In message , at
22:24:00 on Tue, 4 Oct 2005, Colin Rosenstiel
remarked:
But the fare increases won't affect journeys from those stations.

They will for overnight stays. These include tube travel in central
London to work when I have to buy tube singles, currently £2 (Zone 1) or
£2.20 (Zones 1 & 2).

No wonder I use my bike now if at all possible.

Why don't you get an Oyster? Is the three quid really that much of an
issue? I have an Oyster and use it about once a month, as much for the
convenience as the ticket price.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 18:24:21 on Tue, 4 Oct
2005, Neil Williams remarked:
And gbp3 is an absolute insult. Off-peak, you can get a ticket for
unlimited train travel throughout Greater Manchester for less than
that, for example. gbp2 is too much for a Zone 1 single, IMO.

£2.30 to travel all round Nottingham all day (bus and tram). And valid
during the peaks, too. The best value is the family version of that
ticket - just £5 for five people.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at
23:52:00 on Tue, 4 Oct 2005, Colin Rosenstiel
remarked:
Why should I be expected to get an Oyster for just 7 single tube fares
so far this year?

Colin, you need to decide whether you want to have your cake, or eat it.

Either the extra cost is crippling you and you need to get an Oyster. Or
the number of times you'd use it doesn't justify it. One or the other!
--
Roland Perry

Out of interest, does anyone recall how much a Zone 1 tube single cost
when Ken was first elected? If it was that much less than £1.50 then
I'd be very much surprised. If so, this all strikes me as a very good
deal - especially with the flexibility of Pre-Pay.

If anything, I shouldn't be surprised if this move causes TfL revenue
to fall - although this will probably be balanced out by decreased
costs from staffing of ticket windows and the handling of large amounts
of change from machines. I'd certainly agree with previous posters who
have said that fear of change seems to be a large basis of the
criticism of this scheme. The political criticism reported by the BBC
last night seemed to be very much a scraping of the barrel to find
something to hit the Mayor with operation.

"Graham J" wrote in message
...
The Oyster Pre-Pay fare will be £1.50. A 50% rise doesn't
sound so bad. Bad enough, but not so bad.

When the national economy's growth is less than 2% it looks ****ing
exorbitant to me.

I am in favour of encouraging people onto public transport and this is not
the way to do it.

Instead, offering promotional fares to new users for specific venue, or
event, tie-ins increases income with the possibility of getting people to
use the system without preaching to the converted.

Many events involve travel at non-peak times when it is usually possible to
get a seat on the tube or a bus.

Slogging into town, sitting in a car while breathing from someone else's
exhaust pipe, looks pretty unattractive in comparison.
--
Brian

Out of interest, does anyone recall how much a Zone 1 tube single cost
when Ken was first elected? If it was that much less than £1.50 then
I'd be very much surprised. If so, this all strikes me as a very good
deal - especially with the flexibility of Pre-Pay.

It was £1.50 at January 2000.

Neil Williams wrote:

It takes 5 mins to get one, and then you just feed a tenner into the
machine when the barriers say you are getting low.

...which TfL get to keep and earn interest on.


If you really want to pay for your tickets one at a time then you can
still do so with Oyster. Instead of putting 3 pound coins into the
machine and getting a paper ticket, you simply touch the Oyster card on
the ticket machine, select 'top-up' then put in the 1.50 then touch the
card onto the ticket machine again.

This way, you still pay the lower Oyster fare but you don't have to pay
in advance and lose your interest to TfL.

Neil Williams wrote:
Oyster in its current form is not suitable for very infrequent
passengers.

Why not? Seems to me that Prepay is *exactly* what very infrequent
passengers need.


--
Larry Lard
Replies to group please

Neil Williams wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:52:20 GMT, Chris Tolley
wrote:

A similarly good deal can be had around Liverpool too.

While a Liverpool city centre single is somewhere around the gbp0.50
mark, as I recall. Even Metrolink isn't that expensive (and it is
usually regarded as overpriced), and Manchester of course has its
3-route free city centre bus network.

I meant to include Glasgow as well. A clockwork Orange single is a quid,
but IIRC for 1.90 you can use it as much as you like.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p13277469.html
(Demolition in progress at London Broad Street station, Aug 1985)

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

Why should I be expected to get an Oyster for just 7 single tube fares
so far this year?

Nobody *expects* you to do anything, but you are offered a choice. You
can freely choose an oyster which will bring you a certain type of
convenience along with a cheaper cost of travel, or you can freely
choose not to get one, which will relieve you of the tiresome burden of
planning ahead and remembering to carry it with you, and will only cost
you a few quid more than the oyster price.

--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9632973.html
(43 140 nearing completion at Crewe Works in 1979)