Fine by me

Despite a three-minute delay on the tube from Paddington to Waterloo (on top of the two-minute delay caused by having to use this station due to Edgware Road [Bakerloo Line] seven-plus month closure), I made the fast train back to Hersham last night.  It was on time - a pleasant change!  Interestingly, the reason given for the (ultimately inconsequential) delay on the tube was that pickpockets were operating at stations between Oxford Circus and Embankment.  That's another new one on me!  Presumably they were stealing timetables from the tube drivers...

This morning, the train was also on time, and the connecting tube even arrived a minute early at Paddington.  That's still two minutes late compared to alighting at Edgware Road, so it's a one-minute delay overall, but not bad.  Just £2.50 to add to the bill this morning.

In the news today, TfL looks close to taking over from the Metropolitan Police the responsibility for stopping motorists from entering cycle lanes and advances stop lines (bike boxes).  Drivers may soon face up to a £60 fine and three points on their licence for being naughty.

While three points on the licence seems more than a tad excessive to me, I think the fine is a fine idea (ha!): cyclists do need better protection on London's streets.  I hope TfL will publicly commit to using monies gained from these fines to further improving life for cyclists in London.

What I'd really like to see, however, is some token at policing things the other way too: far too often I see cyclists ignoring dedicated cycle lanes to cause road havoc, cycling across zebra crossings instead of dismounting and walking, ignoring various traffic signs and more.  Anything that prevents motorists from behaving like raging dickheads is great for cyclists safety, but let's not pretend there are many, many cyclists who need to learn they don't own the road.  This will make life still safer for cyclists, as well as for pedestrians and, yes, drivers.

What is it with pretending everything's hunky-dory?

UPDATE: a minute's delay on the Bakerloo Line to Waterloo coming home fortunately didn't cause me to miss my connecting train.  Sadly, that train was eight minutes late by the end of the journey (no explanation), so that's another £20.

Elsewhere in the wacky world of TfL, there's another strike a-brewin': cleaners and security staff this time on the DLR.  Pay and benefits squabble.  I've written about this before, and to be honest cleanliness is one thing I don't really have a problem with on the network, so I quite support this action, even if it does involve the odious Bob Crow...

Smart move to join it up to the security staff action: that's something I think TfL will find a little trouble ignoring, even if it is criminally irresponsible, like a police strike.



Yet again, no excuses or apologies offered: a 12-minute delay on the train into Waterloo this morning which, although the connecting Bakerloo tube was on time, lengthened to a 14-minute total delay because of the altered connection timings caused by that initial delay.  That's £35, but it would be nice to know why my journey is so significantly delayed (bear in mind that portion of the commute is supposedly a 36-minute stretch, so 14 minutes' delay is pretty spectacular).  And would an apology be too much to ask for?  Still, I guess no apology is better than a nakedly disinterested and insincere one...

Elsewhere on the TfL network, if you're a north Londoner, don't rely on taking the buses as there'll be a 24-hour strike over - what else? - pay.  I guess a £500 bonus simply for doing your job for two weeks is not enough to cut it these days, what with Christmas just 'round the corner!  And in case any bus drivers are reading this and thinking of complaining because (a) 'everyone else' got a bonus (I didn't, neither did millions of other Britons who were also potentially facing severe disruption, and those that did get one, should have) and (b) it was soooooooooo busy those two weeks, with X million extra passengers and Y million new trains, blah, blah, blah.  So you had a heavy two weeks at work?  Get over it you pathetic children: it happens.

Meanwhile, if you've bought an eco-friendly car and are enjoying congestion charge-free benefits, get set to lose them.  You've not got long to register your disapproval of this either.

How much do TfL's trade unions cost us?

It may well be impossible to say.  Certainly, I haven't turfed up any reliable figures.  However, londonlovesbusiness.com has an interesting article on the cost of trade unions in the UK to the tax payer: £113 million.  £92 million of this is in 'facility time' (basically time in which we are paying the staff their salaries to do union work - organising strikes, as best I can tell).

The article references the Metropolitan Police and TfL in particular, saying:

"The Metropolitan Police has the equivalent of 16 members of staff working full-time on trade union activities, with Transport for London having the equivalent of 34 staff."

I did a quick search for the sizes of those organisations and, while the figures may be a little out of date, I suspect they're not horrendously wrong.  Here's what I find illuminating:

1. TfL had 17,735 staff members as of 2004 (source)
2. The Metropolitan Police had 55,377 staff members as of January 2012 (source)
3. TfL is less than a third the size of The Met.
4. TfL has more than double the number of work-shirking, strike-planning leeches on the public purse.  And that's excluding the cost of actual trade union action to businesses and consumers, not to mention the wasted time in delays this blog was set up to document.

TfL: in a world all of its own when it comes to public service.  My cup positively runneth over.