"John Ray" wrote in message
...
Aidan Stanger wrote:


In practice they're not chucked off, so many do travel to Bluewater for
free even though they're not supposed to! They have to pay to get back,
of course.


Is the reduction of validity of Freedom Passes, i.e. beyond the Greater
London boundary, a new thing? Since you (I think it was you) raised it
earlier in the thread, I have looked at the current bus maps and there
is indeed a rather vague note to that effect, which I had not noticed
before. I ask because, within the last two months, I have travelled from
Dartford to Bluewater and back on route 96, using a Freedom Pass,
presuming the journey to be "legal", and was not asked to pay a fare;
indeed, nothing was said by the drivers. I have also travelled to
Potters Bar on a 313 and back on an 84, again without challenge.

The bit beyond Dartford to Bluewater has never been legal with a freedom
pass,
Maybe the 96 drivers didn't know, notice, or couldn't be bothered.

Aidan Stanger wrote:

[snip]
The mobility of pensioners varies enormously - some journey all
around London and beyond, while others only use one bus route,
and rarely travel any further than the supermarket nearest the
bus stop two stops away from where they live!

Of the former group, not all drive. Of those who do, not many
will be able to in the near future.

Care to explain what you mean by "near future"? Senility doesn't
generally appear that quickly, and Freedom Passes are available to all
over-60s.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Paul Corfield wrote:


This is the link to a document that answers your questions.

http://www.transportforlondon.gov.uk...cs/Freedom.pdf

Thank you, most helpful; it explains why I had no problems with routes
84 and 313, and answers my question about 107. The list does however
seem a bit arbitrary, and it appears that each route was the subject of
special negotiations. I would have thought that it would be much easier
to administer, and for pass holders to understand, if the same validity
rules as for regular travel cards/bus passes were applied, but no doubt
there are reasons for Freedom Passes being treated differently.

--
John Ray

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

--- Rich Mallard said...

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message

I only ask because when people are trapped in a losing argument
(especially in Usenet) they normally start bluffing about
non-existent
rights. It's the stage before mentioning Nazis. So I do tend to
get a
bit cynical when people start mentioning strange rights that
no-one's
ever heard of before...

It doesn't look like a losing argument to me.

Well, Nick definitely isn't winning. He's clearly outnumbered at every
turn.

Yawn. Have you actually got anything to say on the subject we're
discussing, rather than making petty comments on the sidelines?

(And the fact that he reads and posts to uk.transport.london -
not uk.transport.kent - in the first place shows that deep down even he
doesn't really believe his claims! It's that hypocrisy more than
anything else which annoys me!)

I take it you'd like all people banned from posting to this newsgroup unless
they live in London and promise not to say anything bad about it? Get over
it.

snip other stuff

Nick

Richard J. wrote:

Aidan Stanger wrote:

[snip]
The mobility of pensioners varies enormously - some journey all
around London and beyond, while others only use one bus route,
and rarely travel any further than the supermarket nearest the
bus stop two stops away from where they live!

Of the former group, not all drive. Of those who do, not many
will be able to in the near future.

Care to explain what you mean by "near future"? Senility doesn't
generally appear that quickly, and Freedom Passes are available to all
over-60s.

Senility isn't the only medical condition common in the over 60s which
prevents driving. However, you have a point. I should've said "Of those
who do, many will not be able to drive in the near future".

John Ray wrote:

In practice they're not chucked off, so many do travel to Bluewater for
free even though they're not supposed to! They have to pay to get back,
of course.


Is the reduction of validity of Freedom Passes, i.e. beyond the Greater
London boundary, a new thing? Since you (I think it was you) raised it
earlier in the thread, I have looked at the current bus maps and there
is indeed a rather vague note to that effect, which I had not noticed
before. I ask because, within the last two months, I have travelled from
Dartford to Bluewater and back on route 96, using a Freedom Pass,
presuming the journey to be "legal", and was not asked to pay a fare;
indeed, nothing was said by the drivers. I have also travelled to
Potters Bar on a 313 and back on an 84, again without challenge.

No, and your experience suggests that my information could be obsolete.

I have seen drivers on the 96 at Bluewater charging freedom pass holders
(who expected it to be free) a fare at Bluewater, but that was over a
year ago (probably nearer two).

"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...

Senility isn't the only medical condition common
in the over 60s which prevents driving. However,
you have a point. I should've said "Of those
who do, many will not be able to drive in the near future".

Only people with DeLoreans can drive in the near future.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...

Senility isn't the only medical condition common in the over 60s which
prevents driving. However, you have a point. I should've said "Of those
who do, many will not be able to drive in the near future".

Of my contemporaries, heart conditions and strokes are the usual reasons for
having to give up driving. I know one 92-year-old who still regularly drives
to the south of France and back again, to his property down there.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
Web Site: http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Aidan Stanger wrote:

John Ray wrote:

Is the reduction of validity of Freedom Passes, i.e. beyond the Greater
London boundary, a new thing? Since you (I think it was you) raised it
earlier in the thread, I have looked at the current bus maps and there
is indeed a rather vague note to that effect, which I had not noticed
before. I ask because, within the last two months, I have travelled from
Dartford to Bluewater and back on route 96, using a Freedom Pass,
presuming the journey to be "legal", and was not asked to pay a fare;
indeed, nothing was said by the drivers. I have also travelled to
Potters Bar on a 313 and back on an 84, again without challenge.

No, and your experience suggests that my information could be obsolete.

I have seen drivers on the 96 at Bluewater charging freedom pass holders
(who expected it to be free) a fare at Bluewater, but that was over a
year ago (probably nearer two).

Your information is, in fact, correct, and I was lucky not to be asked
to pay. It's clear from the LT document to which Paul Corfield directed
me that Freedom Passes are not valid for free travel between Dartford
and Bluewater. However, my trips to and from Potters Bar were within the
rules. It's clear that a Freedom Pass does not have quite the same
validity as a Z1-6 bus pass; I will have to be more careful in future!

--
John Ray, London UK.

Michael Bell:
But I am also aware of the political dimension of projects like
Crossrail and Thameslink, which won't benefit Londoners very much, far
less
than the projects I discuss above. Crossrail and Thameslink can never
be
viable in terms of paying back their capital, and they can only be
justified
in cost-benefit terms if they attract vast number of NEW travellers
into
London. A decision to build them at government expense is a decision
to
abandon the rest of the country and concentrate all development in the
South
- East. As a Northerner, I am against that. And maybe you should be
too.
Remember what happened to capitals which get too far out of step with
their
countries, like Paris in 1871. The Paris municipality ("commune" in
French =
"municipality" in English: our failure to translate this word has led
us to
serious misunderstanding of this event) was crushed by the provinces.
Think
hard!

But London has received _enormous_ underinvestment for decades - that's
why the transport system is so overcrowded. London puts far more into
the British economy than it gets out.

Now that's the way it should be - I'm not complaining, I realise that
London is the engine of this country's economy and consequently should
be expected to pay more than its fair share for investment elsewhere
that couldn't be paid for otherwise.

But major infrastructure projects like Thameslink and Crossrail are
needed in London, and I'm not sure I like the implication that they
should be abandoned because the rest of the country doesn't like to see
money spent on the capital. London _needs_ it - and if London were to
lose its position as a worldcity, it isn't just those inside the M25
that are going to be affected when the economy suffers.

Jonn Elledge