KidsToLondon

Ken Livingston, London's mayor, has announced major fare increases for the London Underground effective January 1, 2004. The largest increase--25%--applies to single ticket in central zone 1. Apparently, Mr. Livingston thinks that tourists and other high-income people who do not pay local property taxes use these tickets and can afford the hefty increase!

(More likely, the reason is that tourists can't vote for mayor of London)

Of course, tourists don't use local government services that much either and they contribute millions of pounds towards the London economy. That point is apparently lost on Mr. Livingston, I presume.

Christina

That does seem like a large increase for one year -- unless it hadn't been raised for a long time. However, if the increases are much smaller on passes and more expensive products, another way to look at it is that 25% of a small amount is still not huge (eg, going from 1 to 1.25 euro per ticket or the approx. equivalent in GBP) whereas 25 pct of 25 euro is a lot more.

Personally, I think that tourists can indeed well afford that increase and think one should consider the actual amount of the increase, not only the percentage. I think tube costs in London are quite reasonable myself, so have no personal objections.

Nigello

Mr Livingstone also announced that once the new 'Oyster' stored-value cards come into use next year, all weekend Tube rides - across the system - will cost just £1. The rises make it much more sensible for the tourist or for the local to buy Travelcards, rather than pay for ind. journeys each time. That will certainly speed up travel times.
FYI, from 23/8/03, all buses in central London will be pay-before-you-board. All Travelcards, bus tickets and bus passes will be honoured, of course. If the bus is one of the old, hop-on-hop-off routemasters, you can still pay the conductor. Machines are being installed at all bus stops where you can buy individual tickets or one-day bus passes. NO CHANGE IS GIVEN!

Jacqui

Just to clarify Nigello's comments, the £1 fare with the Oyster Card, will be at weekends only for travel outside of zone 1. For travel including Zone 1 the prepaid weekend fare will be £1.80.

The price of Carnets (books of 10 zone 1 tickets) are set to increase by over 30%! Strangely though these however will still work out 10p cheaper per journey than the Oyster system.

As a zone 1 resident & occassional public transport user I am quite irritated by these increases. Luckily I tend to favour buses for short journeys where the fare will remain £1 or even better 70p with the Oyster card system.

ira

>...Of course, tourists don't use local government services that much either ..<

Isn't use of the tube a local government service? How about trash collection, police and fire protection, restaurant inspectors, emergency medical services and street sweepers? Tourists have an impact on all of these services.

KidsToLondon

"Of course, tourists don't use local government services that much either ..."

Good point, tourists do use SOME local services, but certainly not most. Their kids aren't in local schools, they don't live in public housing or go on public assistance...all of these long-term, very expensive services.

Tourism pays. It just seems that Mr. Livingston's rationale for the high percentage fare increases is a bit insensitive to that fact.

I often get annoyed when people turn the subject of Fodors postings from "travel" to "politics"....Mea culpa!

Nylon

There are ways to ensure that you do no pay the 25% increase, such as prepaying. This cuts costs and so I think it is sensible to penalise those people who use cash on each and every journey wasting tme and resources.

I think tourists should pay more. In Switzerland tourists generally pay twice as much as Swiss people for transporation as nearly as Swiss have a "demi-tariff" which gets them a 50% reduction on train travel (among other discounts). I think the increase could have been grater and should stretch to the railways too.