AT 00.01 on July 15, responsibility for London Underground Ltd was transferred from the UK Secretary of State for Transport to Transport for London. The handover followed the award of 30-year concessions to Tube Lines and Metronet under the Public-Private Partnership, and saw the abolition of London Regional Transport, which had been retained to hold LU for the government.
With the transfer, the shadow management team put in place by TfL Commissioner Bob Kiley assumed responsibility for managing the PPP contracts. New Managing Director Tim O'Toole said his first priority was 'to ensure a safe, reliable and clean Tube service.' Given that the network had been 'starved of investment for many years', he felt the staff had 'done a remarkable job moving three million people around London every day in very difficult circumstances'. O'Toole plans to undertake a safety audit of the LU network and sign a 'stability agreement' with the unions.
- On July 14 Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announced that the government would support a bill seeking powers to build Crossrail Line 1, 'if it could be proved the rail link was deliverable and viable.' Promoter Cross London Rail Links had submitted a final business case for the £10bn project three days earlier. The east-west line would run in tunnel between Paddington, Liverpool Street and Whitechapel, linking Shenfield, Canary Wharf and Ebbsfleet in the east with Heathrow Airport and Kingston upon Thames in the west.
