At one minute past midnight this morning ailing-and-in-administration Metronet Rail, responsible for the maintenance of all but 3 Underground lines, finally transferred to TfL control.
Metronet went under last July following an estimated £2bn overspend upgrading our beloved tube. Of course, the upgrade work will continue with TfL expecting to spend a cool £1.4bn in this financial year. It is hoped that with direct control over the maintenance company, TfL can better focus on delivering the renewal programme efficiently (meaning on time, or at least within known timeframes) and of course as cost effectively as possible (with beady-eyed, bottom line Boris in the Chair of TfL till September).
Key aims for the ongoing upgrade investment include:
Yeah, not very sexy, sorry. In the short term, we reckon the chances of us actually noticing the difference in ownership are pretty damn slim. Roll on the delivery of a "major transport boost by late 2011".
Image courtesy of Staneky's Flickrstream under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
