Transport Desk Tube Lines the company which has the job to upgrade the Piccadilly Line, is according to a report by The Guardian, seeking to raise a further £400 million to "keep alive" the so called PPP or the public private partnership, which is the scheme setup to upgrade London Underground.
In a new funding crisis Tube Lines is facing the potential of having to make "multi-million pound cuts", raise fares or cut back on the upgrade planned on the Piccadilly Line, the only line on the Underground linking to Heathrow, "to plug a £400 million funding gap".
City Hall have consistently, challenged Tube Lines estimate that works over the next seven years should cost £4.4 billion, an extra £400 million from original estimates. Mayor Johnson has made it clear in previous statements that the costs of upgrading the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee Lines should not exceed £4 billion, and has made demands on the Government to intervene in the row, prompting Lord Adonis the Transport Minister to warn:
"Under devolution, it is for the Mayor and TfL to deliver the Tube upgrades within their generous budget - not for me to bail them out if they fail to do so. It is not acceptable for you to ask Government to bail you out if you cannot balance your accounts."
The row over funding is likely to become even more heated today with the views of the acting head of the London Underground sent to the PPP arbiter Chris Bolt, stating that he expected the taxpayer was being asked to prop up an "entity that has made no demonstration of its future viability".
U.S. condemns new Israel housing unitsVice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the United States condemns Israel's decision to build 1,600 housing units in a Jerusalem neighborhood, calling it "a step that undermines the trust we need right now."
