2012 Transport Plans Next For Criticism
The transportation plans for London 2012 are the latest element of the project
to come under fire after a progress report from MPs highlighted reservations
about certain predictions for the Games.
The MPs report warns that many of the assumptions in the 2012 transport plans
are ‘highly speculative’, in particular the projections regarding non-Olympic
traffic.
The 2012 transport plans predict that non-Olympic traffic will drop by twice
the 8 percent it usually does in summer – a projection that the Commons
transport committee which compiled the report believes to be off the mark.
The report stated that, despite up to 80 percent of passengers expected to
travel by rail, contingency plans in case of problems were ’embryonic’.
MPs were particularly concerned that contingency plans for things like power
failure, security alerts and signalling problems were not well developed.
‘It is crucial that the transport systems put into place are robust enough to
allow for major failures in parts of the system, without the entire system
collapsing,’ the report said.
It has been estimated general road traffic in London would need to drop 15
percent to avoid congestion during the Olympics – due to start on 27 July 2012.
Committee chairwoman Gwyneth Dunwoody said the whole committee had
reservations about the 2012 estimate.
‘It completely distorts the
calculation on how many people would be using the transport system,’ she said.
‘Now is the time to be getting on with the difficult decisions, not just
before the thing is scheduled to begin.’
During committee hearings, MPs heard that plans were generally 12 to 24
months ahead of what the International Olympic Committee expected.
Responding to the report, the ODA ‘s transport director Hugh Sumner said
‘Scrutiny and debate at this very early stage of consultation is important.
However we remain confident in our preparations for 2012.’
He added that it was ‘unprecedented’ to have a draft transport plan ready so
early and that ‘every milestone’ had been hit to date.
The final transport plan is expected to be published this summer, although it
will be further revised in the light of experiences from the Beijing Games in
2008.
