Fares are up and it's down to Boris
Transport and fares are the only area of policy where the Mayor has total control. And Boris has used his power to put up fares again and again. The oyster bus fare has risen from 90p in 2008 to £1.35 starting in January 2012. That's a 50% rise under Boris Johnson.
He's already cost us hundreds of pounds each, and will cost us even more if he stays for another term. Can we afford another four years of inflation-busting fare rises?
The Boris Johnson effect on transport in Outer London.
Apr 27, 2012. Comments (1)
Guest post by Helen from Boriswatch
Boris Johnson made many transport promises before he was elected in 2008 – London Transport Is A Mess, he claimed. How has Boris improved public transport for me in the outer London borough of Hounslow (Z4 Tube/Z5 National Rail) in his four-year term?
We’ve seen no improvements in Underground services – the Piccadilly line upgrade, due to be completed in 2014 under the previous Mayor, has been put back to 2025. The line is still using rolling stock built in 1973. Hounslow railway station continues to have an abysmal service of only one four-carriage train an hour on a Sunday – during the summer, especially when there’s cricket on at the Oval, passengers at the next stop of Isleworth are unable to board due to overcrowding.
Our local train operating company, South West Trains, was the very last in London to install Oyster-compatible ticket machines – almost two years after Oyster was accepted for travel on London’s rail services. When they finally arrived, they were of little comfort as Boris Johnson had raised the daily off-peak Oyster cap for Zones 2-6 from £5.10 TO £8.00 and the peak Oyster cap from £9.00 to £15.00, then again in January this year to £8.50 and £15.80 respectively.
When repeatedly challenged about these enormous increases, the Mayor claimed these massive hikes were actually reductions. Boris Johnson also removed the price differential of 50p between a one-day Travelcard and the equivalent Oyster cap which was designed to encourage Oyster use, putting up the Oyster price to the same as a paper one-day Travelcard.
Children’s fares have also gone up – under the previous Mayor, children over the age of 5 with a Zip Oyster photocard could travel all day on Tube, Overground and Rail for £1. The child off-peak cap (depending on Zones) is now up to £7.60 and the peak cap up to £10.30. Not only that, but the child Oyster card itself was free under the previous Mayor; Boris Johnson has introduced a £10 charge for it, meaning that each child’s card costs at least £15 as a passport photo is required. Johnson may boast about “free” travel for children on London’s buses and trams, but without the £10 child Oyster (a huge sum for parents on a low income) each child must pay the adult cash fare of £2.30.
As for the buses, the promised orbital routes never materialised and there are no Countdown screens at any of the bus stops I regularly use - I do not have a smartphone and I cannot afford to pay for the text message service every time I use a bus.
I have never, ever seen a PCSO, police officer or British Transport Police officer on bus, train or Tube when I travel home late at night, which I do at least twice a week.
Boris Johnson has increased bus fares by 50% since he became Mayor and the daily Oyster cap in outer London by 70% in just the last two years. As his Bullingdon buddy George Osborne takes us into a Double-Dip recession and the Mayor himself has refused to admit at several public hustings that his own election manifesto commits to annual fare hikes of RPI +2, use your vote wisely next week – Boris Johnson is the only Mayoral candidate committed to raising our sky-high fares even further.
Sack Boris vs the £1.4 million Vanity Bus
Feb 27, 2012. Comments (4)
At £11.4 million for a massive total of 8 buses (that's £1.4 million each so far, compared with about £300k for a normal new hybrid bus), the Boris Vanity Bus isn't exactly a bargain, so we took to the streets today with TSSA in our own SACK BORIS vintage Routemaster to get the message out.
The launch of the Vanity Bus hadn't gone smoothly up to now anyway - the original first services have been cut from the 8 production buses to just one test model and put off by an extra week - and today's first timetabled service on the 38 route from Hackney to Victoria had its share of problems too.
An early breakdown at Islington Green lasted 10 minutes, and the Sack Boris Routemaster was compelled to overtake the packed Vanity Bus while a fault in the rear brakes (apparently) meant the system had to be rebooted several times.
This was clearly embarrassment enough for Transport for London because, from then on, a special 'Response Vehicle' TfL van was despatched to impede our bus's progress.
Once everyone got going again out of Angel, the van crawled at 10 mph down Rosebery Avenue to prevent us keeping pace with the Vanity Bus. It stopped at every zebra crossing whether or not people were waiting, and then it parked up in front of us each time we stopped - trying to pen us in without leaving room to get around it.
Our valiant driver got us to Victoria in the end though - via a very popular detour down Oxford Street - and we weren't too far behind after all, with the Vanity Bus ending up 30 minutes behind schedule and in need of a lot more technical TLC before it could set off again for the return trip.
We had a lovely (if slightly obstructed) day, giving lots of cheer to Londoners who have footed the bill for this cute-looking but pointless and expensive vanity project, as well as giving away tons of our famous Oyster wallets. Thanks to everyone who supported us, and @SamTarry for the pics.
Here's some of the press coverage and blogs about the day and the bus:
Here's the new Routemaster... chased by an original one - Evening Standard
Boris Johnson's £1.4m new bus breaks down on first journey - Political Scrapbook
The emperor's new bus - part 1 - Boriswatch
Boris's Bus (A Political Journey) Part 36: A Hot Debut - Dave Hill in the Guardian
You Wait Four Years For Boris Bus...and then two turn up at once - TSSA
Boris' latest fare rises are about to strike
Jan 01, 2012. Comments (0)
Boris Johnson’s latest fare rises will strike London on 2nd January, bringing the total bus fare hike since 2008 to 50%.
This means a lot of travellers will be needing their own SACK BORIS oyster wallets, so we’ve got together with the TSSA union to print a special edition batch of new wallets to give away all over London.
We’ll be holding two action days in January during the morning and evening rush hours, so look out for us at your local stations on these days:
Tuesday 17th January
Thursday 26th January
If you can't wait, and want some of the new edition wallets now, you can order them by post with a small donation via the PayPal button opposite. Thanks to TSSA we have now been able to lower the minimum donation to £2 for a lovely multicoloured batch of five wallets.
How much?
Here are just a few examples of Boris Johnson's fare rises. For a full breakdown of the new fares starting 2 January see TfL's full listing here.
- An oyster bus fare is £1.35 from January - up 50% since 2008
- A weekly zone 1-6 travelcard is now £53.40 - up from £44.60 in 2008, an extra £457.60 a year
- A weekly zone 1-2 travelcard is now £260 a year more than in 2008
Fares are soaring, but the service is rubbish!
Delays and line closures have become a daily part of Londoners' lives in the past few years. And at the same time, Boris Johnson has wasted millions of pounds of our money on his pointless vanity projects:
- He said his cable car wouldn't cost the taxpayer anything, but the total cost to us is now running at £40 million
- He promised the bike scheme would be delivered on budget and be paid for with sponsorship, but we've spend £140 million so far, while Barclays the sponsor has promised just £25 million and delivered only a fraction of that.
- He promised a 'no strike deal' with the unions without having any idea how he'd go about negotiating or delivering it. In fact, the number of strike days has gone up under his 'leadership'. There were 6 days of tube strikes in 8 years under Ken Livingstone, and we have now had to put up with 18 days of disruption in the 3.5 years since Boris was elected
Comments (11)
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Bill Bennett:
Jan 06, 2012 at 04:14 PM
Funny how a union is creating a campaign like this, when their members high salaries and pensions, frequent strikes and backwards culture are a huge component of what is wrong with London's public transport and why fares are so high.
Simon Mottram:
Jan 07, 2012 at 03:04 AM
Daily Mail prejudice vs simple bald facts. Yeah let's ignore the facts eh! No prices rises at all, they just didn't happen.
Carlos:
Jan 07, 2012 at 08:24 AM
Whingeing Londoners are funny.
You voted for the comedy candidate, and in spite of Tory boy's vanity projects you still have the best and cheapest public transport in the country by a long way. Try catching a bus or train (what's this light rail then? They're few and far between in the UK outside of London) in the frozen provinces, then thank your lucky Oyster cards that you have integrated(ish) transport.
Chris:
Jan 12, 2012 at 04:27 PM
You can actually avoid most of these fare increases by buying a £3 child day travel card and travelling on the tube all day with that. Cheap as chips.
Helen:
Jan 12, 2012 at 08:05 PM
I moved from London to Manchester - right next to a train station, four miles out of the city centre, in a very highly-populated residential area. Great, I thought. Trains straight in, any time I like.
WRONG. Eight trains every 24 hours, all delayed or cancelled without notice. Up to £7.50 a day train and tram fare to work every day, or £6.50 bus and tram. Between 45-60min commute each way. Londoners: do not take what you have for granted. Right now I would practically DIE for an Oyster card/pay as you go system. Outside London, transport is AWFUL.
Mr M:
Jan 12, 2012 at 08:56 PM
London transport fares are not controlled by Boris. They are controlled by the amount it costs to run the transport system.
Sacking Boris will not have any effect in this respect.
I think perhaps you are conflating two issues:
1) your dislike of Boris
2) your dislike of having to spend more money on travel
In my mind, that makes you the stupid one, not Boris.
FairFares:
Jan 13, 2012 at 12:12 PM
Fare increases are exacerbating an already class based transport system and are completely unfair. I think its great that the TSSA is helping with this campaign and standing up for ordinary people – Boris certainly doesn’t give a damn about us. If Boris is allowed to carry on like this London will just be a playground for him and his Tory mates.
Ken’s pledge to cut fares rather than raise them has convinced me to vote for him. There is plenty of money in this city and country to provide a great standard of living for all – as long as you don’t just give it all to the rich like the Tories.
Mark Wilson:
Mar 22, 2012 at 09:18 AM
I have zero respect for a Union that is demanding extra pay for doing their job over the Olympics. Your stance is utterly appalling and, for me, is akin to bankers bonuses - free cash for failing.
I'm sorry to say as I detest the Tories politics but I would rather have Boris in power with slowly reduced importance of the Unions than a stooge like Ken.
David Ell:
Mar 30, 2012 at 03:38 AM
OK, so here's the facts under that liar, Ken:
After promising to freeze fares in real terms at the May 2000 election, Livingstone raised bus fares by 43% in January 2004. Inflation was 2.6% at the time. He admits in his own memoirs (page 491): “I decided to increase the fares before the [2004] election.”
After again promising a real-terms freeze at the 2004 election, Livingstone raised fares by up to 25% in early 2005. Inflation was 3.2% at the time. He again now admits in his memoirs (page 497) that he “increase[d] the fares [after the 2004 election]…this meant breaking my promise not to raise fares faster than inflation.”
Even the “TfL official data” he cites (table 8.6 of this) shows that Tube fares increased in real terms across his eight years, as did both bus and Tube fares in his second term. Government statistics (not produced by one of the mayor’s own agencies) show much steeper rises than TfL’s figures.
Fares are the price they are because that's what it costs - and if the stupid self-centred unions would stop striking, we might have the chance to do something about that. Not likely, I know.
Hudster:
Apr 24, 2012 at 12:07 AM
Ken's so-called lies are just Tory lies. David Ell's disinformation above is a case in point. You say you can't believe him because he increased fares and the congestion charge when he said he wouldn't.
On fares he promised in the 2000 election to freeze bus fares for 4 years. He did. Bus fares usually change in January and they were frozen from 2000 until January 2004 when they went up by inflation. On tube fares he increased them in response to the Government insisting he raise fares to help pay for London Overground as the Treasury didn't want to fund it all themselves.
It was Ken who decided got London Overground (which is now excellent) up and running and out of the hands of the utterly useless private train operating companies; it was worth increasing fares by a bit for that alone.
On the congestion charge he changed his mind about not increasing it in 2003, told everyone he was going to increase it during the election campaign in 2004 (it was in his manifesto) and then increased it only after he was elected in 2004. That isn't breaking your promise! But hey as you’re a an anti-union Tory facts clearly don't matter to you!
On top of this I am a Londoner born and bred. I've suffered directly from the massive fare increases Boris Johnson has imposed upon us ordinary Londoners. Yet this is something that is meaningless to someone from the social elite like Johnson. He's done NOTHING for ordinary Londoners. I've bumped into Ken twice on the tube and had great conversations with him both times. He is truly a man of the people, whereas Johnson is a Tory toff, who couldn't give a stuff about ordinary people.
Steve:
Apr 30, 2012 at 04:16 PM
Loving how the Tory trolls have come on here with their right-wing nonesense. You horrible right wing snakes are doing all you can to protect your man, who (laughably) you see as a future Tory leader! He's a clown. He has no policies. He has now plan for growth (like Double Dip Dave and Gidiot) and he bottled doing his job during the riots. Where was he when London was in flames? Rudy Guiliani he is not. 50% increase in fares in four years is a disgrace. Maybe you right-wing snakes can afford that, but most ordinary Londoners are feeling the effects of failed Tory economic policies and can't afford any more rises by this blundering buffoon. Sack him on Thursday.