Trains should be like roads, free at the point of use.
In every other similar country public transport in the capital city is subsidised by the national or local government. Even the USA does this.
TFL used to receive a generous government subsidy but this was abolished when Johnson was PM.
TFL now has to pay its own way which is why we have high fares, more sponsorship and adverts.
TFL is also trying to develop land it owns.
In general numbers yes because pound is an expensive currency. However proportion to minimum wage in percentage definitely not. This news means nothing
Toronto and Vancouver both sit around the same space as Washington, Milan, Paris, Madrid but that is largely due to the weakness of the Canadian dollar to the pound. This also needs Big Mac indexifying.
Even more expensive than New York? 🙁
You can either pay more fares, or pay more taxes to fund the subsidy. Paris (one of the examples in the article) has a local payroll tax on all employers with more than 11 employees, which has a knock on impact on wages.
Subsidy is not the solution for the tube right now, what it needs is investment. If we’re adding money to the network it should go on new trains, better accessibility at stations, technology investments to upgrade signalling etc.
“We are a campaign for free public transport in London. Our organisation brings together community groups, trade unions, environmentalists and others who see free public transport as central to our vision of the London in which we want to live.”
They’ll never sing that!
“Official” according to Telegraph, which has looked at ten cities and does not adjust for local wages and the distance travelled.
I wonder what a difference it would make to the bottom line if there weren’t so many people dodging the fares?
Another tax on the middle class
As far as I can see the comparison was done on daily tickets? It may look even more expensive when comparing monthly or season tickets. In London for example monthly tickets for 1-2 are 3.9 times the price of four weekly and annual is 10.5 times the price of the monthly. These are very small discounts compared to other cities
I visited Luxembourg, all public transport was free and on time.
Particularly when you have to take 3 buses home rather than the usual one. Regulating the system coz of traffic is WRONG in so many ways, happening regularly on I don’t know how many routes. I’ve experienced it too regularly on 107 and 460.
Passengers are dumped off one bus to get on another ten minutes later is in chronic disregard to elderly, young, disabled and increasingly irate customers. Not going to end well.
Does it work well?
I’ve not used it for a while, but I don’t remember it feeling particularly expensive. If it works efficiently then all good.
Commenters gonna come up with some excuse as to why these fares are justified and we shouldn’t be rightfully frustrated at Sadiq Khan and Kier Starmer for this situation
Wow, they are making miracles with what they’ve got then. Not saying it’s good, but imagine if they actually had proper funding. We’d have Japan-grade service and facilities.
I see that article goes on about single tickets in the centre and comparing London to Berlin.
Stockholm has them both beat. 43 SEK (3.26 GBP) for a single. The difference though is that Stockholm doesn’t have zones.
At the same time, Paris has just converted its entire regional network (equivalent to Zones 1–5 here) to a flat €2.50 fare, no matter how far you travel.
It’s also not heavily subsidised like other metros. It relies on Fares and AD revenue. It’s expensive to run a sprawling network. Thats not to say it’s unfair pricing for those can’t afford it.. it is. But you need to balance that thought against reality and politics that refuse to properly subsidise a service.
Add that to the list of most expensive rail and energy bills.
We just continue to take it in this country, which is why they continue to get away with it.
wouldn’t be so bad if it was the cleanest
I will say that London also has one of the easiest to navigate and robust public transport systems, at least between Europe and North America.
Pretty expensive when I was in Tokyo a while back
I mean, was it not already the most expensive for many years? lol
35 comments
# NUMBER 1! Who’s doing it like us?!
There are many many other public transportation networks out there yet the article only looked at 10? Surprised Berlin was number 2.
Lucky according to according to the OECD stats uk wages are ranked highest in the world also right? Actually ranked 17th
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage
Trains should be like roads, free at the point of use.
In every other similar country public transport in the capital city is subsidised by the national or local government. Even the USA does this.
TFL used to receive a generous government subsidy but this was abolished when Johnson was PM.
TFL now has to pay its own way which is why we have high fares, more sponsorship and adverts.
TFL is also trying to develop land it owns.
In general numbers yes because pound is an expensive currency. However proportion to minimum wage in percentage definitely not. This news means nothing
Toronto and Vancouver both sit around the same space as Washington, Milan, Paris, Madrid but that is largely due to the weakness of the Canadian dollar to the pound. This also needs Big Mac indexifying.
Even more expensive than New York? 🙁
You can either pay more fares, or pay more taxes to fund the subsidy. Paris (one of the examples in the article) has a local payroll tax on all employers with more than 11 employees, which has a knock on impact on wages.
Subsidy is not the solution for the tube right now, what it needs is investment. If we’re adding money to the network it should go on new trains, better accessibility at stations, technology investments to upgrade signalling etc.
https://www.farefreelondon.org/
“We are a campaign for free public transport in London. Our organisation brings together community groups, trade unions, environmentalists and others who see free public transport as central to our vision of the London in which we want to live.”
They’ll never sing that!
“Official” according to Telegraph, which has looked at ten cities and does not adjust for local wages and the distance travelled.
I wonder what a difference it would make to the bottom line if there weren’t so many people dodging the fares?
Another tax on the middle class
As far as I can see the comparison was done on daily tickets? It may look even more expensive when comparing monthly or season tickets. In London for example monthly tickets for 1-2 are 3.9 times the price of four weekly and annual is 10.5 times the price of the monthly. These are very small discounts compared to other cities
I visited Luxembourg, all public transport was free and on time.
Particularly when you have to take 3 buses home rather than the usual one. Regulating the system coz of traffic is WRONG in so many ways, happening regularly on I don’t know how many routes. I’ve experienced it too regularly on 107 and 460.
Passengers are dumped off one bus to get on another ten minutes later is in chronic disregard to elderly, young, disabled and increasingly irate customers. Not going to end well.
Does it work well?
I’ve not used it for a while, but I don’t remember it feeling particularly expensive. If it works efficiently then all good.
Commenters gonna come up with some excuse as to why these fares are justified and we shouldn’t be rightfully frustrated at Sadiq Khan and Kier Starmer for this situation
Wow, they are making miracles with what they’ve got then. Not saying it’s good, but imagine if they actually had proper funding. We’d have Japan-grade service and facilities.
I see that article goes on about single tickets in the centre and comparing London to Berlin.
Stockholm has them both beat. 43 SEK (3.26 GBP) for a single. The difference though is that Stockholm doesn’t have zones.
At the same time, Paris has just converted its entire regional network (equivalent to Zones 1–5 here) to a flat €2.50 fare, no matter how far you travel.
It’s also not heavily subsidised like other metros. It relies on Fares and AD revenue. It’s expensive to run a sprawling network. Thats not to say it’s unfair pricing for those can’t afford it.. it is. But you need to balance that thought against reality and politics that refuse to properly subsidise a service.
Add that to the list of most expensive rail and energy bills.
We just continue to take it in this country, which is why they continue to get away with it.
wouldn’t be so bad if it was the cleanest
I will say that London also has one of the easiest to navigate and robust public transport systems, at least between Europe and North America.
Pretty expensive when I was in Tokyo a while back
I mean, was it not already the most expensive for many years? lol
https://preview.redd.it/84her1b01wme1.jpeg?width=1233&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=34b9330963ce428cf22a904adc96572c910378dc
How is that calculated? Because Brighton Buses are 1000 times more expensive than TfL buses
I wouldn’t mind if trains were clean, more frequent and I was guaranteed a comfortable seat every time.
Public transport country wide just doesn’t feel remotely sustainable where it’s going.
Its just simply unaffordable for way too many
But just remember, with London crime through the roof, public transport being so expensive, Khan is still doing an amazing amazing job!
In fact he should get a bloody knighthood! …… wait, what?!
The rest of the country’s public transport is mainly privatised iirc, apart from the train contracts companies didn’t want anymore
It’s cheaper for me, including insurance, tax and petrol to drive into work every day, than to use the tube. Someone make that make sense.
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