Mayor confirms London transport fares freeze until 2020

I am not sure you are comparing like with like. IIRC there was no concept of an off peak single fare in 1982. There were singles, peak returns and off peak returns. To make a fair comparison you should really compare the 1982 single fare with the peak 2017 fare which is £5.10 for Loughton to Uxbridge. Looking at an old leaflet I have from the second set of GLC fares changes in May 1983 the max single fare then (5 zones) was £3.20.

Another difference now is that if passengers are prepared to make the effort then they can get non Zone 1 fares for many journeys. Again this wasn't available in the same way back then as you either had to buy a through ticket which was a complilation of LT and BR fares or you rebooked. Either way it was unlikely to be a cheap option plus services were not very frequent on "orbital" routes.

Clearly today's off peak fares on the tube are very reasonably priced when you take long trips across Zone 1 and out the other side. In the latest Travel in London Report from TfL there is a real terms price comparison - that shows bus fares remain an absolute bargain in London compared to the past and certainly in comparison to what has happened to bus fares elsewhere in the UK.

Has the government thought of stopping quantitive easing, and instead using it to reduce rail fares, like the GLC did in 1983, after an initial legal challange??? - The 1980 Recession came to an abrupt halt once the fare reductions were implemented. Likewise in 1994, when the government set the rail fare rise index to RPI Minus One, once again the economy recovered sharply from the 1990 Recession. Perhaps the current government should try the same, as their two predecessors did, lower fares by 50 percent, stop quantititive easing, and bang - hey presto the economy will start to recover in a real sense, which will increase tax receipts accordingly.

A few comments.

1. We knew the NB4L was not going to receive any more orders back in May when the Mayor won the election. Why it's taken the media 8 months to wake up I don't know. The Business Plan just restated what we knew. The customer assistants went a few months ago so that chapter has gone.

2. None of the candidates had much of a policy on developing the tube. The system is hamstrung by needing to complete line upgrades and even then they're decades late due to "dubious" past decisions. The Battersea Extension will complete but whether anyone moves into the posh flats is an open question. I have a sneaking suspicion it may take many years for that redevelopment area to fulfill its potential. There is negligible strategy with respect to station capacity - largely because providing genuine relief takes at least a decade and costs hundreds of millions. Therefore if you can manage more than 2 schemes concurrently you're doing very well. I don't see the Bakerloo Line extension proceeding because it will rely on govt funding to some extent and Mr Grayling is never going to condone any scheme that does not include long term real fare increases which is part of the price he will wish to extract from the Mayor. It then becomes a power struggle over who is really in charge of fares in London (answer - the DfT Secretary of State). This same issue will apply to Crossrail 2. You will note the "radio silence" on that scheme since Mr Grayling became SoS. I doubt he will want a TfL appointed operator for CR2 nor TfL fares to apply so that's two major problems that could prove fatal to the scheme. We were supposed to have had a "final" route and number of stations determined by now but nowt's happened.

3. I think it was clear that "head office" headcount would be attacked as part of the "remove the flab" tactic from the Mayor. It's what happens after that that is what concerns me. I expect that the operational side of all of the businesses and contracted services will be scrutinised with a view to taking out cost. There is also a big question about what happens to people on projects. The LU investment budget is lower in the new Business Plan and there's minimal work elsewhere so I expect people, and the accumulated knowledge, will be lost.

4. I don't think we need independent experts from outside. They're never indepedent anyway - they always write what someone, somewhere wants to hear. To be fair TfL and Network Rail are pretty clear about what needs to be done. The problem is that there is not enough money nor is there an agreed cross party strategy as to what has to be done. You need a Mayor in power for 8 years for anything of any substance to be done and they need to have a clear idea on day one to get things moving. There has only been one Mayor so far who's done that - Ken Livingstone with the Congestion Charge and accompanying boost to the bus system. Other things followed later. As this country is incapable of creating cross party strategies we are doomed to fail on things like transport investment. It's a minor miracle that Crossrail hasn't been paused or stopped once the construction started - shame it took 40+ years to get to the point of shovels in the ground.

5. The Mayor will have no great transport legacy come 2020 (or 2021 if the election is delayed to avoid a clash with the General Election). He may have bought some snazzy new buses with low or zero emissions but I expect his proposals for expanded ULEZ charges will founder on the back of public opinion once people realise the cost impacts. If the fares freeze has endured for 4 years (I don't expect it to) then massive fares increases will be needed. You can't emasculate TfL's income for ever. Those increases will be painful and will be used by opponents to ridicule the policy (assuming it hasn't fallen to bits under other pressures before hand). If there is any economic downturn or wobble then the TfL business plan will collapse in a heap. So much is predicated on enormous patronage gains / transfers to Crossrail. There are also borderline impossible gains in bus patronage needed to boost income while TfL makes huge cuts in Central London, tries to redistribute resources to Outer London and improve reliability / bus speeds. Oh and within a capped annual kilometrage budget that was originally going to be cut.

Unfortunately the politics have gone haywire since the Mayor was elected and I think we are in for a very tough and unexciting (in terms of planning for the future) Mayoral term.

Snoggle

Thank you for such a reasoned and thought through input. I cannot say there is much if anything I disagree with.

My real fear, is the very obvious NEEDS of London are being sacrificed to secure re election.

Failing to collect sensible fares is the prime reason why overdue upgrades to critical transport infrastructure is being kicked down the road - and no amount of re-arranging deckchairs is going to stop the looming financial collision. I am sure there are people who have bought in to the "something for nothing" message implied by a "fares freeze". Being a cynic, I look for the catch, which as you say, is the complete mess we have now. The true extent of the damage will probably only emerge long after Mayor K has moved along the greasy pole and cannot be held to account.

Meantime London can never get back those 4+ years of doing nothing! Nor can you realistically get back the immense experience and knowledge being thrown away at TFL and LUL.

Hey ho such is life.