May 01: The choice on transport

On Monday Labour launched our transport manifesto for London for the next four years.
Transport is the area that has been most transformed by Labour's eight years in charge of London:

• Buses have been transformed
• The Tube is slowly but surely beginning to benefit from the billions invested
• We've taken control of some of the worst performing train services to creat London Overground
• The number of cyclists in London has never been higher
• London's great town squares like Trafalgar Square are once again being returned to pedestrians
• We've revolutionised paying for public transport journeys by introducing the Oystercard
• The congestion charge has reduced traffic gridlock in the city without the dire displacement around the edges the Tories scaremongered would happen
• And the income from the congestion zone has made it possible for everything else listed above to be provided by Labour without crippling fare rises.

That's what we've already done - but we're nowhere near done. Here's what you'll get by re-electing Labour for another term of office on 01 May:

• A brand new London bike-hire scheme
• Free public transport travel for our service veterans
• Pensioners with Freedom Passes able to use them any time of the day
• More convenient ways of paying for Oyster and the congestion charge
• Cheaper fares than the Tories will saddle you with: each bus journey will be 15p cheaper with Labour
• The expansion of London Overground

Coupled with the campaigns I'm running for:

• Extensive improvements to Putney Station
• Setting up the AirTrack network connecting Waterloo with Heathrow
• More capacity on local train services by returning the six unused Waterloo platforms vacated by Eurostar
• And fully accessible East Putney and Southfields Stations

...these are bold, enterprising, ambitious and achievable plans to make London an Olympic City by 2012.

I don't like talking about what things were like under the Tories - it was such a long time ago that they messed things up so badly, after all. But on transport, even those barely old enough to remember the underfunded, run-down Conservative years have the scars of the dreadful mess they made of London Transport seared into their memories. Don't let the Tories take us back down that tunnel again.

Vote for Ken Livingstone as Mayor and give us a Labour voice on the Assembly for the first time ever by backing local Assembly candidate Leonie Cooper.

You can read Ken's Transport for London manifesto here.