Some transport stories are barely newsworthy, but still usefully fill space.
🚡 As part of Befriending Week in November, free return trips are being offered on the cablecar to lonely people who'd like to share a cabin. "Designed to spark conversation and tackle social isolation, passengers are encouraged to exchange questions and stories during the journey," also you get a free hot drink. The last slot sold out last night, sorry, so you could just try striking up a conversation with the person next to you on the tube and see where that gets you.
🏆 The Rail Delivery Group have just launched their annual World Cup of Stations with 20 nominations representing "the stations creating connections that matter". But on the voting website the vote comes before the citations, those citations have been abridged to 40 words of generalised waffle, and you have to click 20 times to read all the citations which doesn't encourage anyone to vote based on facts. Also the whole thing is presented in a scrolling frame so initially you can only see the top end of the voting list so I bet a station near the top of the list wins, just like Ashington did last year, and essentially it's a great idea egregiously delivered.
🚌 This Saturday the frequency of route 359 (Purley - New Addington) is being cut from every 45 minutes to once an hour. It was half-hourly ten years ago so this is a bit pants, especially for those down Purley Downs Road and on the Monks Hill Estate. Also it doesn't save any money, they're still using two vehicles to run the service, also according to the new timetable those buses will now spend 45% of their time sitting around at the termini which seems unnecessarily wasteful.
🍓 Berrylands station has reopened after they replaced both platforms with something less wonky. Access remains up a temporary staircase for now, but there are new shelters on both platforms, also the station signs are now in new GBR style.
🚕 TfL have launched their annual consultation on raising taxi fares. There are four options, three of which are "raise fares by 7.07%" and one of which is "don't raise fares", and no passenger is going to vote for the first three.
👜 TfL's latest TikTok video is 10 seconds of pulling branded goods out of a branded bag, because heaven forbid the priority should be transport when you can plug merch instead.
🚊 A recent FoI request asked how DLR services would be improved now that the new 'B23' units are finally coming into use. TfL generously produced a long list of future milestones so you can see how the rolling stock rollout should proceed.
10th Jan 2027: Stratford-Woolwich all new trains, also first new train on Bank-Lewisham
15th Feb 2027: restoration of Stratford-Lewisham services, also restoration of Canning Town-Beckton in peak hours
30th May 2027: Bank-Lewisham all new trains
31st Oct 2027: full length/new trains on Bank-Woolwich
09th Jan 2028: full length/new trains on Tower Gateway-Beckton
05th Mar 2028: Stratford-Beckton restored in peak hours, also full-length trains on Stratford-Lewisham
16th Apr 2028: full length trains on Stratford-Canary Wharf
05th Sep 2028: Stratford-Lewisham 2 trains per cycle
31st Mar 2029: Stratford-Woolwich 2 trains per cycle
04th Feb 2030: Stratford-Woolwich 15 trains per hour
