KILEY: The three oldest rapid-transit systems in the world are in London, New York and Boston. And I had run New York and Boston. So it was one of those challenges.
The condition of the plant and rolling stock was much worse when I took over in New York, and that is a system that carries almost twice as many people as in London and has about 2 1/2 times the length of track. But the system in London is very unforgiving, especially on the deep lines. The space between the trains and the tunnels themselves is so scant that no human being can do maintenance or renewal work in the tunnels during service hours.
There is this habit in both countries of neglecting cities, and maybe being suspicious of our cities. As in New York, a lot of people gave up on London some years ago. And once you think a city is unlikely to come back, logic suggests that you don’t put major investment into its infrastructure. That was certainly true of New York over a protracted period in the ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s. You pay a horrible price for going through a quarter century of neglect, and that is where we are right now.
It’s the fragmentation of management control. That’s the key question that the government can’t or just won’t deal with.
Time is important. But it is better to get it right now than to go forward and then have the same incredible set of problems as the [privatized] overground rail system. It is really bizarre that at least one of the principles that went wrong in the privatization of the [British railways] is being employed here: separating responsibility for the maintenance of the trains and the infrastructure from the actual running of the trains.
I may not be as long-suffering as the average Brit but I am here for the duration. I have a four-year contract and it will take a lot more than what’s going on now to drive me out.
If worse comes to worst, it will help me to sneak out of town without anyone noticing.
