Transport\u00a0for London took a step closer to greater control of commuter rail services in London today after it was claimed ministers were warming to the idea.<\/p>\n
Department for Transport sources suggested Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin had listened to the\u00a0arguments and was aware of the benefits of handing over powers.<\/p>\n
This comes after Zac Goldsmith wrote to Mr McLoughlin to call for the devolution of rail services and said this would be \u201ccritical\u201d to the capital\u2019s continued economic success.<\/p>\n
The Tory mayoral candidate stepped up pressure on the Government to hand over the South West, Southern, Thameslink and Southeastern franchises to TfL when they are next up for renewal.<\/p>\n
He has also argued that giving TfL more control over commuter rail services would bring lower fares, better value for money and greater integration of transport services in London.<\/p>\n
A source close to Mr McLoughlin said: \u201cWe are open to ideas for improving journeys for Londoners. Zac makes a good case. We will listen to him and work with his ideas where we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour mayoral rival Sadiq Khan also backs more control of suburban rail being devolved to the capital.<\/p>\n
Tory MP Mr Goldsmith told the Standard: \u201cFamilies are spending too much time commuting and not enough time with each other. Boris Johnson has shown that when suburban rail services are accountable to the Mayor, improvements follow.<\/p>\n
“I want to see the success of the London Overground replicated on other lines so they are more frequent and cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Johnson has been lobbying for years for greater control over fares and time-tables on London\u2019s suburban rail\u00a0services.<\/p>\n
Last month a London Assembly survey found 68 per cent of\u00a0the city\u2019s commuters think they should be handed over to TfL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Transport\u00a0for London took a step closer to greater control of commuter rail services in London today after it was claimed ministers were warming to the idea. Department for Transport sources suggested Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin had listened to the\u00a0arguments and was aware of the benefits of handing over powers. This comes after Zac Goldsmith wrote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PjAq-nQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}