Continuing my ruminations on Councillor Harry Phibbs's highly educational Boris Hot One Hundred:
6. Free travel has been introduced for veterans
It has, and I'm glad. As of last October, 3,500 had joined the scheme at a cost to TfL of £700,000.
7. Facilitated the departure of Sir Ian Blair. The new Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson is doing a much better job - bringing in common sense changes such as the police going on the beat individually rather than in pairs.
Love that lawyerly "facilitated". Boris and Kit Malthouse effectively forced Blair to resign by making it plain they wanted him out. Even supporters of Blair didn't complain too much because they privately agreed that he'd lost too much credibility. That said, it was an opportunist power grab by Boris: firing a commissioner is the business of the MPA and Home Secretary, not the Mayor. Stephenson has called for more single patrolling, which is good, though I'm not sure to what extent this has been heeded (the Met is getting back to me). His first big test was the G20 demonstrations, which created a huge public confidence problem for him. Boris Johnson's immediate response to that crisis was to disappear. Oddly enough, though, and in spite of his "extraordinary and unwise" behaviour over Damian Green, I remain hopeful that the Met will improve under Boris.
8. Traffic lights resignalling. TfL is increasing the usage of the "intelligent" SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimisation Technique) system from the existing 2000 sites, to 3000 sites, by 2015/16. It is also reviewing timings at 1000 traffic signal sites annually. These measures will allow traffic lights to adjust their own timings in response to traffic conditions. "There is surely not a single Londoner who has not waited at a red light at two in the morning on a deserted street and wondered why on earth they are being delayed," says Boris. TfL's signal timing reviews are having a noticeable impact in smoothing traffic flow. He has also allowed Ealing to bag up traffic lights.
Well I never, a TfL press release says almost exactly the same things. Meanwhile, a GLA report - which Boris endorsed - showed that removing re-phasing traffic lights can hurt the economy as well as help it. The same report admitted that TfL has no models for forecasting the effects of such changes on pedestrians. Let's keep the virtues of re-signalling in perspective.
9. The various GLA bodies now employ 13 fewer press officers than under Ken Livingstone.
Yet the number employed by the Mayor himself remains very similar to when Livingstone ran the show, according to how you count them. There are presently 13 filled posts in the Mayor's press office. There were ten filled posts in the department 2006, eleven in 2007 and 15 in 2008 (election year). That's what Boris says, anyway.
Coming soon: item 10.
