please empty your brain below

Fantastic piece.

It really is some legacy.

Shame the Cross River Tram and DLR extension to Barking Riverside got cancelled early on, or these could've been included on the list.

Oh well, just gotta get the children off to school then I'll be off to cast my vote.
London will miss Boris. For what a legacy he has left the capital. We will be taking about his achievements fur literally minutes.
Well it's probably fair to say that at least he gave DG a lot to write about.
Imagine the clowning he will be able to get up when he's in No.10 later this summer! First stop, the ludicrous Boris Island. I cannot wait.
Well... at least he successfully spent an absolute fortune prematurely withdrawing bendy buses.

I still haven't been able to find one of those new orbital bus routes yet though.
He'll probably get stuck in his door like he did on that zip-wire si he doesn't have to leave!
Yes! and just to think that IF Zac gets in it will get EVEN BETTER!!! We'll all be able to move to barely-affordable housing in Shenfield (borders) and commute into work at our zero=hours job, sharing a desk and eating junk food in our self-financed 'lunch' hours!!!!
The segregated cycle lanes along Blackfriars and the Embankment are a triumph and Boris deserves high praise for having the political nerve to get them built.

Next mayor's number 1, 2 and 3 priority has to be housing. No point having a great city if none of us can afford to live here!
Oh, you're being ironic, aren't you?
I'm not sure Boris should get the credit for either the Olympics or Crossrail, but he has a knack of basking in the glow of other people's achievements. Red Ken did a lot, but his runaway mouth has cost Labour one voter, sitting in my chair.
Brilliant piece.
For all that I don't support his party, Boris has been fun to have around! Not sure any of the others will have the same entertainment value!! Heck, even his name is a hoot!
Brilliant piece.

A Thames Estuary airport is not a ludicrous idea. The day an airliner crashes into Central London, we will realise this.

But we can go on crossing our fingers for a few more decades, and perhaps the oil will run out first.
I can't believe that in his own legacy piece he actually highlighted the closure of fire stations and reductions in police headcount as one of the plusses of his reign -- which sums it all up really.
Agreed, another brilliant piece.

Malcolm, I'm actually keeping my fingers crossed that a Thames Estuary airport does not get built. It would be so much more convenient for me having to travel 35 odd miles across the city instead of the 3 to LHR. Come to think of it, you do have a point, we will not have any oil by the time any decision is made and plans approved, so fingers uncrossed !
Forget the dangleway?

Doesn't matter what Boris has done, or not done, he was a figurehead for London and a charachter. He was globally recognised and as such was fantastic for London.

I just don't think the next incumbant will be good for London at all, in fact quite the opposite, damage will be done.
I enjoyed the passing swipe at Karren Brady :-)

Yay, Bus Stop M! I'm coming to London in July, and it's on my list to visit!
If you had ventured round the back of Bow Fire Station DG you would have seen that the training tower has been demolished.
Of course, Sadiq as Mayor won't piss any money up the wall, favour any crony organisations or undertake any pork-barrel schemes in Labour areas will he? Plus, with the added bonus of cutting TFL funding by freezing fares, there won't be any new infrastructure projects to go wrong.

Super. Splendid.
If you had ventured round the back of Bow Fire Station DG you would have seen that the training tower has been demolished.

And by venturing round the front, noticed that it's on Parnell Road, not Fairfield. :p

dg writes: dammit, yes, sorry, fixed, thanks.
I like Boris as a person and as a mayor he has been alright I think. Obviously I think Boris Island/Thames Estuary Airport is ridiculous, but some of the things he's always knocked for I actually like, including the Dangleway (which btw now makes a profit).

Both of the current frontrunners are thoroughly uninspiring, and I think one in particular will do tremendous damage to transport.

Therefore, compared to the piss-poor quality of the current candidates, I would rather have a 3rd term of Boris.
Elshad,

I believer the Dangleway makes an operating profit (covers its day-to-day running costs). As far as I am aware, it does not earn enough to make a serious indent into the capital costs required to set it up and replace it when it is worn out.

Given that it doesn't cost that much to run the thing this is not a great achievement.

Malcolm, Gary M,

There is loads of oil - just like there is loads of coal. Partly because of fracking, we are now in the position where no-one with any authority can seriously envisage us running out of the stuff. If we burnt all that we currently knew about and could economically extract we would have probably destroyed the planet through global warming first.
If we are going to blame Boris for the loss of Bow fire station, I suppose we ought to thank him for the excellent replacement one we now have at Purley.
Great piece, thanks DG.

Not a huge fan of Boris personally, but I agree with Dan with regards to the segregated cycle lanes. His hand may have been forced somewhat, but it took nerve to push them through.

I've seen a few of the new Routemasters with the awkward rear pole removed recently. Perhaps being phased out across the fleet?
Oh, Boris was a shower, but would any of the alternatives have been much better? Or indeed will any of his potential replacements?

If you were starting with a clean sheet of paper, and absent climate change and unexploded WWII vintage bombs in the Thames, then an estuary airport would not be a bad idea. But we have massive amounts of infrastructure around Heathrow already, and climate change (the quickest fix most of us can do to reduce our carbon footprint is not fly), and bombs, so ...

Just think - in about eight months we could have Boris as PM and Trump as POTUS. Shudder.
I won't miss Johnson and his wastes of Londoners' money, which will be hard to pin down in real terms exactly what he pee'd up and over the wall. I met him a couple of times - hurts to say it but he's charming even if it's an act. It's only veneer-thin: he learns his scripts well, leanrs the first names of those he's meeting (doesn't everyone in his type of role?) and isn't allowed out in public without a minder. He says what he's advised to, then forgets the lot: ask him about that subject five minutes later and he blusters. Or as in one instance with me, lost his temper big time - I was briefly in real fear of my continued ability to breathe until I realised he was only letting off steam at being caught out. He has comic moments, a gift of communication (if incomprehensible at times) and an ability to work a crowd, but him as an image of London will be something to shudder about forever, worse for the outside chance of him and Trump in power together. Nightmares nos 1-9 inclusive.
Wonderful post. Just how useless Boris has been needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
Pedantic is right of course. I tend to use "running out of oil" as shorthand for "being unable to use fossil fuels due to their effect on climate change", but this is obviously wooly thinking and wooly speaking. (If carbon capture was real then conceivably we could ultimately run out of oil, but it isn't).
If carbon capture was real, we would have a hope in hell of meeting the 2 degree target, which would be bad enough. Unfortunately it isn't so we don't. 3 degrees, 4 degrees, who know, but it won't be pretty and it'll have catastrophic effects sooner rather than later. Think the current refugee crisis is bad enough? You ain't seen nothin' yet.
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