TRANSPORT FOR LONDON

London Transport Design

Website: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/art-and-design

Posters

Ada 'Betty' Swanwick designed some notable London Transport posters.

Website: www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk/posters

The Roundel

The Bull's Eye or Target was first used on the buses it had wings. Frank Pick commissioned a variation that introduced in 1908. In 1917 Edward Johnson (1872-1944) redesigned it. He continued to tweak it in the years that followed. In 1935 Hans Schleger simplified Johnson s design for use on bus stops. Misha Black and the Design Research Unit redesigned the Bull's Eye. It was renamed the Roundel.

Website: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/culture-and-heritage/art-and-design/the-roundel

The London Transport Museum

The London Transport Museum has been in Covent Garden since 1980.

The Museum has a storage facility in Acton. Occasionally it is opened to the public. The artefacts it holds include hats that were designed for Rastafarian bus conductors and a small statue of Bumper Harris, the one-legged man who stood on the escalator at Earl's Court to signal that it was safe to use.

Location: Covent Garden Piazza, WC2E 7BB (red, blue)

Museum Depot, 2 Museum Way, 118-120 Gunnersbury Lane, Acton, W3 9BQ

See Also: MUSEUMS

Website: www.ltmuseum.co.uk

Transport for London

The headquarters of Transport for London are located above St James's Park Underground Station. The Charles Holden-designed building (1929) is an example of between the wars Monumentalism. The edifice s controversial external carvings were created by Sir Jacob Epstein.¹

At the start of the 20^thC London's subterranean railway system was run by a series of independent companies. These were largely been taken over by American financiers. A process of consolidation created Underground Electric Railways of London. The returns on the business's investment in electrification of its network proved to be insufficiently high for its owners. Therefore, in 1907 Albert Stanley, an experienced British-born but American-raised transport executive was appointed to run the company. Among the senior managers whom he found already in place was Frank Pick. The two men proved to have complementary skills; Stanley was skilled in liaising with external interests, while Pick oversaw the management of the business on a day-to-day basis. In 1916, during the First World War, Stanley was appointed as the President of the Board of Trade. Subsequently, he received a peerage as Lord Ashfield and returned to head the company for a second spell.

In 1928 U.E.R.L. and the Conservative Party-controlled London County Council agreed to develop shared management and financial structures for their transport operations. The opposition to this was led by Herbert Morrison, the leader of the L.C.C.'s Labour Party members. A general election was called, after which a Labour government was formed. Morrison had not been opposed to the uniting of the management of London's transport per se. He and Ashfield found that they were able to work together and agreed upon the creation of a publicly-owned body rather than a commercial one. Ashfield proved to be able to convince his own backers that they should sell the business to a public corporation. The Labour government fell. Its successor was a coalition National government. However, Ashfield and Morrison's vision had gathered enough momentum - the London Passenger Transport Act of 1933 passed into law. Under it, the London Passenger Transport Board was set up later that year. The set-up was publicly-owned but not subsidised. The inaugural chairman was Ashfield, while its first vice-chairman and chief executive was Pick. Under the new body's supervision, the Underground Group merged with the Metropolitan Railway.

During the years 1935-40 the Board implemented the government-assisted New Works Programme. This both created jobs during a time of high unemployment and helped to develop and to unify the system. The Central Line and the Northern Line were particular beneficiaries of the scheme.

In 1948 London Transport was nationalised.

The government had developed a plan to recast London Transport in a public-private partnership (P.P.P.). The proposal was resisted by Livingstone. In 2000 he appointed Bob Kiley (1935-2016) to be London's inaugural Commissioner of Transport for London. Kiley was a former C.I.A. agent who had gone on to head the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (1975-9) and New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (1983-90). He had entered the sector in without knowing anything about it but have a strong record of being able to resolve thorny local government issues. The P.P.P. scheme's principal backer was Gordon Brown the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose aides the American took to referring to as teenagers in sneakers . Prime Blair appreciated Kiley's popularity in London and in 2001 the former had the Department for Transport appoint the latter to be the Chairman of London Regional Transport. Following that year's general election, the premier promptly dismissed the executive from that position and sought to place a gagging on him. This was not upheld by the courts. However, a judicial review declined to uphold Transport for London's opposition to P.P.P.. In 2004 the Treasury transferred much of the body's operation to three companies. Livinsgtone responded by extending the length of Kiley's contract.

The innovations that the Commissioner introduced included the Oyster card scheme and the congestion charge (2003). The latter was an idea that Livingstone had devised. Kiley was of the view that London Underground's platform announcements were sufficiently positive. Therefore, he introduced the There is a good service on all other ones that many Tube users regarded as being too smug. The improvements to London s transport system that he was responsible for helped the city secure the 2012 Olympics.

Leaks from within Transport for London indicated that Kiley was becoming increasingly difficult to work with. The Evening Standard newspaper allocated resources to investigate the matter. It emerged that allegations were being made that the Commissioner had acquired an alcohol problem. When asked for a comment Livingstone declared that he would rather rely on Bob Kiley's advice when he is drunk than [the paper's Editor] Veronica Wadley's advice when she is sober . With the years his generous remuneration and entertaining budget became the subject of considerable adverse comment. In 2006 the commissioner and the mayor quarrelled over a senior manager whom the former wanted to be dismissed. He is reputed to have declared Either he goes or I go! Livingstone responded by indicating that Kiley could resign.

The three P.P.P. companies that had assumed a number of Transport for London s operations proved to be unable to fulfil what was required of them. By 2010 Transport for London had resumed control of all of the functions.

Location: 55 Broadway, SW1H 0BD. Green Park Underground Station is part of the site. (blue, turquoise)

Website: https://tfl.gov.uk

¹. See Also: STATUES Nudity, Zimbabwe House

David Backhouse 2024