Topic: | Local Conservatives confirm there is a vast bucket of spin | |
Posted by: | Thomas Barry | |
Date/Time: | 07/01/14 13:11:00 |
"Mary MacleodMP has contacted the Mayors office who confirm there is no change. She states " Boris announced at City Hall last month that it would definitely go ahead when the Piccadilly line is upgraded. This will likely be in 2020 but will confirm very soon" That is a change, in that no date was previously mentioned which led to speculation that the 2018 District Line signalling upgrade date was the changeover for TG stopping too, since it requires resignalling. That's the contract that's suddenly being retendered. "So Boris hasn't gone back on his word" Given that since the middle of the last decade LU's position was that there'd be no stop until after the Piccadilly Line was upgraded, and you've basically reconfirmed that, what's actually changed other than delaying the upgrade date from 2014 to some time some time in the first few years of the next decade? I asked Boris this in the street in Chiswick last year and frankly I might as well have talked to the cat for all the sense he made. I'm not entirely certain what his 'word' is, other than spending 8 years as Mayor watching the timescales slip to the Mayoral term after next. By the way there's no evidence that TfL are working towards 2020 for *completing* a full Piccadilly Line upgrade - London Reconnections is usually well informed on this and says: "The intention is that the first of the new trains would appear in 2021. Given the radical nature of the project this appears to be a very ambitious timetable. It is supposed to be complete by 2024 and there are expected to be over a hundred new trains." Careful textual analysis of what Mary is saying there does not support 2020 as a date for *completion*. So, as I've been saying for a while, expect a date in the first few years of the next decade for the TG all day stop, as a result of completion or partial completion of the full Piccadilly Line upgrade with new signalling and swanky new trains. |