Sadiq Khan has used his first appearance before the London Assembly after the summer break to signal a new drive to boost bus services in the outer reaches of the city particularly.
Appearing yesterday alongside Transport for London Commissioner Andy Lord at a City Hall plenary session, the third-term mayor looked determined to rebut criticism by opposition Assembly Members (AMs) often aimed at Labour incumbents that they are “Zone 1” focused.
The meeting came as the Assembly marked the first birthday of TfL’s outer London Superloop express bus network – with praise all round. The service, adding an extra six million kilometres of bus route to the capital, was introduced from July last year, a month before Khan’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone was expanded citywide.
Khan began by warding off a Green Party call to get tough with the 12 mainly outer London councils that have not introduced borough-wide 20mph speed limits. “We have to reflect that central London boroughs may be different to outer London,” he said. “TfL has conversations with borough leaders about what is sensible, what is realistic. It’s not one size fits all.”
But the outer London bus network was the Mayor’s focus, as he told AMs TfL was already planning to extend the Superloop. Public consultation on possible new routes would be taking place over the next six to 12 months to gauge demand for additional express buses, the meeting heard, with new services launched over the coming three years.
Improving public transport to provide alternatives to driving was a priority, said Khan. “London continues to grow,” he said. “We can’t have 9.7 million Londoners driving around in cars, for obvious reasons, so we do need to encourage more people to make the transition where possible to public transport, walking or cycling.
“But we’ve got to recognise that some boroughs, in outer London particularly, are very different to central London, which is one of the best-served areas in the world in terms of public transport, safe cycling and walking. So we’ve got to work with those boroughs and their communities to make sure there are alternatives.”
The orbital service recognised wider requirements too, Khan said. Public transport had historically been planned to carry passengers from outer into central London, but “that’s not how people live their lives”. Post-Covid, habits were changing too, he said: “For example, there can be more things to do in outer London and inner London compared to just central London.”
Assembly transport committee chair Elly Baker echoed the point: “The important thing about the Superloop is that it explicitly acknowledges we need transport to do more than take us in and out of the city centre,” she said. “So many of our journeys, for work and education, to see family and friends, are from one bit of outer London to another.”
Express buses could also play a part in supporting areas targeted for major rail schemes, including the Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham, the Docklands Light Railway extension to Thamesmead and the new West London Orbital London Overground line, the Mayor said, while dampening speculation that those schemes could get going rapidly.
Between them they could support some 50,000 new homes, the meeting heard. But they would take “years and years and years, even with a green light tomorrow, which isn’t happening,” Khan told AMs: “My challenge to TfL is can we get express bus routes in those areas in the interim, because that may accelerate new housing and economic regeneration in advance of major new infrastructure.”
The move was welcomed in a motion proposed by AM Bassam Mahfouz, elected in May in the Assembly’s Ealing & Hillingdon constituency, who called the Superloop network an “absolute game changer for outer London”.
The motion, agreed unanimously, called on the Mayor to work closely with the assembly to agree new Superloop routes, and added a shopping list of possible priority areas including north Waltham Forest, Havering and the “more rural” parts of Bromley.
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