2000 Tramlink 2001 Bus Saver tickets 2002 Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003 Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004 Legible London 2005 Accessible buses 2006 Baby on board badge 2007 Overground 2008 Priority seating 2009 iBus / New Routemaster 2010 Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011 DLR Stratford International 2012 Olympics / Dangleway 2013 150th Tube anniversary 2014 Contactless 2015 Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016 Night Tube / Hopper 2017 Night Overground 2018 - 2019 Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020 Essential Travel / TfL Go 2021 Northern line extension 2022 Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023 ULEZ extension 2024 Superloop 2025 Silvertown Tunnel
Some years are full-on project pile-ups and some are achievement deserts. 2010 had multiple riches, for example, whereas I've struggled to find any exciting initiatives in 2018.
But which TfL thing is best of all? Let's take five years at a time and see if we can narrow it down.
2000 Tramlink 2001 Bus Saver tickets 2002 Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004 Legible London
We can discount Tramlink because that opened two months before TfL was formed. Pedestrianising one side of Trafalgar Square was radical by 2002 standards but feels tame now. 2003 is clearly where it's at, not least for introducing road charging, but I'm going with the introduction of Oyster as a revolution that made travel so much simpler and still does to this day.
2005 Accessible buses 2006 Baby on board badge 2007Overground 2008 Priority seating 2009 iBus / New Routemaster
People cursed when Mayor Ken killed off Routemasters but a fully-accessible bus service was truly advanced for 2005. The emergence of iBus made it possible to check when your bus was coming and led eventually to the plethora of travel apps we have today. But my vote for the best here is 2007's creation of the Overground, the upgrade and joining-together of something once overlooked, now a hugely successful and much used brand.
This is a tough selection from which to pick a favourite. Air-cooled trains were a revelation in 2010, as we've learned again this week. Cycle hire arguably kickstarted an active travel revolution that continues to grow. I reckon 2012 pips them both though, not the eternal irrelevance of the Dangleway but the fear that transportation would be the Achilles heel of London's Olympics whereas instead it greased the wheels nigh perfectly.
2015 Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016 Night Tube / Hopper 2017 Night Overground 2019 Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020Essential Travel / TfL Go
By rights Bus Stop M should be the highlight here, certainly given the paucity of some of the opposition. The new Woolwich Ferries were a floating disaster and rebranded Cycleways remain a confusing tangled web. I nearly picked 2016's Night Tube for the way it fired up the weekends, but I really have to go with TfL continuing to run a comprehensive transport network for not many passengers despite minimal fare income during a two year-long pandemic.
This is a really strong list, as if Sadiq's TfL was finally getting into its stride and opening everything. And there can only be one winner here, 2022's utterly transformative Elizabeth line, which despite being ridiculously late Londoners can no longer live without.
And finally let's crown a winner from the victors of the five previous shortlists.
I confess Crossrail nearly won out, a transport project on a different scale to anything London's seen in generations. But in the end I went with Oyster, an impressively early gamechanger permitting frictionless travel and the bedrock of so many other innovations that followed.
Oyster is the best thing TfL ever did. (unless of course you know better)
