Twenty years ago in a Singapore hotel, 54 IOC delegates voted to award the 2012 Olympic Games to London. Few saw it coming, the expectation was that the Games would go to Paris and that Seb Coe and friends had valiantly wasted years of effort. Instead the world came to Stratford to win medals and the Lower Lea Valley was duly transformed from a post-industrial backwater to a recreational and residential hub, and all in seven years flat. Trafalgar Square only London and Paris were still in the race, and a large expectant crowd had gathered to witness the opening of an envelope. When 'London' was revealed there was surprise, jubilation and a lot of ticker tape, then Heather Small stood up and sang Proud and the Red Arrows flew over. Lunchtimes have rarely been so consequential. Olympic-Park-to-be, trying to get my head round what might be going where. I bumped into film crews, BMX bikers and oblivious drunkards swigging from cans. I looked down from the Greenway across a swathe of instantly doomed businesses. I got as far as the bus garages, cash and carrys and nature reserves off Waterden Road, taking on the enormity of the transformation ahead. And on the way back I walked to the end of a cul-de-sac to find a German car company and a skip hire depot in the middle of what would eventually be the Olympic Stadium, and soon was. It was quite the day. after 10 years too, as you'd expect, but I'll keep it briefer this time. Also there have been several significant changes since 2015, starting here. This is the Abba Arena, erected silently during the pandemic and now playing to full houses in sequins and lace seven times a week. Technically it's a 'meanwhile' use, originally intended to be removed by 31st March 2025 and replaced by flats. Instead it's still standing because nobody kills a goose that lays golden eggs, and the owners of the Snoozebox Hotel nextdoor hope the day it finally ups sticks is as far in the future as possible. Back in 2005 all this was industrial estate with an emphasis on muck and auto parts, alongside the DLR's least significant halt. Since then the station has been massively upgraded, also relocated to dodge Crossrail, and all but one of the former warehouses has been knocked down. But even though the Games were over a decade ago not a single flat has been built within the Olympic footprint, only on land immediately outside, and a heck of a lot of empty hardstanding remains. It wouldn't surprise me if I returned in 2035 and found Pudding Mill neighbourhood still substantially incomplete. This is the Olympic Stadium, now the London Stadium because West Ham United still haven't found anyone willing to sponsor it. On the bright side it does have a proper legacy use because that was never a given, eventually reopening in 2016, and still packs them in for rock gigs and American football takeovers as and when. If you'd walked this riverside in 2005 it would have been a lonely experience, passing silos and the backs of warehouses while a guard dog barked across the water from a lengthy tumbledown shed. It was plain luck that the braids of the Bow Back Rivers spread wide enough here to accommodate the footprint of a world class arena, also pitch perfect for security, also always going to be an annoying walk from the nearest station. Today it's a joy to see the surface of the river still as alive with damselflies as it was 20 years ago, also a damned shame that the banks of wildflowers that peaked so memorably for the Games have been allowed to almost entirely fade away. February, with culture from the V&A and BBC due next year. This used to be a stripe of industries nowhere else wanted, from scrapyards and repair shops to battery stores and tyre mountains, before being repurposed for swimming and water polo during the Games. It's impressively busy along here now, partly due to office workers and students but mainly thanks to the arrival of Westfield just beyond. A massive mall on former railway lands was planned on this site before Jacques Rogge opened his envelope but the IOC merely turbocharged things and the UK's busiest shopping centre is the result. The Olympic Park itself is also reassuringly abuzz, even midweek, confirming that the speakers in that Singapore hotel room weren't being entirely over-optimistic. The fountains by the bridge squirt far less often than they used to, alas. This is the blue bridge, a single point of reference for those of us who remember how this area used to look. If I really concentrate I can remember a graffitied crossing beneath two tall pylons surrounded by secure fencing, just past Parkes Galvanizing Ltd, and now just look at it! I also remember Carpenters Lock as a derelict ruin I wasn't supposed to clamber on, and never would have guessed it would be fully restored to full navigational use. The fact barely any boats ever use it is alas irrelevant, although when I did my 2025 walk I was thrilled to see one of the lock gates raised while two official-looking gentlemen in Canal & River Trust polo shirts checked it out. Meanwhile nobody's yet found a good reason for the Orbit to exist, not since it was a useful viewing platform above a world-class sporting event for four weeks in the summer of 2012. If the world's longest tunnel slide failed to rake them in then a recent switch to the custody of Zip World is unlikely to cut it, especially with a greedy £5 booking fee on top. These are the northern parklands, arguably the greatest triumph of the post-Olympic legacy. Not only were they glorious to lounge in during the Games but they've matured since to become a wetland landscape of some beauty, complete with multiple kingfishers if you manage to get lucky. I wasn't thinking 'pandemic' when all this was created but my word it made my lockdown hugely more tolerable. That said the parkland has started to be nibbled away for housing on the west side, as was always in the long-term plan, as the neighbourhood of East Wick inexorably expands. There will still be a lot of grass left but it won't be as much as many people anticipated. Also the top of the mound beneath the Olympic rings used to have a much better view than this but the trees they planted 15 years ago are maturing now and the canopy is obscuring the horizon, with some way still to go. It is a shame the Manor House allotments had to move, split off to two less great locations, but what the wider public's gained here is immense. This is the Lea Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre with its dazzling blue outdoor pitch. I never walked this far in 2005, the A12 was too much of a barrier, so QEOP has also helped knit the community together. This Waltham Forest End does however feel somewhat underdeveloped, only coming to life when some massive hockey event descends and seals the place off. Also it was announced last week that the indoor tennis courts are to be converted to padel instead, which has caused a lot of angry players to make a racket, but the Park's recreational overlords have always appeared more interested in income than participation. Beyond that is the Velodrome, a timber beauty that far exceeds the cycle track that used to be here, and also the only Olympic residential neighbourhoods to have been completed so far. Never did I imagine when I wandered up here in the sunshine 20 years ago quite how amazingly it was all going to turn out, almost entirely for the better, and all because three more IOC delegates were persuaded to vote for London instead of Paris.

What's the best thing TfL ever did? anniversary poster series highlights several major achievements across the last 25 years, but they haven't released one for each year, not yet anyway. So I had a go at selecting annual highlights. 2000  Tramlink 2001  Bus Saver tickets 2002  Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003  Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004  Legible London 2005  Accessible buses 2006  Baby on board badge 2007  Overground 2008  Priority seating 2009  iBus / New Routemaster 2010  Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011  DLR Stratford International 2012  Olympics / Dangleway 2013  150th Tube anniversary 2014  Contactless 2015  Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016  Night Tube / Hopper 2017  Night Overground 2018  - 2019  Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020  Essential Travel / TfL Go 2021  Northern line extension 2022  Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023  ULEZ extension 2024  Superloop 2025  Silvertown Tunnel But which TfL thing is best of all? Let's take five years at a time and see if we can narrow it down. 2000  Tramlink 2001  Bus Saver tickets 2002  Journey Planner / Trafalgar Square 2003  Oyster / Congestion Charge 2004  Legible London We can discount Tramlink because that opened two months before TfL was formed. Pedestrianising one side of Trafalgar Square was radical by 2002 standards but feels tame now. 2003 is clearly where it's at, and I'm going with the introduction of Oyster as the revolution that made travel so much simpler and still does to this day. 2005  Accessible buses 2006  Baby on board badge 2007  Overground 2008  Priority seating 2009  iBus / New Routemaster 2010  Pedestrian Countdown / Tube aircon / Cycle Superhighways / Cycle Hire 2011  DLR Stratford International 2012  Olympics / Dangleway 2013  150th Tube anniversary 2014  Contactless This is a tough selection from which to pick a favourite. Air-cooled trains were a revelation in 2010, as we've learned again this week. Cycle hire arguably kickstarted an active travel revolution that continues to grow. I reckon 2012 pips them both though, not the eternal irrelevance of the Dangleway but the fear that transportation would be the Achilles heel of London's Olympics whereas instead it greased the wheels nigh perfectly. 2015  Closing ticket offices / Bus Stop M 2016  Night Tube / Hopper 2017  Night Overground 2019  Woolwich Ferry / Cycleways 2020  Essential Travel / TfL Go By rights Bus Stop M should be the highlight here, certainly given the paucity of some of the opposition. The new Woolwich Ferries were a floating disaster and rebranded Cycleways remain a confusing tangled web. I nearly picked 2016's Night Tube for the way it fired up the weekends, but I really have to go with TfL continuing to run a comprehensive transport network for not many passengers despite minimal fare income during a two year-long pandemic. 2021  Northern line extension 2022  Crossrail / Barking Riverside 2023  ULEZ extension 2024  Superloop 2025  Silvertown Tunnel This is a really strong list, as if Sadiq's TfL was finally getting into its stride and opening everything. And there can only be one winner here, 2022's utterly transformative Elizabeth line, which despite being ridiculously late Londoners can no longer live without. 2003  Oyster 2007  Overground 2012  Olympics 2020  Essential Travel 2022  Crossrail Oyster is the best thing TfL ever did. (unless of course you know better)

Happy Birthday to TfL, who are 25 years old today. Celebrations started in January with a panoply of posters highlighting past successes, also scattered silver roundels reminding Londoners that Every Journey Matters. But the actual birthday is today, a founding date shared with the Greater London Authority because they're 25 too. Greater London Authority Act finally kick in. Ken's levers at this time were few and his budget small, but all the powers and public scrutiny we now take for granted started here. building's since been sold off as housing - to be more precise 169 flats and a health club - and I wonder if the current occupant of Room AG16 realises how historic their apartment is. Agenda and the Minutes for that inaugural meeting, and indeed of every Board meeting since. London's transport had been centrally controlled since 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, followed sequentially by the London Transport Executive, London Transport Board and London Regional Transport. To the general public they were long known simply as London Transport. 25 years ago saw a switch to the more user-friendly Transport for London, a name recognising that the Mayor and Board were working on behalf of Londoners. What's interesting here is the italicisation of 'for' in the name Transport for London, this on every mention in the minutes and even in the three-letter acronym. It's always TfL, never TfL, a really powerful branding statement which at some point in the subsequent years was summarily ditched. TfL is no longer quite so for London as on the day it was born. It's clear that those present recognised this was a new dawn for London's transport, both in terms of public accountability and the potential for improving the lives of Londoners. That said there were in fact two meetings on that first day, a public one and a private one, because there will always be sensitive topics better not shared. Traffic Director for London   Dial-a-Ride The biggest omission from that list, if you look carefully, was London Underground Limited. It would be 2003 before this was finally transferred across to TfL control. The tube was held back to allow the government time to set up a public–private partnership model separating out trains and infrastructure, a PPP model they knew Ken Livingstone would vehemently oppose. This he did but it went through anyway, at least until infracos failed to deliver and by 2010 everything would be back in house. Bob Kiley was appointed in the top role. Fares would be a focus of the second Board meeting on July 27th. Ken took issue with the government's assumption that fares should increase 1% in real terms in January 2001, instead sticking to inflation-based rises on the tube and a fares freeze on the buses. He also expressed an aspiration to introduce a flat fare for all buses across London, rather than £1 for journeys in Zone 1 and 70p elsewhere. Meanwhile a decision was made to end the right of senior TfL staff to a company car, "with appropriate compensation in negotiation with the individuals affected". From a lowly start in a Westminster meeting room to today's back-slapping celebrations, the last 25 years have seen TfL grow from a fledgling organisation still finding its feet to a world-class brand-obsessed innovator delivering better transport to millions. It's been quite the journey, but then Every Journey Matters.