London Evening Standard/London
Transport bosses yesterday set out their battle plan to keep London moving during this week’s Tube strike as they urged the unions “do the right thing” by calling off the walk-out.
They warned commuters that the Tube will start an hour later and finish an hour earlier during the 48-hour strike this Wednesday and Thursday.
The service will be reduced across the network as hundreds of members of the RMT and TSSA unions are likely to take part in the strike over the mayor’s decision to close all Tube ticket offices by next year with the loss of almost 1,000 jobs.
First trains will not run until 7am tomorrow and Thursday with last trains departing at 11pm on those
days. The 48-hour-strike strike begins at 9.30pm tomorrow when services will gradually wind down.
London Underground have put together a patchwork of services intended to give as many commuters as possible a route to work.
LU managing director Mike Brown said: “My message to the unions leaderships is that it’s not too late to do the right thing, call off this completely unnecessary strike and work with us to help shape the future of the Tube.
“All a strike will achieve is to lose those who take part four days’ pay. Should the strike go ahead, we’ll do all we can to keep customers informed and ensure we keep London moving and open for business.”
The Piccadilly line is expected to be the most disrupted although there will be shuttles to Heathrow. The Northern line will operate a near normal service with trains every five minutes except the Mill Hill branch.
The core route will be prioritised on the District line (Wimbledon to Upminster) and the Victoria line (Seven Sisters to Victoria).
On the Jubilee line services will be prioritised from Stanmore to Finchley Road, connecting with the Metropolitan line heading to the City.
Buses, the DLR and London Overground will operate normal services.
Transport bosses urged Londoners to walk short distances in Zone 1, or cycle. Major employers have been urged to relax dress codes to make it easier for staff to get on the bikes. TfL have distributed around 1mn walking maps and will deploy marshals to taxi ranks at national rail stations.
To minimise the strike’s impact, TfL management qualified to work on stations will leave their desks to help out on the Tube. Talks at the Euston offices of Acas continued yesterday.
Boris Johnson took a swipe at RMT general secretary Bob Crow yesterday after pictures were published of him in Rio de Janeiro before returning to London this weekend. The mayor wrote in the Daily Telegraph that if Crow called off the strike “I will have every pleasure in sitting down and talking to him — over a coffee or pina colada”.
An RMT spokesman said: “Talks to find a solution are ongoing but in the meantime support among our members remains rock solid and we expect widespread and severe disruption with just a skeleton service operating.” The TSSA were unavailable for comment.