HUGE CUTS THREAT TO TUBES AND BUSES

DRASTIC WARNING BY MAYOR OVER AXE TO SERVICES, KEY ROADS AND NEW BIKE ROUTES

- Ross Lydall City Hall Editor

MAYOR Sadiq Khan today warned that 100 bus routes are facing the axe and Tube services could be cut by almost 10 per cent as he revealed the full extent of the financial crisis facing London transport.

The cutbacks, which could start from next month, might result in a million fewer public transport journeys a day and drive a “significant” number of Londoners back into their cars. There would be a nine per cent reduction in services on the London Underground and 18 per cent on the bus network, with 100 of 700 bus routes axed and a further 200 having frequencies reduced.

Already worn-out trains on the Bakerloo and Central lines would not be replaced until the 2040s. All new cycle and pedestrian road safety schemes would be ditched. “Vision Zero” efforts to eliminate road deaths would be paused and diesel buses would remain in use until 2037.

Mr Khan said he had a “duty to sound the alarm” on the scale of the financial problems facing Transport for London. But critics said he was “scaremongering” in what appeared to be a high-risk attempt to force the Government to commit long-term support.

TfL is facing a £1.3 billion hole in its capital investment and repairs budget beyond April 2023. With
Continued on Page 2out guarantees, it will have to enter a period of “managed decline”, in which only safety-critical repairs are carried out. City Hall claims this could take London back to the unreliable and unfunded network last seen in the Seventies and Eighties.