A Message to the Mayor | John Dales

Today is 6th May 2016, and Londoners have just elected Sadiq Khan as their new Mayor – the third the city has had, and the fifth Mayoral term since the creation of the role in 2000.

I live in London and Urban Movement has its office in London. We also do a lot of work in the city, the vast majority for its elected authorities – the 33 Councils, Transport for London, and the Greater London Authority. You might think, therefore, that whomever I voted for, the key thing for Urban Movement is that Mr Khan runs the city in such a way that there continues to be work for us to do.

The key thing for us, however, is that there should continue to be work for us to do that we believe in.

As Chair of the Transport Planning Society, I take a similar view: that elected leaders should do what is good for their constituents, not merely what is easy, popular or expedient. And as a Trustee of Living Streets (the UK charity for everyday walking), it won’t surprise you to know that I believe one of the things that is good for London – and indeed the citizens of all towns and cities – is that it is convenient, safe and comfortable to get around on foot, including for trips of which walking is only a part. 

With this in mind, and since the Mayor, as head of Transport for London, will shortly need to start work on his new Mayor’s Transport Strategy, I thought that I’d set out a few thoughts about what this next MTS should encompass, and how it should be pursued. If you happen to have Mr Khan’s ear, you could always pass this on to him.

Like all politicians, the new Mayor will want to make his mark – to do things that people can associate positively with him, not his predecessors. 

In transport terms, Ken Livingstone (Mayor for the first two terms) is justifiably famous for introducing what’s still the world’s largest and most comprehensive urban road pricing/congestion charging system. Finally getting Crossrail going is another thing to his credit. In addition, he had a clear focus on improving bus services, and also on making London more walkable. The Walking Plan for London was published in 2004, the same year as Towards a Fine City for People (a report for Ken by Jan Gehl), and guidance on Improving Walkability followed in 2005.

Boris Johnson, by contrast, will be remembered as a ‘Cycling Mayor’ – thanks to ‘Boris Bikes’ (although the cycle hire idea was actually Ken’s) and the cycling infrastructure that followed his 2013 Vision for Cycling in London. (Indeed, just this morning, I was present when Boris officially opened the North-South and East-West Cycle Superhighways.) He also became (in)famous for scrapping ‘bendy-buses’, replacing them with ‘Boris Buses’; for the Cable Car; and also for scrapping the western extension of the congestion charge zone that Ken introduced. While his cake-and-eat-it policy of ‘Traffic Smoothing’ can hardly be said to have had positive results for the city, he oversaw a highly effective Olympic Transport Strategy (although the city has yet to take forward some of the positive lessons learned about demand management). His promotion of ‘Better Streets’ has resulted in significant improvements to many of London’s high streets and town centres.

However, while I think both Ken and Boris were behind a number of important transport achievements, there is much that Sadiq can do to surpass these and establish a positive, lasting transport legacy of his own. For what it’s worth, my advice to him is as follows.

• Firstly, be brave yet wise, and base the new Transport Strategy on a shared vision of what the city should become, not on relatively modest tweaks to the status quo. Top down, not bottom up. Radical change, of the kind London needs, will continue to be resisted, and therefore harder to achieve, if people unite in fear over details like the loss of a parking space or a marginal increase in car journey times. By contrast, Londoners could unite around a vision of a genuinely safer, healthier, cleaner, fairer, greener and more prosperous and efficient city – and this consensus could be produced by a major public discourse about ‘Your London’, which the office of Mayor is very well placed to conduct.
• Rethink London’s surface mass transit network from scratch. London’s bus service is both awesome and essential, but its development is stifled by the daunting nature of the task. Those charged with its care understandably resist the numerous demands for one change here and another change there (however well-meant or justified), on the quite reasonable grounds that every action causes a reaction, and the existing network is so complex that the effect of pulling just one thread could cause a damaging unravelling. So, instead, give the bus service planners the challenge, the time and the resources to give the system a once-in-a-generation overhaul, to start with a blank sheet of paper, bring trams and Bus Rapid Transit into the equation, and develop a surface mass transit system fit for London’s coming decades. The specific idea of pedestrianising Oxford Street – long spoken of, but filed under ‘Too Hard’ – has been gaining traction amongst politicians and the public alike; and this could be the catalyst for the transformation of the city as a whole, not just one street.

• Replace (or upgrade) the role of Cycling Commissioner with (or to) a Healthy Streets Commissioner. That’s not in any way to disparage all that has been done by Andrew Gilligan (pictured above, kissing a Cycle Superhighway). Rather, it’s to say that now’s the time to move forward with a role that is not focused on a single mode. I’ve heard the term Active Travel Commissioner bandied about, but I caution against that, as still implying too narrow a focus. This isn’t just about helping people be less obese, it’s about tackling an air quality crisis and other key issues for the city. Transport for London is a world leader in making the vital connection between how its people and goods travel and how healthy its citizens are; and it has developed a multi-faceted approach to creating Healthier Streets that should form the foundation for policy and action to achieve more trips on foot, by bicycle, and by less-polluting motorised modes (like clean and fuel-efficient buses, trams and trains). The Healthy Streets Commissioner will lead the pursuit and achievement of better transport and better public health in a genuinely joined-up manner.

• Prepare the way for the transformation of London’s taxi and private hire services. Fatal threats to the traditional order are already at hand (e.g. Uber) and more are just around the corner (e.g. autonomous vehicles). Whatever we might wish, the taxi and minicab business will soon change, perhaps beyond recognition, and this is a process that needs to be managed, not just observed. If the trades can be engaged in a positive way – for example, supportive regulatory changes and assistance with introducing cleaner vehicles in exchange for agreement over controls to reduce the negative effects of cab traffic and ranking on air quality, congestion and the urban realm – the transition could be less painful and more gradual than will otherwise be the case.
• Roll straight on from Crossrail to Crossrail 2, and get early planning for Crossrail 3 underway as soon as possible. Simple!
• Get ready to extend, and rebrand, the congestion charge. The purpose of limiting motor traffic in central London – and other sensitive streets – is not just to reduce congestion (and probably never has been). It is, or should be, also about discouraging the use of the most space-inefficient, the most dangerous (per mile travelled) and most polluting (per person trip) vehicles; and about ensuring that the city does not bear the externalised costs of trips by those vehicles.
• Make door-to-door journeys by benign modes even more seamless, by ending the system of separate fares for every bus trip, and by bringing the hire bikes into the public transport fold.

There’s more that I could say, but it would become less and less original. If there’s more that you would have written, if you were me, then write it.

I’ll close by going back to my first bullet point. What London needs – really, needs – is a transport strategy that is configured around a clear idea of what the city must become to remain the greatest in the world. When it’s said, for example, that “even with our lowest traffic growth forecasts, we’ll have to build new roads, tunnels and bridges to meet the demand”, that ignores the matter of what the city can or should bear. However reluctant, it’s still a form of predict-and-provide. Mr Khan should grasp the opportunity to help London decide-and-provide: “This is the city we want; so this is all the private motor traffic growth we can handle; so this is what we’re going to have to do to enable the movement of people and goods in other ways”.

To brand such an approach as anti-car is completely to miss the point. This is about being pro-London. Transport should serve the city, not dominate it. To make our city healthy and prosperous, and to retain its international status, its citizens and businesses will need to make and accept changes to how we and our goods and services get around. And since we might not like some of those changes, Mr Khan will need to make the wider case, develop a shared vision, and show determined and inspirational leadership. I wish him very well in doing so.

The best way to be ‘A Mayor for All Londoners’ is to be a Mayor for London.

If you’re interested, BBC London’s Tom Edwards has produced this piece on Mayor Johnson’s transport legacy. 

​Thanks to Bill Chidley for the photo of Andrew Gilligan.