21 October (Part 1) - Failing London’s Transport
One of the things that helps keep Bonkers on the road is a collection of
political leaflets which I suspect most people put straight into their bin. It
is a very useful resource with which to prove broken promises and political lies. It is
probably why I rarely get pre-election material poked through my letter box. The
main parties have cottoned on to the fact that it may be used against them in years to come.
Storage has become a bit of a problem and I looked into getting rid of some of
the oldest stuff but in doing so stumbled across a Department for Transport
booklet published in March 1991. Some of the predictions actually came true.
The Jubilee line extension arrived only three years late. It opened in 1999 but
the Woolwich Arsenal branch has been quietly forgotten.
Crossrail was predicted without a date but set to terminate at Stratford with no Abbey Wood branch.
The third Blackwall Tunnel was due for completion in the late 1990s with no hint of
a toll. The ill-fated East London River Crossing to
Thamesmead was due to open “mid to late 1990s”. Since then three more crossings
have been planned and skillfully killed off by malicious politicians who seem to
believe that South East London should be forever cut off from the North East.
A further crossing somewhere West of Blackwall was also under consideration
but it remains the case that no one has put a spade into the ground since
Isambard Kingdom Brunel did so 195 years ago.
London will die under the restrictive thumbs of successive short sighted incompetents.
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