If you've been through a tube ticket hall recently you may have seen, or picked up, TfL's new promotional leaflet.
TfL normally go to great lengths not to print anything, indeed over the last few years leaflet racks have become tumbleweed holders for tube maps, accessibility screeds and not much else. So someone must have thought it financially worthwhile to produce a 20 page full-colour leaflet banging the drum about transport improvements and distributing it widely across the network. That might be the Mayor, who gets to pen a cheery upbeat welcome on pages two and three. Or it might be some other executive who's worked out that people won't ever click on a webpage about TfL's improvement programme but might read about it if you print it out for them.
Rather than eulogising generally, the leaflet focuses on seven different changes, some underway, some complete. Each gets a double page spread with text and two photos, and each covers a different aspect of the capital's transport system. Let's take a look at the chosen seven.
Improvement 1
Easing congestion and improving accessibility at a transformed Victoria station
This is a strange place to start. TfL are rightly proud of the mammoth reconstruction project they've had underway at Victoria since 2011, and which they finally completed six months ago. A new entrance at Cardinal Place, extra interconnecting walkways and full step-free operation are certainly something to crow about. The transformation has also done much to ease congestion, mainly by deliberately directing passengers down extra passageways on tediously devious routes. Lengthy bastardtunnels were first put into operation at King's Cross St Pancras in 2009, and are much despised, and further bastardtunnels have since made an appearance at Tottenham Court Road (oh god, how much further does this corridor go?) and Bond Street (I have no idea where I am, but this cannot possibly be the quickest way to the trains). It's the opening of Victoria's bastardtunnels which has allowed the station to enter a lengthy period of escalator renewal, with a tedious one-way system around a miserable shuffling labyrinth in operation until July 2020. So when I currently think of Victoria the last thing I'm thinking is 'improvement', merely additional grind, and maybe it would have been wiser to keep quiet.
Improvement 2
Greener buses for a cleaner city
The Mayor's been banging the drum about air pollution ever since entering office, initially to emphasise that he inherited the problem rather than causing it, and more recently to be seen to be doing something about it. Fixing bus engines is one of the few things he can proactively do, hence now "all new buses are equipped with state-of-the-art technology". This doesn't mean zero emissions, indeed double deckers only have to be diesel-electric hybrids which "are estimated to reduce carbon dioxide by up to 30 per cent", a fairly meaningless phrase. Meanwhile all new single deckers will be zero emission but only from 2020, and that's only "at tailpipe", and as for the Mayor's long-promised 12 Low Emission Bus Zones, they won't all be in operation before the end of the year. Getting there, but nowhere near job done.
Improvement 3
A more frequent and spacious service on the tube
Here's one of TfL's more overused claims, indeed Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson could rightly have used it, and whoever's Mayor in 2024 will probably be able to do the same. That's because increasing capacity is a mammoth project, involving both signalling and rolling stock, and because nobody's been able to complete the project as quickly as they'd have liked. The leaflet boasts specifically about "two more trains an hour during peak periods" on the Victoria line, and extended evening peak service on the Northern line "between 5pm to 7pm", and an "increased" number of trains on some of the Jubilee line during the "busiest periods in the morning and evening". That's great, but your journey probably hasn't just been mentioned. The leaflet also praises the 192-strong fleet of spacious S Stock trains on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, which affects far more passengers, but this replacement programme started way back in 2010 and was completed in April 2017. Future stock renewals remain distant pipedreams, so don't merit a mention.
Improvement 4
Stay connected and updated as you travel
The fact that over 95% of Underground stations have wifi isn't new, indeed checking Facebook underground's been perfectly possible for more than six years. What is new is that you can now connect at Victoria Coach Station and (finally) at 79 London Overground stations. The leaflet went to print in February, so doesn't mention that the impressive fact that onboard wifi is now available on purple TfL Rail trains, nor that free wifi was switched on at North Greenwich bus station this week. What may excite you more is that 4G mobile coverage is coming to the tube "from 2020", unless you're the sort of curmudgeon who enjoys hearing fellow passengers' phone conversations collapse when they enter a tunnel, in which case you'll no doubt hate the idea.
Improvement 5
Connecting more of London with new Night Services on the Tube and Overground
The word 'new' is doing a lot of heavy lifting work here. The tube's had an overnight weekend service for almost three years, and even the most recent Overground addition was in February last year. It makes sense for the leaflet to praise the Night network, and to labour the obvious point that fares in the small hours of the morning are off-peak. But Improvement 5 is also entirely retrospective, with zero mention of any further Night Tube extensions to come, and very much old news.
Improvement 6
Updated Santander Cycles for improved safety and comfort
This is an intriguing headline claim, effectively confessing that the original bikes were unsafe and awkward to ride. Turn up at a cycle hire station today and you're likely to get one of those. The new less cumbersome bikes are being built in Stratford-upon-Avon, and "will offer riders improved handling, safety and comfort, with a new gel saddle, lower frame, tyres with puncture prevention and a new gear hub." The leaflet explains no more, and doesn't mention that they first entered service eighteen months ago, nor that they won't be replacing the original eleven thousand outright, merely adding to them.
Improvement 7
'Please Offer Me A Seat' badge scheme
Here's another welcome, but non-recent, introduction. The POMAS badge scheme was launched two years ago, in April 2017, providing visual notification that the wearer might need to sit down more than you do. The badge is by no means foolproof, as the more recent #LookUp campaign felt compelled to address, but this doesn't get a mention. Instead the double page spread is more a nudge that certain readers might find the badge useful, and the rest of us need to know what it means.
...and the elephant in the room? That's Crossrail, of course, which doesn't get a single mention in any form anywhere in the leaflet. We're now four months past the point where TfL should have been screaming the name Elizabeth in every press-release, poster and publication, but instead all mention remains resolutely off-limits and we don't even have official confirmation of how late it might launch. I choose to see this 20 page leaflet as a distraction, a handful of shiny things new and not so new, designed to help us look the other way.
