Conservative Boris Johnson is the only London Mayoral candidate committed to raising public transport fares by 2% above inflation for every year of the Mayor’s next four-year term.
Can you guess which London Mayoral candidate said the following during an ITV London Tonight debate between Brian Paddick, Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson on 17 April 2008?
The cost of travel for many people in London is extremely high and I think it is scandalous for the Mayor to sit here and tell the people of London there is absolutely nothing he can do.
Yes, it was “Honest” Boris Johnson, who also made the following claim in the same debate:
I would certainly not allow the congestion charge to go up above £8 which the Mayor promised not to let happen before the last election, and then broke his promise as usual.
Once he was Mayor, Boris Johnson conveniently forgot this pledge and raised the charge by 25%, from £8.00 to £10.00.
Did Boris Johnson lower the extremely high cost of public transport once he got into office?
Since being elected Mayor of London in May 2008, Boris Johnson has raised the bus fare by 50%.
Two days ago, I attended a Mayoral hustings at which Boris Johnson was represented by Conservative former-Mayoral candidate Steve Norris. Speaking about the benefits of the Freedom Pass, Norris boasted how wonderful it was that, as a Freedom Pass holder, he could get on a bus at 7am and go off to earn shed-loads of money.
He then proceeded to agree with the other candidates’ representatives that putting up bus fares affects the poorest people in London.
If Boris’s Conservative proxy is earning “shed-loads of money” (unlike the vast majority of pensioners in London) he might, perhaps, like to make a contribution to TfL’s coffers by paying his fare instead of bragging about his riches. Weasel words about the cost of bus fares are particularly sickening when the Tory Mayor he was representing has put up the bus fare by 50% and intends to keep putting it up every year if he is re-elected.
The daily cost of travel by Oyster, especially in Outer London, has also rocketed under four years of Boris Johnson’s Mayoralty. If you think a 50% rise in the bus fare is bad, the rise in the Oyster daily cap for travel in Zones 2-6 is utterly shocking.
The daily Oyster cap for off-peak travel in Zones 2-6 was £4.80 when Boris Johnson was elected in May 2008 – it is now £8.50, an increase of 77%.
The daily Oyster cap for peak travel in Zones 2-6 was £8.40 when Boris Johnson was elected in May 2008 – it is now £15.80, an increase of 88%.
For part-time workers (who are mainly women) these massive rises are especially financially crippling. Boris Johnson also introduced a evening peak premium for using the Underground, Overground, DLR or National Rail between 4pm and 7pm, so even if a part-time worker attempts to save money on fares by using Oyster pay-as-you-go after 9:30am, they are penalised if they work after 4pm.
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Boris puts up the fares on the buses because they are a ‘poor mans transport’.
Also the buses have weaker unions than the tube – and are easily smashed by unscrupilous turds of the private bus industry.
It won’t last long though – bus drivers have to put up with more shit, more stress and less money than tube drivers – already bus companies are becoming desperate to employ bus drivers in London that my neighbour has been invited to come out of retirement to drive London Buses.
If Boris wins then I give London 1 year before it decays into strikes and ‘gridlock’ as the rich realise that there simply isn’t enough room to all drive in together – and that the buses served a very useful purpose.
…and he wonders why the rickshaws of Soho are so popular!!
Try running out on your oyster on a bus – it’s £2.50 to go 2 stops if you have to resort to the cash fare.
[...] let’s not forget: while holding down the cost of congestion charge, Boris introduced huge fare rises – up to 83% in some [...]
I expect Boris got quite a lot of votes on his promise to issue Freedom passes to everyone over 60. But do we have to wait until we are 65 before this comes to fruition? I’d love to go into London and spend some money there but an almost £8 return (off peak) pushes this over the limit.