Opinion: After Another Tube Evacuation, It’s Time TfL Invested in Actual Safety

Last Thursday evening, for the fourth time this year, I found myself standing on a darkened Underground platform while emergency services dealt with yet another evacuation on the Tube network. This time it was the Elizabeth line at Paddington — overheating brakes, smoke in carriages, 740 passengers shuffled out into the cold. The time before that it was the Northern line at Bank. Before that, the Jubilee line at Westminster. Each time, TfL issues the same reassuring statements about passenger safety being their "absolute priority." Each time, nothing fundamentally changes. I have had enough, and I suspect I am not alone.

A System Running on Borrowed Time

Let us be honest about what the London Underground is in 2026: a Victorian-era network held together with insufficient investment, ageing infrastructure, and the extraordinary dedication of frontline staff who are asked to deliver a 21st-century service with equipment that belongs in a transport museum. The Central line runs trains designed in the 1990s on infrastructure that predates the Second World War. The Bakerloo line operates rolling stock from 1972. The signalling systems on several lines date from the 1960s and are maintained by engineers who must source replacement parts from specialist manufacturers because the original suppliers ceased trading decades ago.

TfL's own infrastructure assessment, buried deep in its 2025 business plan, acknowledges a maintenance and renewal backlog of approximately £2.3 billion — a figure that grows by roughly £300 million annually as the network continues to age faster than it is renewed. This is not a secret. It is a known, documented, and entirely predictable crisis that successive mayors and transport secretaries have chosen to defer rather than address.

The Safety Consequences Are Real

Evacuations are not merely inconvenient — they are dangerous. During the Paddington incident, passengers reported crushing at carriage doors, people tripping on platform edges in reduced visibility, and inadequate staff numbers to manage the evacuation safely. An elderly passenger was hospitalised. At Bank station in January, a passenger with mobility issues was unable to use the emergency stairs and waited 40 minutes for assistance. These are not hypothetical risks; they are real harms caused by underinvestment.

Former TfL safety director Michael Liebreich has warned publicly that "the probability of a serious safety incident on the Underground increases with every year of deferred maintenance." Yet the political response has been to cut TfL's government grant, impose fare increases on passengers, and hope that nothing catastrophic happens before the next election.

Where Has the Money Gone?

TfL's annual budget is approximately £11 billion. Yet capital investment in Underground infrastructure — the tunnels, tracks, signals, and trains that keep the system safe — has fallen by 28 per cent in real terms since 2016. Meanwhile, TfL has spent over £700 million on the Silvertown Tunnel, a road project that even its own environmental assessment admits will increase air pollution. The priorities are grotesquely misaligned.

What TfL Must Do Now

Three things need to happen. First, TfL must publish a transparent, annually updated safety investment plan that shows exactly how much is being spent on maintaining and renewing Underground infrastructure, broken down by line and asset type. Londoners deserve to know which parts of their Tube network are being maintained and which are being allowed to decay. Second, the Government must commit to a long-term capital funding settlement for TfL that ends the destructive cycle of annual budget uncertainty. Third, TfL must set and publish binding targets for reducing the number of service-affecting safety incidents, with independent monitoring and public reporting. The London Underground carries 1.4 billion passengers a year. It is the backbone of our city's economy and daily life. It deserves better than managed decline — and so do we.