Boris Johnson’s vicious attack on public transport users

By Simon Fletcher

More on this later, but the Standard has the detail of the above-inflation fare increase on London’s public transport. It is a vicious attack.

A seven-day bus pass will rise an eye-watering 20% from £13.80 to £16.60. Most Oyster pay-as-you-go Tube fares will rise 20p per trip. That would put a single Oyster bus fare at £1.20, up from 90p when Ken Livingstone was mayor. Overall, bus fares will rise by 12.7% and Tube fares by 3.9%. Yet CPI inflation is currently at 1.1%.

The Standard reports that TfL “expects the changes to result in a small fall in bus passenger numbers.” So the shift towards bus use is now being openly reversed.

There are also reports of cuts to services, including yet another attack on outer London from a mayor whose actual policies, rather than his words, have been repeatedly damaging to the suburbs: “The Mayor said there would be a cut in bus schedules and fewer off-peak Tube trains in outer London,” reports the Standard.

The whole direction of transport policy in London is now going the wrong way: higher fares, lower investment, cuts to services.

Let no one be under any illusion that Boris Johnson is ‘red Boris’ or a cuddly, kindlier sort of Tory.

It is claimed – though we will have to see – that the higher fares will raise an extra £125million. Yet Boris Johnson’s own actions have cut millions from TfL’s budgets – £50m-£70million a year will go when the western extension is abolished; £50million a year has been lost through the cancellation of the £25 CO2 charge on gas guzzlers; millions are being wasted through the new Routemaster plan, the removal of bendy buses and the ending of the mutually beneficial agreement with Venezuela.

Fares should have been held down to protect people in a recession, but the opposite is happening.

It’s a bad day for Londoners and transport in London.

This post was also published at Simon’s blog.