On Monday, 25th February, the London Assembly will debate an amendment to the Mayor’s budget to prioritise cycling schemes worth £41m if there are unexpected savings identified by Transport for London in the coming year. This would raise the cycling budget to 2% of the annual TfL budget and match the 2% of journey which are estimated to be made by bike.
Green Party Assembly Member Jenny Jones is moving the motion. A seconder has yet to be agreed. As this is the Mayor’s final budget proposal, an amendment has to be agreed by two thirds of the Assembly in order for the Mayor to consider it.
The amendment background
The Mayor’s budget proposes a cycling budget of £104 million, leaving him £41 million short of meeting our recommendation.
TfL has consistently found savings far exceeding its original savings targets. In the past eight years this has amounted to £600 million of unanticipated savings, with £216 million found in 2011-12. In the past TfL have brought forward tube, rail, tram and bus projects with unanticipated savings. TfL’s finances and investment plans are too opaque for us to see exactly how this happens, and to identify further savings for TfL in 2013-14 in the same way that we are able to scrutinise the GLA, for example. The Transport Committee suggested that it may be possible for TfL to use future unanticipated savings to fund the increased expenditure on cycling.
The amendment proposal
We suggest TfL should prioritise cycling projects, particularly in outer London, for these extra funds in 2013-14. In order to ensure that £145 million is spent, and that cycling projects can get started as soon as possible, we propose that the Mayor increase cycle funding by £41 million in 2013-14, funded by an equivalent reduction in TfL’s £1.3 billion reserves. The Mayor should instruct TfL to use future unanticipated savings to replace that money in reserves before funding future projects.
Image By 齐健 from Peking, People’s Republic (Down the Hutong) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons