Letter: Rail disasters
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Geoffrey Thompson (letter, 15 July) is right: any "cheap fares"
policy for London that does not apply to mainline suburban services is
unfair to the "ratepayers" of the south-east quadrant of London, which
is not served by the Underground.
The answer is to emulate German cities such as Hamburg by creating a
Verkehrsverbund that incorporates mainline suburban services. Such a "transport
confederation", independent of city government but acting in the city's
best interests, would receive all fare revenues from the transport operators
and would refund their operating costs. Investment would be funded through
the confederation, which would have the same overall planning role as
the former GLC.
Lack of such an overall planning body for rail development has, I am
convinced, been the main reason for London's lamentable lack of progress,
compared with German cities and Paris, over many decades. Separate planning
staffs at London Transport and British Rail saw themselves as rivals for
public funds, and put forward competitive schemes inspired by no overall
vision.
In recent years the "Crossrail" scheme (a tunnel route carrying mainline
trains) has been in competition with the LT "Chelsea-Hackney" scheme (for
yet another small-bore tube line).
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