Challenge the Consultation is slightly removed from our other two interventions to the extent that it does not immediately concern the direct interaction of physical communication between commuters and public transport staff. Say Hi! Campaign and Hospitality in Transit were more micro-level in their focus of everyday life in the domain of public transport. Challenge the Consultation concerns itself with the political implications of TfL's consultation programme on a macro-level analysis of everyday life.
While TfL's consultation programme invites public response to inform considerations of service changes around our transport network, more often than not public response is not reflected in the outcome of decisions made to progress with TfL's proposed changes. I strongly believe this is microcosmic of the interactional breakdown between politicians and constituents, whereby politicians only look at policies from a macro-level of understanding - e.g. "cost-efficiency" has been the justificatory rhetoric for the withdrawal of many longstanding London bus routes - rather than engage with more micro-level demographic concerns with the policy - e.g. interchanging, having to adjust custom journey patterns because your customary service is no longer available or no longer running along the same route it had done to the convenience of its communities for many years.
Hence, I wanted to challenge the consultation by offering more community-friendly and journey-efficient alternatives to those proposed and implemented against public response invited but ultimately ignored by TfL's consultation programme. We created a poster to stick over the information sheets at bus stops for routes that have changed against public response such as route 23. This route used to run to The City from Westbourne Park. However, route 10 between King's Cross and Hammersmith was withdrawn and the 23, seemingly unrelated other than both routes paralleled on Oxford Street, became its replacement. The 23 now runs to Hammersmith via Park Lane, Knightsbridge and Kensington, even though at Paddington the 27 already does this quicker in the other direction. This effectively removed yet another link from west London into central and has rendered the 23 almost useless between Paddington and Hammersmith, with the small exception that Edgware Road is now directly linked to the Royal Albert Hall. Compare the amount of passengers doing that journey to the amount that used to take the 23 to the West End and right into The City - St. Paul's, Bank, Liverpool Street - and we see the macro-level cost-efficiency objectives in action against the macro-level conveniences expressed by commuters who use the services daily.
Unfortunately, it does not look like I will have the time to post up our posters at the relevant bus stops. However, to compensate I have published them on Flickr. We received generally positive feedback. Alex Peak, for example, replied that 'there’s a systemic problem with these consultations. It’s either too many different voices or one person making all the decisions and getting it wrong.' This is what motivated me to include Challenge the Consultation in the project.
I also shared the idea with the bus blogosphere on our featured blog London Connected. Responses were similarly interested in the idea and critical of the consultations:
I also shared the idea with the bus blogosphere on our featured blog London Connected. Responses were similarly interested in the idea and critical of the consultations:
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