Brown “hours from stopping the Underground and buses”
FORMER London Transport Commissioner Mike Brown has admitted he came close to closing the network and that the city’s transport system is “starving” for money.
“The rest of the national industry, the private operators, got whatever they needed to keep going. Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving,” he told RAIL In an exclusive interview.
“Let’s not beat about the bush. We are absolutely living hand to mouth now on TfL.”
Brown stepped down on July
10, with the capital still struggling to cope with the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.
He revealed just how close to the brink the capital’s network came this spring, before central Government threw a £1.5 billion financial lifeline ( RAIL 906).
“We have a deal that stopped me pulling the plug on services.
But only just. I was hours from having to stop the Underground and buses from running in this, the greatest city on Earth. How insane is that? How could that even be allowed to happen?
“I waited until five to midnight on the day when I would have had to pull the plug for the next day, before I got the letter from Government on an interim funding settlement.”
He added: “This isn’t a partypolitical point, but it really does need a fresh look at how this dynamic between a devolved city such as London operates in the context of a national Government.”
Brown defended his financial record up to the point the pandemic struck. Cutting the deficit by 70%, he said he was on track to make an operating surplus for the first time, despite central Government taking away £800 million a year in support. At the same time, he said: “We were shooting the lights out in terms of the service that we provide.”
He has nothing but praise for the way TfL staff have handled the COVID crisis: “The frontline delivery of services in the last three months has been extraordinary. Even in the most stringent lockdown this country has ever seen, we kept Tube and bus services going. That was hugely impressive.
“These are massive changes in what is a public transport city - the only place in the UK where car ownership is less than 50% of the population. People rely on us.”
Brown warned that future investment will be affected by the fallout from the crisis. He called on the Government to complete existing schemes, while accepting that further spending is likely to be delayed.
He said that money must be found to pay for new Piccadilly
Line trains, which are due to be built by Siemens at a new factory in Goole on Humberside.
“I want the Piccadilly Line not to have pretty much the oldest trains in the country. In fact, the only place with older trains is the Bakerloo Line. They will be 50 years old before they are replaced. And this is London!”
Brown cited the Croydon tram crash in November 2016, in which seven people died, and the failure to open Crossrail as the low points of his five years in office.
“I am disappointed that the
“The rest of the national industry, the private operators, got whatever they needed to keep going. Meanwhile, we are sitting here starving.”
Crossrail team let me down. They let London down. They were solving huge problems, but not solving every individual one at a granular level. They ran out of runway.”
Brown revealed that his time as London Transport Commissioner has been all-consuming, describing it as “full-on”.
He will go straight into a new role as chairman of the delivery authority to renew and refurbish the Palace of Westminster.
He left on July 10 after a twoweek handover to his successor, Andy Byford, who moves from being President of the New York City Transit Authority.
“People think it’s the financial institutions that keep London going,” Brown concluded.
“But it’s actually the people who are working in transport. The people at Bank station, rather than the people in the bank. The people who drive a train through the city every morning.
“I have met the most fantastic, talented, diverse, brilliant people who work in our transport system. They are the hidden heroes of London. And never more so than in the last few weeks.”