Boris Johnson's First Year Is No Cause For Celebration

Written by Caroline Pidgeon and published in Guardian Newspaper on Sat 2nd May 2009

Boris Johnson's first year is no cause for celebrationThe London mayor has promised much - and failed to deliver on most of it, writes Caroline Pidgeon

Jenkins celebrates the high profile of London's mayor and comments on the much lower profile of council leaders in "Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds or Manchester". Yet, this is simply not comparing like with like. With a population of more than 7.5 million people it is inevitable that whoever is in charge of our great capital will receive an immense amount of coverage.

Jenkins is correct to state that "in 2008 Johnson's election added 10% to London's vote". But he conveniently forgets that under the old Greater London Council, Ken Livingstone had a similar high profile and the last GLC elections saw a 44% turnout, similar to the 45% last year.

He suggests Johnson has kept to his promises when he states: "He has honoured his pledges to end bendy buses, put more police on to public transport and ban alcohol on the tube." Yet what about his many other pledges to Londoners? On transport alone there has been a long list of broken promises.

Johnson pledged to establish a new express bus service that would orbit outer London. A year after being elected, not one orbital bus route has even been planned.

The mayor promised to convene an "emergency summit" of the train operating companies to tackle overcrowding and exorbitant fares. A year on, no summit has been held. Under his watch train fares have continued to rise and in January he hiked bus, tram and tube fares by twice the rate of inflation.

Johnson also promised to extend the Freedom Pass so it can be used 24 hours a day, yet he never explained that the whole railway network would be excluded from this significant promise he made to London's pensioners and disabled people.

He claimed he would fight for new transport projects, yet the last year has seen him cancelling project after project, including the Greenwich waterfront transit scheme, the Cross River tram and proposals to extend the Docklands Light Railway.

Jenkins is wrong to praise Johnson as championing the needs of pedestrians: "He [Johnson] claims that pedestrians and cyclists should dictate the movement of motor vehicles, not the other way round ... " Within weeks of taking office the mayor axed plans to pedestrianise Parliament Square.

Yet it is on cycling, the one issue that the media love to associate with the mayor, that the greatest difference exists between his image and reality. Jenkins states that Johnson "cycles everywhere". In practice, the mayor has not only cut funding for London's Cycle Network but has also shown as much inclination to jump in a taxi as to cycle. City Hall's audit committee has just revealed that Boris's taxi bill is eight times greater than under his predecessor.

• Caroline Pidgeon is the Liberal Democrats' transport spokesperson on the London Assembly

caroline.pidgeon@london.gov.uk