标题:London tube faces ￡3bn black hole # Dan Milmo, transport correspondent # guardian.co.uk, # Tuesday September 09 2008 10:28 BST The London underground network is facing a funding gap of more than ￡3bn as the cost of repairing the tube system spirals out of control. An assessment of the tube network's financial needs published this morning outlined a financial black hole of up to ￡1.4bn on a third of the capital's underground lines. The latest figures create a severe financial headache for the government when they are added to the projected ￡2bn funding gap on the rest of the tube system. Transport for London, the London mayor's transport authority, this morning blamed the government and said the Treasury would have to step in. London Underground boss Tim O'Toole said the government must pay because it had imposed the public private partnership programme that parcelled out the tube upgrade operation to private companies. O'Toole has consistently warned that any attempt to cut back on the ￡30bn upgrade programme would result in chaos because the network is struggling to cope with current levels of demand. "Any funding required above TfL's budget should be met by continuing support by government, who imposed this PPP structure on the tube and Londoners," said O'Toole. Gordon Brown, who brought in the PPP when he was chancellor, and his successor, Alistair Darling, must decide whether to bail out the Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The mayor's transport adviser, Kulveer Ranger, last week ruled out imposing massive fare rises to raise funds. The scale of the funding gap emerged this morning in a report by the PPP contract referee, Chris Bolt. He said carrying out vital upgrade work on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines up to 2017 would cost between ￡5.1bn and ￡5.5bn. TfL projected it would cost ￡4.1bn and therefore faces a gap of up to ￡1.4bn. Metronet's funding needs However, Tube Lines, the private company that owns the PPP contracts for the work, revealed this morning that it thinks the gap could be bigger. It believes the work will cost ￡7.2bn, implying that it faces an overspend of up to ￡2.1bn. Metronet, the contractor charged with maintaining two-thirds of the tube, collapsed last year after building up a projected overspend of at least ￡2bn. In an embarrassing reversal of one of Brown's signature policies as chancellor, Metronet is back in public ownership after it was taken over by TfL. TfL has yet to reveal the funding needs for Metronet up to 2017, amid speculation that it also faces a budget deficit up to 2017 on top of the existing ￡2bn funding hole — which covers the period 2003 to 2010. Tube Lines, which is co-owned by a subsidiary of BAA owner Ferrovial, indicated that the government's role in funding would have to be clarified. In a carefully worded statement this morning, the company did not make a direct reference to the disparity between its cost estimates and TfL's. Instead, it hinted that the government should put in place long-term financial backing for the network, rather than allocating cash every seven years. "The question is not should the upgrade of the tube cost this much but how is this vital work to be funded? Funding for future tube improvements must be secured and maintained," said the company. One of the staunchest critics of the PPP programme warned this morning that cutting back work investment in new trains, signalling systems and tracks would be disastrous for a tube network that carries more than 3 million people on a typical weekday. Professor Stephen Glaister, a former TfL board member and head of transport at Imperial College, said: "The PPP was claiming to deliver a programme of work over 30 years. That programme cannot be delivered for what the government thought it would cost originally. The work cannot be done, so the government will have to pay a lot more money. If the programme is not carried out, then we have got a serious problem with capacity on the tube in London." http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/09/london.london 新闻来源: (需有正确连结) -- --

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