Caroline joined Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg MP, Simon Hughes MP, Brian Paddick and Cllr Duwayne Brookes at a Q&A session with young Londoners at the Ministry of Sound on Tuesday.
The Lib Dem team for London and nationally were grilled on lots of issues from job and training opportunities to support for young entrepreneurs.
The London Liberal Democrats toured a range of London boroughs on Wednesday 30th March in a campaign bus to launch their fares package for Londoners.
The Fairer Fares package proposes Six Ways To Save, one of which is a One Hour Bus Ticket that will allow people to hop-on and hop-off buses as many times as needed within one hour, paying only one single fare.
The scheme works successfully in several European cities ensuring that multiple journeys on one of the most popular forms of transport are kept as low as possible. From the moment an Oyster card is touched, or a paper ticket is printed, passengers would have 60 minutes in which to make additional journeys without any extra cost.
Caroline joined local councillors and campaigners in Southwark on Saturday 24th March knocking on doors and talking to local people about their concerns about crime.
Caroline recently took part in a meeting with Transport for London over their controversial decision to close the lifts at both Bermondsey and Canada Water tube stations for the next three months.
Local Liberal Democrats have already written to Boris Johnson expressing their concern about the impact this will have on local residents and have urged the Mayor to reopen at least one lift to enable disabled people and parents with young children to be able to access the Jubilee Line without having to go all the way to London Bridge.
At the meeting, attended also by Simon Hughes MP and Councillors Anood Al-Samerai and David Hubber (pictured), TfL defended their policy of simultaneously closing both lifts but have promised to take active steps to publicise the sudden closure of both lifts, including providing extensive information on electronic notice boards on the Jubilee Line and possibly on local buses.
Commenting on another major disruption to the Jubilee line during the rush hour on 22nd March, Caroline Pidgeon said:
"This line is critical to ensuring London keeps moving during the Games, but far from seeing improvements, reliability has been falling.
"The Mayor and Transport for London need to detail actions that will be taken in the next three months to turn this round."
And just 4 days later, hundreds of passengers had to walk out of a broken down train and through a darkened tunnel to safety.
Caroline said:
The London SE1 website reveals that after questions to the Mayor by Caroline Pidgeon, TfL have admitted leaving a cycle hire docking station outside Elephant and Castle's Strata building unrepaired - since the end of January.
Southwark’s Liberal Democrats have called for a ‘Cycling Culture Change’ at all levels of government following their successful summit on cycling last week.
The event was attended by over 30 people including the head of Southwark Cyclists and the father of Ellie Carey who died in a collision in Abbey Street last September.
Local Liberal Democrat politicians Simon Hughes MP, Caroline Pidgeon AM and numerous councillors attended the event and listened to the suggestions for tackling the problems faced by cyclists on Southwark’s roads.
Caroline Pidgeon, leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group, is urging First Capital Connect and Network Rail to stop charging passengers for just walking over the bridge.
At present if anyone using Oyster Pay As You Go enters the station south of the river and passes through the First Capital Connect barriers to get to the tube platforms they are not charged, however people who simply want to walk through the station without catching a train or Tube are being charged.
Caroline Pidgeon commented:
The London SE1 website reports that Transport for London is at last giving serious consideration to improved safety measures at the junction of Abbey Street and Tower Bridge Road in Bermondsey - where cyclist Ellie Carey was tragically killed last year.
Caroline Pidgeon said:
"It is good news that the Mayor and TfL now concede that at least advanced stop lines can be completed before the start of the the Olympic Games.
"I will be pushing hard to ensure such basic improvements are completed as a matter of urgency."
Local Liberal Democrat Councillors Lisa Rajan, David Hubber, Paul Noblet, Simon Hughes MP and myself have been inundated with emails from concerned passengers in Surrey Docks about the future of Greenland Pier. This also affects people who use the service and live just over in Lewisham.
We held a meeting on Monday morning with Gill Davies, Southwark Council's Director of Environment and Leisure. Our main aim for the meeting was to get Southwark Council to stop the temporary closure of the pier on 28th February, and instead keep it open for the Thames Clippers boats to use. We know how vital and valued the commuter boat service is and how many people rely on it. We also wanted to ask for a temporary pontoon to be installed if the existing one really does need to be removed for repairs.
We divided the pier issue into two parts - the immediate future, following the official Notice to Quit served on Thames Clippers, and the longer term future of the pier.
As far as the immediate situation is concerned, the Notice to Thames Clippers was, we were told, a legal requirement to enable the pier to be inspected and repaired as necessary. Thames Clippers should be granted a temporary licence to enable them to continue to use the pier until such time as it may be removed temporarily for any works. We have stressed that there should be no discontinuance of the service on 28 February, nor until it is essential for the pier to be closed, and we were led to believe that this would be the case. We also asked that users should be given one month's notice before the pontoon is actually removed.