Uber loses its licence, London loses its grip!

Congratulations to everyone complaining about Transport for London's (TFL) decision not to renew Uber's licence. You have managed to make Londoners look like a pack of spoilt brats, demanding cut-price taxi fares as if it's a human right on par with food, water and shelter. Honestly, the way people have been carrying on, anyone would think that before Uber, Londoners simply never left their homes. Uber did not rescue London from being a bizarre city of hermits.

As ever, nuance has been the first casualty of the inevitable debate, especially in regard to the risk of sexual assault in an Uber taxi. According to a Freedom of Information request by the Sun newspaper last year, 32 of the 154 allegations of sexual assault against taxi and private hire drivers over a one-year period were against Uber drivers. That's an allegation every 11 days. TFL has raised concerns about Uber's lack of expediency in referring sexual assault allegations to the police.

This led to mindless whataboutery. "What about sexual assaults by drivers of black cabs?" is the cry that has rattled all over the internet over the last few days. Obviously, it is not OK for black cab drivers to sexually assault people either. Or for anyone to sexually assault people. It is stunning that this even needs to be said.

I have a novel idea. How about we strive for a world where nobody gets sexually assaulted in taxis? The "my preferred taxi service is less rapey than your preferred taxi service" chatter is race-to-the-bottom nonsense. 

Then there are the other scandals that led to TFL not renewing Uber's licence. Thousands of background checks on drivers have been deemed invalid, and there have been instances of drivers paying dodgy GPs for falsified medical certificates, and concerns about the possible use of Greyball software. In the US, Uber has faced allegations of Greyball software to identify when local officials were using the app and ignoring their requests for a taxi in case they were seeking to find drivers operating in areas where they were not licenced. Uber has denied using this software in the UK.

Of course, plenty of people have accused those who are supporting TFL of being anti-consumer choice. There are plenty of apps that you can use instead of Uber - Gett, Kabbee, MyTaxi, Addison Lee, Taxify, Taxiapp... People whining about a black cab monopoly don't appear know what a monopoly is or they don't seem to realise there are plenty of alternatives to taking a black cab.

And if you have the Uber app, you obviously have a smartphone so if all else fails, you can use your damn life skills to simply Google licenced minicab companies in the area and make a phonecall. Retro, I know. On top of all this, London has one of the world's best public transport systems - every time I travel anywhere, I come home with a renewed appreciation of the tube and red buses.

Indeed, even the narrative that Uber is a benevolent company for the people is a myth. This is a company that has indulged in price gouging during terror attacks. It is a business model that is designed to reduce consumer choice by undercutting other taxi companies into oblivion or merely replacing one monopoly with another, as has been the experience in Sydney. Anyone wringing their hands over potentially 40,000 Uber drivers being out of work is being ridiculous - Uber's modus operandi will result in drivers from other companies losing their jobs.

On top of all that, many Uber drivers work for the app to supplement their income from other low-paid jobs. According to Uber's own research,  almost 40% of their drivers have another job. This means that there are a lot of drivers out there for whom one job is not enough to pay the bills, particularly in London. And if you don't care about the low wage culture that has swept through Britain's labour market, consider that many Uber drivers will be driving people around after knocking off from another job. Are you happy to be driven home by a driver from a company where there is a very high chance that he or she will be completely knackered behind the wheel?

If Uber is taken off the roads next month, plenty of their drivers will be able to find work with other taxi companies. The demand is there in a city the size of London. According to today's news, Uber could make concessions in regard to TFL's demands for improved safety and better working conditions for drivers in order to get its licence renewed. This strikes me as a far more sensible use of their time over the next few weeks than challenging the decision - that would truly put the livelihoods of drivers in limbo.  

My hunch is that Uber will stay on the road - and if it does so with improved safety procedures for passengers and better conditions for drivers, that is a win for everyone. And then Londoners can find something else to whine about, because we always do.  

Photography by Thierry Manac'h'/Flickr

Dear Mr Hammond, a few questions on behalf of Wimbledon constituents before the election...

Dear Mr Hammond,

I know that I could email you directly, as I have done so in the past, and that you would be obliged to respond as I am one of your constituents, but I'd like my questions in regard to your campaign leaflet to be asked and answered publicly in the interests of transparency. I'm sure you have no objections to such openness during this election campaign. Feel free to post your answers in the comments section at the end as I am sure plenty of constituents will be interested in what you have to stay. Let's start, shall we?

Brexit

1. Why is the bit about Brexit in hard-to-read blue-on-blue at the bottom of the page and why is it not included in the top five priorities? Leaving the EU is the biggest political, economic and social upheaval of our lifetimes, and the constituency of Wimbledon voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, so surely it deserves more than this cursory effort? You claim to have "consistently opposed a hard Brexit" yet you helped Theresa May wave through Article 50. Given that today the story has broken about Theresa May's disastrous and embarrassing dinner with Claude Juncker, it is obvious she is not competent enough to lead such complex negotiations. Why should we trust Theresa May not to send us over a hard Brexit cliff or potentially leave us with no deal and therefore calamitous WTO rules?

St Helier Hospital and local health services

 

2. In 2012, you voted for the Health and Social Care Act. This act led to the creation of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to make decisions at a local level. It is the CCGs who will decide the future of St Helier Hospital, not the hospital chief executive, so why have you not included any reassurances from Merton CCG? While holding a public meeting is a great way to create warm, fuzzy feelings of doing something, what have your public meetings achieved? How many CCG meetings have you personally attended? If you have attended any CCG meetings, did you ask any questions about the future of local health services? If so, what questions did you ask and what responses did you receive?

3. Why have you referred to the Nelson Health Centre as the Nelson Hospital? It has not been functioning as a hospital for quite some time now. It is not exactly a busy facility. Are you campaigning for the centre, or the Raynes Park health centre, to include a walk-in clinic to relieve pressure on local GPs and A&E departments? Our area has lost a walk-in clinic with the closure of the Wilson Health Centre in Mitcham. This means our nearest walk-in clinic is in Teddington, a six-mile drive or public transport nightmare from Wimbledon. Do you think this is acceptable?

Morden town centre (Disclaimer: I live in Morden)

 

4. Did you press the previous Mayor of London, one Boris Johnson (Conservative), on the planned regeneration of Morden town centre or are you just pressing Sadiq Khan, the new, Labour mayor? Boris Johnson's 2015 plan achieved nothing. Indeed, Boris wasn't even interested in Morden tube station being rezoned as Zone 3 rather than Zone 4, which would have saved commuters money. Is this something you're interested in campaigning for on behalf of cash-strapped constituents? 

You have been the MP for Wimbledon since 2005 - you have had 12 years to campaign on behalf of Morden, and in five years I've lived here, the town centre still looks much the same. Can you please furnish us with some details of your tireless campaigning for Morden and any achievements?

Wimbledon town centre

5. Again, you have had 12 years as MP to improve the Wimbledon town centre. What have you been doing during all that time in regard to improving the area? I lived in Wimbledon in 2011 and, like the Morden town centre, it still looks much the same now as it did then, save for the moving of a statue. What is taking you so long? Exactly what does your pro-Wimbledon town centre campaigning involve and what results have you achieved since 2005?

Transport: Tramlink

 

6. The Rail Accident Investigation Bureau has found that in last November's Croydon tram crash, in which seven people were killed, the tram was travelling at 46mph in a 13mph zone. Is it worth trumpeting about 50 per cent more services when there has been a fatal accident on a Tramlink tram? Where is your concern for the victims, or do they not matter because they all lived outside the constituency? Is the push for more frequent tram services compromising passenger safety along the entire Tramlink lines?

Transport: Raynes Park station

7. OK, it's nice that the litter has been cleaned up from the embankment but, again, Raynes Park station has not changed one iota since I moved to the area in 2011. It is still terrible for disabled people, the platform still makes the train really hard for people to get on and off safely, the toilets are still terrible, there is still nowhere to change a baby's nappy. And, again, you've been the MP for 12 years. So I ask you, what have you been doing all this time in regard to improving Raynes Park station?

Transport: Crossrail 2 and the tube

8. Crossrail 2 will benefit the area as it means we will have another form of transport. It is impossible for such a major project to be undertaken without any disruption. Indeed, if Crossrail 2 results in a complete rebuilding of the Wimbledon Centre Court shopping centre, that would be a good thing. Do you not agree it is currently cumbersomely laid out? Do you not agree that the food court is now just an embarrassment? It has been reduced to a McDonalds, a defunct yoghurt stand and a photo booth. Would an overhaul of the shopping centre not draw in new businesses to the town centre?

9. While Wimbledon is undergoing work in regard to Crossrail 2, whenever that may be, will you campaign for businesses to consider relocating to Morden temporarily? This could give Morden the shot in the arm it needs to regenerate and improve the diversity of businesses on the high street.

10. Do you have any costings on extending the Northern Line to St Helier or is this merely a belief? The Northern Line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station from Kennington will cost £1.2 billion so that might help you come to some sort of realistic figure. Where will this money come from?

Employment and local businesses

 

11. My questions are about to come full circle... 

As per one of my Crossrail 2 questions, will you be encouraging more businesses to set up shop in Morden town centre? This is not just about temporary shops during Crossrail 2 construction but also long-term businesses on a high street that has not changed on your watch in at least six years.

12. Are you confident that Theresa May will negotiate a Brexit deal with the EU that will not adversely affect local businesses? What evidence do you have for your answer?

Thank you for your time and consideration, Mr Hammond. I look forward to your responses to my questions as a concerned constituent.

Kind regards,

Georgia Lewis

(You have my address, I have written to you before and I am obviously not going to publish it here)

The myth of strike-busting driverless tubes

As soon as #tubestrike starts trending on Twitter, the calls for the London Underground network to switch to driverless trains reach fever pitch. People carry on as if the network can switch to driverless trains in a matter of moments and that it will instantly end tube strikes.

Regardless of your views on London tube strikes, it is important to know that switching to driverless trains can't happen overnight and it won't necessarily stop strikes, even if we woke up tomorrow to find the switch had somehow magically happened.

There are 11 London tube lines, as well as the Overground and the already-driverless Docklands Light Rail (or DLR, but more on that in a moment...). In February 2014, when Mayor of London Boris Johnson, approved plans for driverless trains. But not even Boris would have such a rush of blood to the head that he'd sign off on a project that would be unfeasible on a practical level and astronomically expensive.

Boris signed off on procurement for 100 driverless trains for the Piccadilly Line. Just the Piccadilly Line. This is the start of a project that will cover only four of the network's lines between now and 2034 and it will cost £10 billion.

Every month, my bank account takes a direct hit thanks to Boris' love of raising public transport fares, but not even he would hike fares to the point where the upgrades and new trains required for a driverless tube could be implemented in lightning-fast time.

To implement driverless trains across infrastructure that is more than 100 years old in many parts is not a small or cheap undertaking.

On top of this, there ain't no whinger like the average London underground passenger. Especially when lines are closed for essential engineering work. Apparently, there are people out there who would rather travel on a poorly maintained railway system all the time instead of sucking it up and dealing with the occasional replacement bus service while travelling on a safe, well-maintained service the rest of the time.

And the average London underground whinger would complain at a rate last seen at Fawlty Towers if entire lines were closed for months at a time to do the upgrades required for driverless trains. Transport For London (TFL) needs to strike a balance between getting work done and minimising inconvenience for paying passengers.

Not that any of this stopped Richard Holloway, a Conservative councillor for the London borough of Westminster, from setting up an ill-informed and predictably briefly popular petition on change.org. The petition calls on Boris Johnson to "begin operating completely driverless trains on the entire London underground as soon as possible."

I tweeted Richard to ask him about this and he said that the Paris Metro went driverless over a period of five years. "Are we going to let the French beat us?" he asked without a trace of irony, given the French culture of strikes, and despite the fact it's not 1793.

Facts are pesky for Richard - the Paris Metro has not yet gone entirely driverless. I have no idea where he got his five-year figure from - Paris opened its first driverless line in 1998, a second in 2012 and a third is due by 2020. So that means two out of the 14 Paris Metro lines have gone driverless in the last 17 years.

When I asked Richard for costings, he tweeted a link to a BBC news story. I pointed out that this is not a costings document and he asked me if I frequent change.org and ask every petition for a full breakdown of costs for their proposal? Of course I don't. Most petitions on change.org are started by people who are not elected representatives. But if you are an elected representative publicly putting forward a proposal, you are effectively making a policy statement and it is entirely reasonable to be expected to provide costings. Especially when public money is involved.

Richard clearly didn't want to discuss this matter any further and asked if I'd demanded costings on a petition about the UK providing medical care to migrants at Calais.

He had no real answers to my questions and today, he is still on Twitter banging on about driverless trains as a panacea for all strikes. Such as the DLR, I suppose?

But the DLR - the line that is always cited as an example for how the tube should be by the "LET'S GO DRIVERLESS TOMORROW!" brigade - is not entirely without staff nor is it strike-free.

The DLR has more than 500 people on staff, such as cleaners, security staff, station staff and train captains. The captains move around the carriages while the trains are in motion and they have to manually operate the train if something goes wrong. If the rest of the tube network, went "driverless", the tube drivers would be the first people to be offered these train captain jobs - they are already trained to deal with a range of mechanical problems so they'd be obvious candidates.

And, sorry to break it you, Richard, but DLR staff have gone on strike. In May this year, DLR cleaning and security staff went on strike. If there are working people involved in an endeavour and striking has not been outlawed, strikes will probably still happen.

Get mad about tube strikes if you like. That is your right. But don't kid yourself that driverless trains can happen overnight or would be an instant strike-buster.



Photography by Svetlana Tikhonova