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• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Those of us in outer London are very concerned that our boroughs - such as Richmond, Kingston, Waltham Forest and Hillingdon - are going to be turned into one massive park-and-ride area. Eric Ollerenshaw: And Hackney. Louise Bloom: Hackney has had the benefit of the exhibition, as has Lambeth. Why cannot the exhibition come round to the outer London boroughs and give people there the same level of information as has been available to the inner London boroughs?

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

We will hold you to that, because I suspect that, if you held it in some of the outer London boroughs, you would get a very large attendance. Another matter I wanted to raise with you on the consultation on congestion charges relates to the exemption of blue badge holders. Blue badge holders in Greater London will of course be exempt from the congestion charges, but why will not all blue badge holders be exempt? People who live, for example, in Thames Ditton, just the other side of the boundary, who are disabled and who have a blue badge, will...

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

It is rather chicken and egg, isn't it? Handling the abuse of the blue badge system, which is certainly is prevalent, is a different issue from allowing disabled people who live outside London to travel into London. The point is that, apart from fraud, you cannot have a blue badge if you can use public transport. Therefore, anybody who has a blue badge - hopefully, most people have obtained them legitimately - should be exempt from the congestion charge.

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Ken, you briefly touched on the issue of public transport around Heathrow. Will the CrossRail fares be more affordable than the Heathrow express fares, which are high? Secondly, is TfL going to do something about the total lack of integrated transport around Heathrow? I recently flew back from Stockholm to Heathrow, and I did not have my car there, as I had left from Gatwick. It took me two hours to fly 888 miles from Stockholm; but it took me two hours on a Sunday to get from Heathrow to Surbiton, a distance of seven miles. Clearly people are going...

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 19 September 2001

Will you also be looking at the integrated aspect? The Mayor: Yes. Louise Bloom: I ended up getting the train, then a bus, then another bus; and by the time I finally reached Kingston town centre, I was so sick of it, I got in a cab to go to Surbiton. It was totally ridiculous - a two-hour journey to travel seven miles, just because integrated and properly timed transport was not available on a Sunday evening.

• Reference: 2001/0141-1
• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

How many submissions on the Draft Transport Strategy were sent to the Mayor commenting on the route of the proposed Cross River Rapid Transit scheme? .

• Reference: 2001/0146-1
• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

Why have Dial-a-Ride vehicles not been exempted from the proposed congestion charge? .

• Reference: 2001/0153-1
• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

What further discussions have taken place on the route of the proposed cross-rail project? .

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

Thank you for that. You mentioned the use of travel pass, but is it not the case that on the riverboats Travel Card holders only actually get a one-third reduction and surely there would be better use of the service if the riverboats counted in on the travel pass, the same as the buses and tubes. Would that not encourage more people to use the service?

• Question by: Louise Bloom
• Meeting date: 05 September 2001

So do you see the riverboat system more as for tourists then, than for the use of regular commuters, which, if you do, I think is rather a shame when that would be a useful addition to the congestion charging strategy, to encourage people to use the riverboats. I believe back as far as 1993 there were about 3,000 people using the riverboats every day when there were more heavy subsidies than we get at the moment.