Evening Standard finally turns on Boris over fares


by Sunny Hundal    
9:05 am - January 5th 2010

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This was the front page of the Evening Standard yesterday.

We pointed out on 1st January:

From January 4th, millions of Londoners will return to work to find they have been hit by Mayor Boris Johnson’s huge fare increases:

- A single bus journey by Oyster up 20% to £1.20
- A weekly oyster bus pass up 20% to £16.60
- Six-zone peak single Tube fare by Oyster up 10.5% to £4.20
- A five-zone off-peak single Tube fare (outside zone 1) up 18.2% to £1.30
- Most Oyster pay-as-you-go Tube fares up by 20p per trip.

Overall tube fares will rise 3.9% and overall bus fares up by 12.7%.

It seems the Evening Standard has finally decided to hold Boris to account.

Picture posted by @politic_animal on Twitter.

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. Paolo

As someone who rarely uses a bus or the tube (not because I’m a petrol-head, but because I can walk to work) I’m amazed by how CHEAP the fares are using the Oystercard. Only £1.20 for a bus fare? That’s an 80p saving on the standard £2.00 cash fare I’ve been paying on those occasions when I have used the service.

I don’t suppose I’m typical, but by alerting me to the oyster rates Boris will be actually saving me money, even though the fares are notionally going up!

2. sevillista

@Paolo

Yes – you must thank Boris for giving you the opportunity to do this by increasing bus fares by 20%.

That nasty socialist Ken and his low fares prevented you from doing this. Praise the Lord for Boris.

3. James Graham

That said, their editorial is still pretty pro-Boris: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23790864-election-2010-and-theyre-off-already.do

They have a good point about Gordon Brown and PPP, but that doesn’t get Bozza off the hook for scrapping green c-charges and making bus users pay for the privilege.

4. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

Took ‘em long enough but hey, at least we can use the trains now…

5. Neville

Sorry, I’m no supporter of Boris, but we should blame Labour for these fare rises. After all, it was Gordon Brown imposed the controversial PPP project that meant that vital public funds were diverted into the pockets of the companies who should be repairing London Underground. The consequences for Londoners are there to see, for example, with cost and repair overruns, delays into the introduction of new trains, and endless weekend closures to lines, stations and tracks. As a regular user of “The Tube”, I think the system has declined rapidly since TfL took over.


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