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Post by snoggle on May 7, 2012 17:04:21 GMT
Not happy Boris was re-elected. He cut down police numbers but in his manifesto he promised to put 1,000 more police back on the streets... well why cut them in the first place! Boris will continue to put the fares up, we will have more crap Borismasters on the roads at the tax payers expense. Other bus manufacturers will lose out as Wright have got a good contract. He puts these pledges in at election time but doesnt meet them or does them in the last year or two as mayor. He will no doubt cut buses routes down and ive heard he will axe dial a ride Yes the fares have gone up but at least we have seen investment in the network eh? I personally would be happy to pay more if the money going into the network makes it more reliable Fares have gone up 50% in 4 years. If this trend continues we will see the PAYG fare at £2 by 2016 which is a crazy level of increase. I recognise fares outside London are often much higher than this but travel costs are disproportionately high in London for a fair slice of the population. Subsidised fares help sustain London's economy and support mobility. I'm interested in your comment about investment having continued. Can you give some examples? Peter Hendy and Leon Daniels are on record at the GLA Transport Committee as saying that funding for network improvement had been scrapped until 2015 at the earliest. Where there have been some small scale route improvements these have had to balanced by service or cost reductions elsewhere. Therefore for one route to get better another has to get worse. I don't really think of that as "investment". Leon has also explained that the numbers for new buses over a contract term come out very close to those for existing buses so TfL are agnostic about new vs older buses. New buses therefore don't really count as investment.
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2012 17:05:53 GMT
Yes the fares have gone up but at least we have seen investment in the network eh? I personally would be happy to pay more if the money going into the network makes it more reliable Very true Greeny but the rises have got to stop at some point otherwise people will turn away from public transport. Im all for the money going back to invest in the network but again i come back to my earlier comment on how central london is looked after and not the outskirts I was wondering if anyone could back up with evidence where the outskirts of London are not looked after transport wise? Otherwise as far as I am concerned that argument is dead in the water. If you take outskirts of London as far as Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex. That has 2 full Tfl routes 370 & 372 that run from early morning until late evening 7 days a week, these routes also serve parts of South Ockendon and Aveley on the 370 & 372 respectively. Also if you compare Bluewater shopping centre in Greehithe Kent, that also has alot of TfL routes as well serving it and the surounding areas, more than Lakeside. I am not so clued up on the Surrey side of things at this point in time, but I feel that over towards Essex and Kent we are well served from a central London orientated governmental organisation.
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Post by greeny253 on May 7, 2012 21:44:03 GMT
Yes the fares have gone up but at least we have seen investment in the network eh? I personally would be happy to pay more if the money going into the network makes it more reliable Fares have gone up 50% in 4 years. If this trend continues we will see the PAYG fare at £2 by 2016 which is a crazy level of increase. I recognise fares outside London are often much higher than this but travel costs are disproportionately high in London for a fair slice of the population. Subsidised fares help sustain London's economy and support mobility. I'm interested in your comment about investment having continued. Can you give some examples? Peter Hendy and Leon Daniels are on record at the GLA Transport Committee as saying that funding for network improvement had been scrapped until 2015 at the earliest. Where there have been some small scale route improvements these have had to balanced by service or cost reductions elsewhere. Therefore for one route to get better another has to get worse. I don't really think of that as "investment". Leon has also explained that the numbers for new buses over a contract term come out very close to those for existing buses so TfL are agnostic about new vs older buses. New buses therefore don't really count as investment. Not so much the buses I guess as what investment we do get tends to be minimal but when you look at the continuing upgrade work on the tube, the refurbishment of Stratford bus station in particular and if I had to narrow it down to the buses, the introduction of better countdown screens which I feel is only a good thing, would be what I'd aim at. I'm not saying I agree with the fare rises by any means - I used to drive in Essex and by comparison they get better value for money in terms of what fares are paid. One stop in Chelmsford was £1 as opposed to the £2.30 in London for example. But the fares in London are how they are - as a driver I hate the regular fare increases because we are the front line and we bare the grunt of unhappy passengers. I've said time and again that London passengers don't get a particularly fair deal.
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Post by vjaska on May 7, 2012 23:02:18 GMT
Very true Greeny but the rises have got to stop at some point otherwise people will turn away from public transport. Im all for the money going back to invest in the network but again i come back to my earlier comment on how central london is looked after and not the outskirts I was wondering if anyone could back up with evidence where the outskirts of London are not looked after transport wise? Otherwise as far as I am concerned that argument is dead in the water. If you take outskirts of London as far as Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex. That has 2 full Tfl routes 370 & 372 that run from early morning until late evening 7 days a week, these routes also serve parts of South Ockendon and Aveley on the 370 & 372 respectively. Also if you compare Bluewater shopping centre in Greehithe Kent, that also has alot of TfL routes as well serving it and the surounding areas, more than Lakeside. I am not so clued up on the Surrey side of things at this point in time, but I feel that over towards Essex and Kent we are well served from a central London orientated governmental organisation. Agree entirely with the above. All parts of London have had some sort of investment whether it's the suburbs, the outskirts or right bang in Central London. There aren't many routes now that don't run Daily and there are extremely few non School routes that only run during the weekdays. Then what about the vehicles. London was the first UK city to operate a 100% low floor network and other operators outside have followed suit such as Brighton & Hove, Lothian Buses & Metrobus Crawley operations to name a few. We have i-Bus as well on every vehicle and recently, bus stops have been upgraded with more accurate countdown information. I think that bus passengers in London get a fare deal. Where else in this country will you find a 100% accessible mode of transport that has over 700 routes, where you are never miles away from a bus service, where your bus service is extremely likely to be frequent rather than every 30, 60 mins or more and costs as much as it does to ride with an Oyster Card?
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