Coronavirus Implications For London's Transport

"Levelling up the country should not be about levelling down London” ...Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?

Item 11e of the document linked above:

This refers to the 60+ Oyster card rather than the Freedom Pass. It was introduced by Boris Johnston when he was Mayor. It was when the retirement age for women was raised to 65. You have to pay a minimal charge for the card. It is currently restricted with travel not allowed on TfL services before 0900 on Mondays to Fridays.

Rather awkward that the government doesn't recognise that you don't get a Freedom Pass until retirement age which is currently 66 (not 65).

I wasn't aware that the Government paid for these benefits in the first place.

Quite a few under-18s are entitled to free travel at least for certain journeys (the reference to "statutory entitlements including under the Education Act 1996"). I think TfL have in the past made the case that the administrative costs and datas protection issues for them and for the other parties (schools etc) that have to assess that entitlement outweigh the saving made by not giving free travel to all children. You then get the side-benefits (fewer parents clogging the roads driving their kids to school, children getting into the habit of using public transport as they grow up, more flexibility for both the family and the local authority in choosing which school a child attends, no need to issue/withdraw passes at short notice if a family's finances change etc) for nothing.

Freedom Pass is funded by London Councils, the local government association that represents all 32 boroughs plus City of London. The funding is split between TfL and ATOC

I imagine the government give the Boroughs a grant to cover the Freedom Pass and give similar grants to other English councils

Actually planning for capacity improvements should begin now (if it hasn't already) so that the capacity is there when (or ideally before) it is needed.

Most of the ones on the DLR haven't had working pumps the majority of time since lockdowns ended due to vandalism so this is probably for the best!

There's a chance some digital archive materials may be lost too!


IMG_3768 by MonkeyBoy69, on Flickr

Once I got over the initial horror of what was happening, yet again, I realised that in the future there will be people who will want to see events as experienced and photographed by ordinary people. My only happiness in taking these photos is that this horror is over and far, far fewer people perished than either the post-WW1 epidemic or some medical experts were predicting for our generation.

Anyway, a collection of 200+ photos - some from the London Underground (once we were allowed to use it again) but also photos of buses (anyone remember that they offered free travel?), taped over park benches, shops with the 2 metre floor markings and more. A few locations are places where I would never normally take photos, but I felt it was important to record the scene for future generations.

Locations include Ilford, Gants Hill and Newbury Park - all visited (whilst out walking) during the permitted hour-long outdoor excercise.

A few photos were also taken at Barkingside, I went there on a weekly basis for food shopping. As an aside, these weekly trips by car helped keep the car running smoothly - many people who did not use thair cars at all during the first lockdown found that they had battery problems and their tyres were soft.


www.flickr.com/photos/citytransportinfo/albums/72157714002723433

Thank you.

I also set the copyright on my photos as CC0, which effectively means that I made them copyright-free. even for commercial use.

Maybe I was mad in not trying to financially benefit from these images but I wanted to make it so that (for instance) school children studying this time period would be able to include real-life images without copyright issues. I also added my photos to some of the several Flickr groups which specialise in photos taken during the pandemic, the lockdowns, etc.

btw, its the Easter holidays, 2023, and I was in Central London today - tourists were everywhere. Social distancing is over*. Life as it should be.

*) Whilst out today I saw some 'maintain social distancing' signs near the platform 17 toilets at Stratford and one of the automated station announcements still talked about the wearing of masks!

It's surprising the DLR is so much lower - I wonder if there's been an element of substitution from Crossrail affecting that?

It looks like every attempt to ease congestion simply creates more traffic.