Transport for London (TfL) needs an extra £1.7bn to keep the capital’s transport going until 2023, the agency said this week.
TfL wants £500m to keep trains, trams and buses running until the end of March next year, and another £1.2bn for the twelve months afterwards, it said in its submission to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s spending review.
“Beyond that, we would only need government support for investment from 2023/24, which all other transport authorities around the world require,” TfL said. The agency wants £1bn-1.5bn per year in investment to improve services.
TfL has been hit hard by the pandemic, with most people originally told to avoid public transport and work from home. The government has invested nearly £4bn in the agency since the first Covid-19 lockdown – but London transport chiefs have been forced to cut costs, including shelving the long-planned Bakerloo Line extension down the Old Kent Road.
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The agency’s boss Andy Byford said that TfL was “playing a central role” in the capital’s recovery from the pandemic.
“Throughout the past 18 months, following Government guidance, we protected people from the virus while ensuring that essential workers were able to move around the city safely. This had a devastating impact on our finances, which we are now in the process of rebuilding.
“There are positive signs, with more people returning to the transport network as people make the most of everything our great city has to offer.”
Mr Byford said that August regularly had the busiest days on the Tube and buses since March 2020, with passenger demand regularly at half the levels seen before the pandemic on weekdays, and at 60 per cent on weekends.