Green Party member of the London Assembly Darren Johnson today challenged new Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy on the catalogue of errors behind TfL’s evidence to the Thames Gateway Bridge inquiry. Speaking at a London Assembly plenary meeting, Darren Johnson criticised TfL’s case as ‘a shambles’, and called on TfL to re-run its traffic modelling to correct fundamental errors.
Darren Johnson raised three key errors in TfL’s case for the bridge:
1. Flaws in traffic counts in Bexley meant that the inquiry had to be suspended while TfL revised its case. This apparently minor change produced large reductions in the estimated benefits of the bridge.
2. TfL’s traffic modelling continues to assume that the central London Congestion Charge is £5, even though the charge raised to £8 in July last year.
3. There is a contradiction between the traffic modelling and the regeneration evidence submitted by TfL. The regeneration case says that bridge will create jobs, but TfL’s traffic model assumes the same number of jobs and people regardless of whether or not the bridge is built.
London Assembly Green Party member Darren Johnson commented:
"Regardless of whether you’re for or against the Thames Gateway Bridge, these continuing errors by Transport for London have made the whole process a shambles. TfL should re-run its traffic models to show the true implications that the bridge would have. No one will have any confidence in TfL’s case with so many basic errors."
TfL commissioner Peter Hendy responded by admitting that ‘transport modelling is an imprecise art’ but insisted that he was not surprised that objectors to the bridge would raise issues about TfL’s evidence.