TfL no longer receives any central government funding (beyond COVID money, but every aspect of public transport in the U.K. got buckets of money for that), this is despite being required to maintain a significant chunk of London surface roads and bridges. Something that councils normally receive central subsidies for.
Additionally for Crossrail, the Dft only provided £5b in direct funding. The remainder is either loans TfL will have to repay, or has come from locally collected taxes like council tax, and business rates. All of which only impact London residents and businesses.
> also, we had to bailout TfL twice I believe, they are not an example of the system working, tbf there isn't a lot management can do with the workforce
That’s hardly fair. London is the only capital city in the world where it’s public transport get zero subsidies, and costs have to be covered entirely by fare collection and advertising. The central government told people not to take public transport, then forced TfL to run a full service, despite there being 60% fewer passengers. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that isn’t going to be financially possible, despite TfL always having 6 months of emergency operating capital on hand. Additionally TfL’s status as a local authority means it can’t operate in a deficit, ever. So it can’t borrow to cover short term cash flow issues. Long story short, government rules and requirements placed TfL in a position where it was either getting a bailout, or collapsing. Nothing short of 3 years of spare operating capital, approximately £30b, would have prevented this situation.
Also worth mentioning that every other public transport operator in the U.K. also collapsed, and needed to be bailed out as well. So it’s a little unfair to single out TfL.