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London media fail to tell the real story that families and New Year revelers struggled to get home from the fireworks display and celebrations in central London, London Daily News correspondent John Kennedy gives the real story on New Years eve in London.
By John Kennedy
Yes the fireworks may well have been fantastic and certainly the message given to Londoners by our Mayor was positive but when it comes to transport this city fails its citizens. I like many taxi-cab drivers worked New Years eve only to experience yet again road blocks at every major junction denying yet again London taxi-cabs the right to “ply for hire” and pick up customers who wished to get home safely by Taxi-cab.
Park Lane southbound and Grosvenor Place northbound were turned into parking lots, traffic couldn’t move and I like many taxi-cab drivers gave up, for what is the point in trying to work if the work is in the central zone but the Police along with transport for London deny you access to streets and roads which would allow you to remove revellers from theses very streets and roads. After the same problem in 2007 I contacted a very senior individual at the Public Carriage Office and made a very simple request for a temporary taxi rank on the Mall which would have allowed revellers to assemble in a orderly fashion and taxi-cabs to gain access to the central zone via Constitution Hill but I was informed this was not to be case only days before Christmas 2008 ( yes it’s 2009 ).
Something isn’t working within the corridors of power with the Metropolitan Police and transport for London, many people with children were left standing in the central zone at bus stops in freezing cold temperatures, I was called at 4.30 am by a colleague of mine to be informed that the Piccadilly east bound road block was still in place at 4.30 am. If this is true surely people should be informed by the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor’s office that you will not be able to hail a taxi-cab within the zone, you will find it may take you many hours to get home by bus or tube and you may need to consider walking a reasonable distance to find alternatives means of transport.
London is a world class city but its transport infrastructure is run in a shambolic fashion, too many buses creating congestion on many of its busiest routes, a underground service still in need of major repair and not advertising screens on escalators, price increases well above the rate of inflation because of the overspends of previous administrations and I’m afraid a transport authority still with little or no understanding of the London taxi trade. If I’m totally honest with you I never expected to get a temporary taxi-cab rank on the Mall, because the people who manage transport for London fail to understand that taxi-cab users have a voice, a voice it would appear they wish to ignore. However I’ll be contacting all these civil servants this year and will be asking them yet again for provision of temporary taxi ranks not just on the Mall, but on Millbank SW1, on Portland Place W1, Piccadilly, Fleet Street EC4 and Blackfriars Road SE1, because last night was the beginning of a new year, last night’s fireworks were fantastic but the journey home was awful for many revellers.
So if London “really is” a world class city it’s time for those in authority to make sensible decisions about all modes of transport and not hide behind ten minutes of fireworks and a mainstream media half asleep, oh mustn’t forget Happy New Year for 2009.
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