildings or sell then.
Chris Maines, leader of the Liberal Democrat Council Group on Lewisham said "These buildings have just been sitting there unused for years and years now. It is a total waste of money.