On 07/11/2012 17:17, Robin9 wrote:

Paul Corfield;133861 Wrote:

On Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:40:34 +0000, Recliner
wrote:
-
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20234125

Quote:

Fares across London's transport network will go up by 4.2% from
January, mayor Boris Johnson has announced.

The rise means a single bus fare on Oyster pay-as-you-go will be
£1.40, up by 5p, while a zone 1 Tube journey will cost £2.10, an
increase of 10p.

The increase, described by the mayor as "balanced", is 1% above the
Retail Prices Index (RPI) inflation, similar to the increase seen in
train fares.

Cycle hire cost also doubled with an annual membership rising to £90.

In October, the government announced that from January the average
fares on mainline trains will rise by 4.2% rather than 6.2%.

The RPI plus 1% formula used for mainline trains is also expected to
apply for London's transport network for the next two years.

-- End quote

So Boris Bike users see a much larger increase than LU and bus users
-- is the Barclays sponsorship being cut?-

[x posted to uk.railway]

The full detail of the fares revision, but not the cycle hire changes,
is in the Mayoral Decision document.

http://tinyurl.com/c8esof8

The TfL press release confirms that, after a long period of silence,
that PAYG is to be extended outside Greater London to Shenfield and
Broxbourne. This delivers the Greater Anglia franchise commitment. I
imagine that the DfT did this through gritted teeth given their
refusal to extend Oyster to other places.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...tre/26143.aspx

Interestingly the above PR only refers to Broxbourne as the limit of
the West Anglia PAYG scheme. When the GA franchise award was
announced the PAYG scheme was going to run to Hertford East (see
below). I wonder what the true position is?

http://tinyurl.com/bb7gp52

The only other interesting aspect of the fares revision is the
re-emergence of a price difference between One Day Travelcards and the
daily cap. Daily caps are capped at 2012 levels whereas paper one day
tickets are increased. Apparently this is to "reflect the increaased
costs of issuing paper tickets". I wonder whether this is a pointer
as to possible conclusions in the DfT fares review and a desire to
push ITSO standard smartcards.

I don't particularly understand why the cycle hire scheme charges are
going up quite so much. There wasn't an increase last year plus the
scheme area (and therefore costs) has increased and will increase
again next year. Lots of people are referring to the Barclays
sponsorship issue but it was never going to be the case that Barclays
contributed and kept contributing to expand the scheme. The scheme
sucks up public money and TfL admitted a few months back that it had
no idea as to when the scheme would break even. Expansion to new
boroughs only happens if the boroughs in question fork out millions of
pounds as a contribution.

As every local authority is strapped for cash, how likely are they to
pay good money to help this Boris vanity project? Boris may be a cyclist
and keen to misuse his power indulging his prejudice, but most senior
people in local authorities are not cyclists, least of all in the
outer suburbs.


One retort to "misuse his power indulging his prejudice" might be 'doing
what he said he'd do in his manifesto'...

Also, "most senior people in local authorities are not cyclists" - do
you mean councillors or officials? Also, define a "cyclist". I'd posit a
fair few do ride a bike on occasion. And if someone were say not to
cycle with great frequency, that needn't inherently mean that they're
indisposed to the general cause.

Anyhow, there's no signs that the scheme is about to arrive in the outer
boroughs. Inner boroughs generally seem keen on the concept in principle
(poss. less so when the chequebook is required).