Underground; overbudget

摘要

Telling long-suffering commuters on London's Underground that the disruptions and line closures that blight the system are about to get worse is not likely to cheer them up, even if they are necessary to upgrade the system. So when Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, made exactly that announcement on April 24th he was keen to point to improvements that had already been made. He reminded the assembled journalists of the extra carriage now attached to each train on the Jubilee line, added without a hitch over Christmas. A fifth of the network's stations have been smartened up, he said, and most of the improvements to the Waterloo & City line (which, admittedly, serves only two stations) are complete.