London Transport Board

London Transport Board
Formation	1 January 1963 (Transport Act 1962)
Extinction	31 December 1969 (Transport (London) Act 1969)
Type	Public body
Purpose/focus	Transport authority
Headquarters	55 Broadway, Westminster, London
Region served	Greater London and within 30 miles (48 km) of Charing Cross
Main organ	London Transport
Parent organization	National Government

The London Transport Board was the organisation responsible for public transport in London, UK, and its environs from 1963-1969. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operational brand of the organisation was London Transport.

History

The organisation was created on 1 January 1963 by the Transport Act 1962 and replaced the London Transport Executive (LTE) upon the dissolution of the British Transport Commission. It was an independent statutory undertaking reporting directly to the Minister of Transport, whose responsibilities were similar to those of the LTE, but with the addition of some railway lines previously the responsibility of British Railways. The first Chairman was A.B.B. Valentine, who had been the Chairman of the LTE.

The London Transport Board was responsible for the London Underground and for bus and coach services within the London Passenger Transport Area, an area with a radius of about 30 miles from London established when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933.

Service were maintained and not cut as elsewhere in the country, under the Beeching Axe. The board was responsible for the devising the Bus Reshaping Plan in 1966, a comprehensive programme of changes to bus services.

By 1970 the roads in London had become so congested that the Greater London Development Plan included in its scope policy to reduce dependence on the car.^{[citation needed]} On 1 January 1970 responsibility for public transport within the Greater London area was passed to the Greater London Council (GLC) under the Transport (London) Act 1969, with the London Transport brand retained by the GLC. Those bus services which ran outside the GLC area, together with Green Line Coaches, were passed to a new company, London Country Bus Services, formed on 1 January 1970 as a subsidiary of the National Bus Company.

See also

• Sir Alexander Valentine - Chairman, 1962 to 1965
• Sir Maurice Holmes - Chairman, 1965 to 1969

References

• Cooke, B.W.C., ed. (September 1964). "The Why and the Wherefore: London Transport Board". Railway Magazine (Westminster: Tothill Press) 110 (761). 
• Day, John R.; Reed, John (2008) [1963]. The Story of London's Underground (10th ed.). Harrow: Capital Transport. ISBN 978 1 85414 316 7. 
• Witton, A.M. (February 1978). Telfer, R.L.; Witton, A.M.. eds. Fleetbook 15: Buses of Greater London. Manchester: A.M. Witton. ISBN 0 86047 151 9. 

Preceded by London Transport Executive

London public transport authority 1963–1969

Succeeded by London Transport Executive (GLC)