Make London public transport free to “reduce inequality and get polluting cars off the road”, say campaigners

by BulkyAccident

34 comments

  1. Uh huh. Because there’s loads of room on public transport. (If we start using the outside like India does)

  2. I think it’s an excellent idea, but a cost and logistical nightmare.

    Have been unemployed recently, and free transport to get to job fairs, interviews etc across the city would be a godsend, plus getting other places for exercise and mental health

  3. 20p on the price of petrol would effectively pay for ALL buses, tubes and trams IN THE COUNTRY to be free.

  4. I would support this but the network just does not have the capacity to handle that many passengers, and the cost to expand to sufficient size is beyond any scope.

    More bus routes and bus/cycle lanes for faster and safer public transport commutes (also dissuading car use) and making the non-TfL railway services more frequent (every 10mins) is more do-able and would greatly help.

  5. I only ever use my car to go somewhere where public transport is a poor alternative. You would need to massively improve London’s public transport outside the centre to make this work.

  6. As much as it would be awesome, that’s not happening- sorry. TfL are already extremely short on funding

  8. I know people always complain about the BBC, but this seems like a pretty poor article. It’s not till half way into it you learn who is actually asking for free public transport (a campaign group called [Fare Free London](https://www.farefreelondon.org/)). And when you go on their website, they’re appealing to Sadiq Khan as mayor who has an actual say in the budget, not TfL as this article is saying.

    I know they’ll have posted it to have people get angry in the comment section after only reading the headline, but I still expect the BBC to at least some factual information in their articles.

  9. I support public transport and I would like more of it.

    Making it free doesn’t sound like a good way to fund the creation of more of it. How are we supposed to get new tube lines and electric buses with air con that way?

  11. It doesn’t need to be free, just making ticket prices affordable.

  12. Yep. In a functioning society we’d have free or dirt cheap transport that would render the car moot. I’d barely use it again if it was free. Doesn’t even have to be free. Just affordable would be nice.

  14. And how are you gonna pay for it?

    Nothing is free, it’s just paid for by someone else, most of the time, taxpayers.

    I’m sure northerners would be thrilled to have to pay for London’s public transport.

  15. “Dear campaigners, where will you find the £5.7bn you need strictly to cover the operating cost for the network?”

    “We need a complete rethink about how the transport system is paid for”

    I’m all for big ideas, but this just feels like a brain-fart down the pub. The comparisons between Tallinn (460k population, 85 bus routes, 5 tram routes, 9 train routes) and Belgrade (1.1m population, 133 bus routes, 12 tram routes, 6 train routes) and London are particularly silly.

  16. I think if half the people driving SUVs got a smaller car, or rode a bike, it would make a big difference.

  17. Even if it just went back to affordable pre pandemic prices I would be okay with that. The current cost is just abhorrent.

  18. Who will pay for it and where will the capacity come from?

    TFL struggles to get funding from government and is having to sell off infrastructure and shed staff to cover costs as is.

    Trains abd bus routes are often crowded at peak times.

    Free transport wouod be great.   While you are at it,  £6.70 a pint is a bit much, make that free too.  

  19. Reliable and extensive public transport is more important than free public transport. There’s a reason that the best networks in the world aren’t free.

  20. Sounds great in theory, but the practice is very different.

    Firstly, you will see an explosion in demand on a system that is already at capacity. People think that it will only benefit the poorest in society, when in fact what does happen is everyone takes more trips on public transport. Overcrowding will become rampant.

    The second is paying for it. For many years the Tube paid for itself, to the point where it actually subsidised buses. In 2024/25 the fare income for TfL is expected to be around £600m. That funding gap needs plugging from general taxes, putting up ULEZ and the Congestion Charge, or you have to cut services.

  21. It’s a complete non-starter as TFL are struggling to make ends meet as it is, and I doubt those outside the London travel zone will be very pleased at having their expenses put up to give Londoners a free ride 

  22. People talk about public transport as if it had limitless capacity. It doesn’t. It has a maximum amount of people that it can carry per hour, same as a road. This is economically illiterate.

  23. Terrible idea – maybe make it slightly more affordable. Essentially TFL needs more funding from central government and we all know that isn’t going to happen. Also when you make something free people don’t value it as much and I can guarantee the maintenance and upkeep which is already not great will be even worse.

  24. On the basis that this sub was vehemently against the Oldies getting £84 Million of free travel, this proposal is going to have them frothing at the mouth.

  25. There is no “free”. It’s just getting someone else to pay for it.

  26. Frankly the reason rail prices are as they are isn’t necessarily greed. Any kind of fare reduction at our current capacity will increase the risk of lethal overcrowding. I can’t even imagine how dangerous the trains would be if they were free, we need maybe a 100% capacity increase before we can start thinking about things like that

  27. How exactly would it reduce inequality if the rest of the country was still paying for their localised travel sorry?

  28. Trains and the tube should be highly subsidised.
    It would be the best measure to tackle housing scarcity, and inequality in general , boosting the economy by dramatic numbers.
    Only people who oppose to this are the billionaries , pushing the narrative to the middle class saying that the costs will be unbearable.
    The gains would outgain the costs by so much, just imagine how many people would do inner tourism, live in countryside areas. Enjoy their life. 
    A good chunk of the taxes should go to fund this new means of transportation and trains would experience a second bonanza since the Industrial Revolution.
    The level of carbon emission of the country would reduce drastically and so many people wouldnt suffer of respiratory illnesses. NHS would relieve of that.

    But hey, you have got the car manufacturers and repairs , insurances etc lobby.
    That is why such a big measure would never be implemented.
    Like many other things “Laissed Faire” in markets economy lead to an unefficient allocation of resources.
    Big projects would never be done by the private initiative.

  29. There is a reason TFL encourages walking and cycling. Its because the network is already overloaded in my areas and telling people to stop driving and take public transport would (in many cases make things worse).

    Lots of people who currently take the bus or the tube, could and should walk or cycle, which then frees up space for people who cannot.

    That encouragement happens through making walking and cycling safer and more attractive.

    Multiple cities that have free transport encourage less walking and less cycling and barely any less driving.

  31. There is a very good freakonomics podcast on this:

    “Should public transit be free?”

    https://podcastaddict.com/freakonomics-radio/episode/167643751

    TLDL:

    For cities such as London which have a high % of public transport UAE already, it is not beneficial to make it free.

    It is, in effect a subsidy to those who can already afford it and there are better ways of spending the money.

  32. Agree it doesn’t need to be free. In south wales currently there’s an offer on for tap and go journeys to be a £1, trains loads busier, must have taken so many cars off the road and encouraging people to go into the office.

  33. I’m sorry but why should London transport be free? You already have the best transport in the country and nothing else comes close.
    Anyone else in the uk that has to rely on public transport are paying more money for transport that sucks and that’s even with the government bus subsidies.

  34. Activists as usual believe there’s some free money tree where we can make any amount of services free and cut taxes whenever we feel like. 

Comments are closed.