Bosses have admitted that passengers will face more chaos after upgrade work is put on hold. Extra trains will not be added to the schedule until July, and only 3 more trains are due to run every hour once update works have been completed.
Recent problems that have included two breakdowns in the space of 12 hours on the 19th April, leaving thousands of passengers stranded, have led to widespread criticism for the Tube bosses. Mayor Boris Johnson was forced to brand the Jubilee Line “a disaster’ after 1500 people had to be led along the tracks.
London Underground dismissed claims by mayoral contender Ken Livingstone that Mayor Boris Johnson had ‘downgraded’ improvement works, thereby ‘breaking his promise’ to provide extra trains.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats in London, Caroline Pidgeon,, said: “The Mayor must now apologise to Londoners … it is time [he] explained what really is going on. He should come forward with proposals to compensate long-suffering Jubilee passengers.”
There will be six more part-shutdowns from the 15th May to 26th June, made even worse when coupled with the five weekend part-suspensions occurring on the Metropolitan line during the same period. A huge section of London will be left without a Tube service.
The original upgrade works were due to be completed by Tube Lines in October 2009. The completion date was delayed by a year and when that deadline passed TfL claimed that the line upgrade would be completed by Spring 2011. The main problem is the computer software linking signal control to the trains. It has crashed several times leaving immobile trains blocking the line.
Mike Brown, LU managing director, promised “far fewer closures and much less disruption in future”.
