I'm sorry we've not yet been able to agree the swingeing cuts needed to keep TfL afloat in an era of levelling up.
I must therefore insist that Transport for London adopts at least five of the following very sensible contractions of service as part of the Government's continued insistence that the capital pays for all of its transport by April 2023. Your feeble excuse that there aren't enough passengers any more doesn't wash with us. Cuts must be made and we totally need the Mayor of London to be seen to be responsible for introducing them.
1) Stop serving areas outside London
You're Transport for London for heaven's sake so why are you serving Hertfordshire, Essex and Berkshire? We insist that you terminate all TfL services at the boundary and thereby release the Home Counties to be served by the beleaguered private sector. For the avoidance of doubt this means terminating the Metropolitan line at Northwood, returning the extremities of Crossrail to proper rail companies and curtailing any bus route that crosses the border. We are already in advanced talks with a heritage steam railway keen to take over the Central line north of Woodford.
2) Rename the cablecar after the Prime Minister
The cablecar is one of London's most successful tourist attractions and every tourist is a potential red wall voter. We understand that your sponsorship with Emirates is coming to an end and would therefore like it rebranded under the name of the man whose creative genius brought this key transport link to life. Our focus groups preferred 'Bojo's Zipwire' over 'Johnson's Joyride', as it reminded them of that hilarious photo opportunity in 2012 when Boris was the man to look up to. Given the rapid pace of current events in Downing Street, we'd be obliged if you could introduce the rebrand as soon as possible.
3) Reduce the frequency of every London bus route
The rest of the country has to cope with bus services worse than London's so we'd like the capital to get a taste of what it's missing. To this end we propose reducing the frequency of every TfL bus route by one service per hour which'll save millions, and the sole downside is that everyone will have to wait longer for a more crowded bus. Admittedly they might not all choose to wait but that's fine because their money will then benefit downtrodden taxi drivers and our friends at Uber. We recognise this means any bus that currently has an hourly service would have to be withdrawn, but we can't imagine anyone in the affected areas not owning a car already.
4) Restore bus lanes to vehicle use
Bus lanes are a discredited innovation that serve only to suppress our hard-won freedoms. Why should drivers who've paid several thousands of pounds for their vehicles be treated less favourably than passengers who've stumped up only £1.55? Repurposing bus lanes will help smooth the traffic flow and get proper Londoners from A to B more quickly, which is precisely the intended aim of a properly integrated transport policy.
5) Shut down the Docklands Light Railway
We note that every constituency served by the DLR voted Labour at the last election, so it can't do any harm to withdraw the service entirely. Why should woke East London residents get the convenience of a bespoke light rail system when hard-pressed voters in northern cities see no similar benefits? Discussions should begin immediately on how to build much-needed housing along the DLR's former tracks, or at the very least how to convert them to vehicle use. Please note that we've checked voting trends in swing seats along the tram network and this must retain its current level of service at all costs.
6) Allow major brands to sponsor everything
We've pussyfooted around this one for far too long. Every TfL asset should be up for grabs, not just cablecars, cycle hire and the occasional station makeover. Let's rename tube lines after whichever multinational stumps up the most cash and rename bus stops after local businesses. Let's replace bus numbers with McDonald's menu items, IKEA products or the names of Bitcoin derivatives. Let's broadcast commercial radio inbetween regular station announcements and replace tannoy spam with adverts. We already have ten sponsors chomping at the bit to smother Crossrail with marketing collateral, so let's go the whole hog and plaster it across everything we've got.
7) Withdraw all buses with route numbers over 400
It's a well known fact that London has far too many buses running far too often, so we should withdraw all buses with route numbers over 400 as this would save a substantial portion of the surface transport budget. What's more these are all minor routes serving quiet roads in the outlying suburbs, or at least we assume they are because nobody seems to be publishing a bus map any more. Given hardly anybody uses these high-numbered buses other than poor people who usually vote Labour and pensioners who don't pay fares anyway, it's scandalous they haven't been scrapped already.
8) Pay TfL employees the minimum wage
London's transport would be massively cheaper if it wasn't operated by quite so many people being paid quite so much. Capping pay at the minimum wage is the only fair solution and would help make Northerners feel we're all in this together. This might mean some employees handed in their notice and sought better paid work elsewhere but this would only improve the level of potential cuts. Also we need to have a word about liquidating gold-plated pensions because nothing pisses off a self-employed voter more than a public servant with some level of future security.
9) Match fares to those across the rest of England
We propose to link all TfL fares to similar journeys made in other parts of the country. If three stops on a bus in Norfolk costs a small fortune, there's no reason why ten miles across London should still be dirt cheap. Tube fares are also ridiculously generous compared to the full tank of petrol a commuter in Cornwall requires. As for weekly Oyster capping no other UK region has this perk so it's simply got to go. An equitable way to level up would be to apply a £2 administration charge to every journey, but we've decided to save that bombshell for next time you come crawling back to us demanding undeserved funding.
10) Build the Silvertown Tunnel
We can't believe you haven't cancelled this £2bn vanity project already, given you're always bleating on about reducing lung damage caused by killer air pollution But we're delighted to see TfL contributing to better infrastructure for road traffic so we say go ahead, dig your tunnel and all right-thinking people will be thrilled to have a more efficient way of zipping about. Your proposed tolls will have to go, obviously, but let's wait until after you've finished construction before we insist on that.
It should by now be clear that the quickest way to give the rest of the country a 'London-style transport system' is to undermine London, not to spend more money elsewhere.
So please pick your favourite five cost-cutting proposals and confirm your acquiescence to my future domination forthwith.
