TfL to spend £3.8bn on road upgrade work
TRANSPORT for London hopes to double spending on the capital’s roads over the next decade, it said yesterday in a 10-year business plan.
A “roads task force” will set out priorities for the £3.8bn funding pot in the spring, Mayor of London Boris Johnson said yesterday.
Safety for cyclists will feature prominently in the plans, while a further £640m will be spent on bicycle-friendly measures such as extending the Boris Bike scheme and building new cycle lanes.
“I reject the old-fashioned notion that roads will always be a place of conflict between different road users,” Johnson said.
TfL also hopes to add more carriages to the Overground as it expands, put more DLR tracks in east London, and look at improving the Tramlink service at Croydon.
The plans for the next decade, however, will depend on the government allowing TfL to access billions of pounds once its current funding deal expires in 2014/15.
Passengers will foot some of the bill, in the form of fare increases at one per cent above the RPI measure of inflation.
“The Mayor needs to realise that Londoners are struggling, it is time he reined these inflation-busting fares in,” said Val Shawcross, a Labour member of the London Assembly.