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Post by ibus246 on Apr 6, 2016 23:58:33 GMT
Ok - how do all the thousands of other school children in the UK without a subsidised scheme such as a free oyster where they have to pay the fare albeit in many cases a reduced rate make it to school or college rather than end up in crime? You've just said that they have a reduced fare which is better than nothing - do you really think if free travel was removed in London that they'll introduce a reduced fare for children because I don't think so. The poorest & most vulnerable already get really hard in society as it is so I don't see why you would increase the pressure on them. If I had no free pass, my parent would of ended up having to forgo money elsewhere. If you want to save money, then leave free travel for the poorest kids only but then you enter a mine field of where to draw a boundary between poor & not poor. You have stated without the free pass you would/may have ended up in crime etc.... I don't see how you can paint one overall picture of the consequences of not having the free Oyster card. You should remember that a free Oyster card for children is not immemorial nor is it some sort of *right*
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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 7, 2016 1:04:58 GMT
In today's Standard: "Mr Goldsmith plans to fund extra police on the tube by scrapping staff/nominee TfL passes". Robbing Peter to pay Paul? This has NOT gone down well with many bus/tube staff. Goldsmith has also 100% put me off from voting for him just for this. The same way I went off Ken Livingstone when he came out with the Low Emission Zone. Goldsmith is a twit if he thinks 500 police could stop a terrorist incident. When it comes to people that would do acts of atrocity as in Paris, etc. they are likely to also commit suicide in the act and getting a police officer killed in the act would be like a trophy to these people. Goldsmith doesn't live in the real world, he made himself stupid about the issue with electric cars and bus lanes. Does he seriously think he would gain £25million per year from just doing this. Some would revert to probably driving car, Uber or cycling etc. People like him need to realise that TfL is loosing thousands of pounds every day due to its pompus attitude to have CPC cards but not properly upgrade the software. End result is many bus ETM's end up with error codes, sometimes lasting between 2-5 minutes.
The way some bus drivers saw it, they were saying that they want to scrap passes but don't want to give them a pay rise. Then saying if the bus driver is the main breadwinner within the family, this measure would then mean they would have to fork out £1k+ per year for their spouse to travel. Or as some put it that it is one of the only few perks of this measly job they got and that it would be like a pay cut to withdraw the nominee pass.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 7, 2016 1:05:16 GMT
It was only nominees mentioned in the report I heard which doesn't seem unreasonable although scrapping free children's travel would be far more beneficial. That's a sure fire away of losing voters, not to mention all the poorest in society that would hit hard - without a free pass, how would I of made it to school or college rather than end up in crime? Sorry but I had to pay when I went college and school. Those that were on a lower income received bus passes from the LEA (local council) that was basically a standard bus pass/travelcard but lasted the whole school term. The free travel is one of the biggest mistakes ever. If I didn't have money etc I walked, I even walked for miles at times when I knew the bus service was going to be crap. many of these kids could find money almost every day to stuff their faces in the chicken and chips shop, and cant be bothered to walk one or two stops and would rather wait 10 minutes or so for a bus when they could easily have walked it within that time.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 7, 2016 1:20:53 GMT
You've just said that they have a reduced fare which is better than nothing - do you really think if free travel was removed in London that they'll introduce a reduced fare for children because I don't think so. The poorest & most vulnerable already get really hard in society as it is so I don't see why you would increase the pressure on them. If I had no free pass, my parent would of ended up having to forgo money elsewhere. If you want to save money, then leave free travel for the poorest kids only but then you enter a mine field of where to draw a boundary between poor & not poor. You have stated without the free pass you would/may have ended up in crime etc.... I don't see how you can paint one overall picture of the consequences of not having the free Oyster card. You should remember that a free Oyster card for children is not immemorial nor is it some sort of *right* Well if I don't go to school due to insufficient funds for travel, then what else will happen - I can't get a job for starters as I'd be to young and it's extremely doubtful I'm going to sit at home staring at four walls all day. I've not said its some sort of 'right' either - I just think it's wrong to further deprive the poor so please don't presume so.
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Post by sid on Apr 7, 2016 6:18:31 GMT
The same way kids in other parts of the country make it to school or college I guess? I'm not sure it would lose voters, a lot of people just can't get on buses in the morning during school term. So then more school routes could be provided rather than removing free travel. More school routes would help the situation but then the money could be better spent elsewhere. Most children are quite capable of walking or cycling to and from school, as indeed I used to do myself, and the exercise does them good but they use buses just because they are free.
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Post by sid on Apr 7, 2016 8:10:26 GMT
That's a sure fire away of losing voters, not to mention all the poorest in society that would hit hard - without a free pass, how would I of made it to school or college rather than end up in crime? Sorry but I had to pay when I went college and school. Those that were on a lower income received bus passes from the LEA (local council) that was basically a standard bus pass/travelcard but lasted the whole school term. The free travel is one of the biggest mistakes ever. If I didn't have money etc I walked, I even walked for miles at times when I knew the bus service was going to be crap. many of these kids could find money almost every day to stuff their faces in the chicken and chips shop, and cant be bothered to walk one or two stops and would rather wait 10 minutes or so for a bus when they could easily have walked it within that time.
And the remains of the chicken and chips will probably be discarded on whatever bus they get on!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2016 8:54:52 GMT
So then more school routes could be provided rather than removing free travel. More school routes would help the situation but then the money could be better spent elsewhere. Most children are quite capable of walking or cycling to and from school, as indeed I used to do myself, and the exercise does them good but they use buses just because they are free. Your just jealous of school kids of getting free travel! I live very very far from my school because of no fault of mine or my family, and if I didn't have free travel, I don't think I could survive and get some of the luxuries. No way I could walk to my school Part of the reason of School routes is to give links to some of the isolated schools and provide more capacity during this time on some routes. If the school weren't there, some normal bus routes I would say could be quite overcrowded and maybe even dangerous.
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Post by sid on Apr 7, 2016 9:02:16 GMT
More school routes would help the situation but then the money could be better spent elsewhere. Most children are quite capable of walking or cycling to and from school, as indeed I used to do myself, and the exercise does them good but they use buses just because they are free. Your just jealous of school kids of getting free travel! I live very very far from my school because of no fault of mine or my family, and if I didn't have free travel, I don't think I could survive and get some of the luxuries. No way I could walk to my school Part of the reason of School routes is to give links to some of the isolated schools and provide more capacity during this time on some routes. If the school weren't there, some normal bus routes I would say could be quite overcrowded and maybe even dangerous. It's not free, somebody has got to pay for it! Maybe you need to cut back on your luxuries that you mentioned?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2016 9:23:49 GMT
Your just jealous of school kids of getting free travel! I live very very far from my school because of no fault of mine or my family, and if I didn't have free travel, I don't think I could survive and get some of the luxuries. No way I could walk to my school Part of the reason of School routes is to give links to some of the isolated schools and provide more capacity during this time on some routes. If the school weren't there, some normal bus routes I would say could be quite overcrowded and maybe even dangerous. It's not free, somebody has got to pay for it! Maybe you need to cut back on your luxuries that you mentioned? Thank you for paying for bus travel Cutting back on my luxuries would be having nothing, I do like Cheap Frills! But mind you, I keep saying I need to cut on my sweets
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Post by snoggle on Apr 7, 2016 9:50:56 GMT
The way some bus drivers saw it, they were saying that they want to scrap passes but don't want to give them a pay rise. Then saying if the bus driver is the main breadwinner within the family, this measure would then mean they would have to fork out £1k+ per year for their spouse to travel. Or as some put it that it is one of the only few perks of this measly job they got and that it would be like a pay cut to withdraw the nominee pass. And it won't just be bus driving staff who will have a bad reaction to this. Your points about family costs, income and perception of "perks" relative to the value of the job are all well made. This could unravel in all sorts of ways that no one wants. If the passes were withdrawn and then people go on strike to demand far higher wages then you have that disruption to deal with but also the related costs from higher wages - e.g. higher pension costs where people have a pension related to their salary (a rarity these days I know). The provision of the passes is a relatively low cost benefit compared to the alternatives. That's where you get into "upside down" economics when people demand abolition of "unfair" things which then have adverse consequences. Let's abolish all perks in all businesses instead of just picking on transport employees. Oh hang on, you have to have perks to "incentivise" people to work hard and achieve their targets don't you!??
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Apr 7, 2016 10:52:03 GMT
So then more school routes could be provided rather than removing free travel. More school routes would help the situation but then the money could be better spent elsewhere. Most children are quite capable of walking or cycling to and from school, as indeed I used to do myself, and the exercise does them good but they use buses just because they are free. School routes aren't free, the kids still have to tap on just like a normal bus.
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Post by ibus246 on Apr 7, 2016 11:52:22 GMT
You have stated without the free pass you would/may have ended up in crime etc.... I don't see how you can paint one overall picture of the consequences of not having the free Oyster card. You should remember that a free Oyster card for children is not immemorial nor is it some sort of *right* Well if I don't go to school due to insufficient funds for travel, then what else will happen - I can't get a job for starters as I'd be to young and it's extremely doubtful I'm going to sit at home staring at four walls all day. I've not said its some sort of 'right' either - I just think it's wrong to further deprive the poor so please don't presume so. And as already stated - those in other poorer areas in the country take Parts of Liverpool and Manchester, what do they do? Sit at home looking at four views. I used to work in a school and each year the year 7's were worse behaved (I.e a higher majority). Not all, but some of the behaviour on buses especially in South London is disgusting. TfL says it will withdraw the free travel for perpetrators of crime/ASB - it would be very interesting to know how many free cards are in circulation and out of those, in the last year, how many were withdrawn due to the aforementioned reasons. I suspect the number to be very low. I'm not sure how old you are, but perhaps you've not lived in a London where free travel for children was the norm - hence you see it as "immemorial" the quite plain fact that it is not.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 7, 2016 12:20:19 GMT
Well if I don't go to school due to insufficient funds for travel, then what else will happen - I can't get a job for starters as I'd be to young and it's extremely doubtful I'm going to sit at home staring at four walls all day. I've not said its some sort of 'right' either - I just think it's wrong to further deprive the poor so please don't presume so. And as already stated - those in other poorer areas in the country take Parts of Liverpool and Manchester, what do they do? Sit at home looking at four views. I used to work in a school and each year the year 7's were worse behaved (I.e a higher majority). Not all, but some of the behaviour on buses especially in South London is disgusting. TfL says it will withdraw the free travel for perpetrators of crime/ASB - it would be very interesting to know how many free cards are in circulation and out of those, in the last year, how many were withdrawn due to the aforementioned reasons. I suspect the number to be very low. I'm not sure how old you are, but perhaps you've not lived in a London where free travel for children was the norm - hence you see it as "immemorial" the quite plain fact that it is not. And as already stated, they get a reduced fare in many places which is a good start. I agree that some of the behaviour on London buses is disgusting but that doesn't mean you withdraw free travel for all - withdraw it for those who have done wrong like the idiot who set the bus alight in Lewisham. I'm 27, halfway to 28, and I started secondary school when Oyster cards didnt exist and children parents had to apply for special blue paper bus passes through the council they lived under and it was no guarantee you would get one either. Then at college, I had a free 16-18 Oyster card so I've lived through both types - I also remember the 40p child fare during the 90's too which was sadly scrapped.
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Post by londonbusboy on Apr 7, 2016 16:35:14 GMT
I can see the logic behind free travel for kids in that it should reduce traffic at school times but i do feel sorry for the fare paying passengers who get left behind because of a full bus. I still think restrictions should be imposed like certain hours on a school day that it can be used.
I agree the free travel does cause problems with them being lazy and going 1 or 2 stops!
I also agree that the amount of cards taken away for bad behaviour must be extremely low, if a driver were to take a card it would no doubt be more paperwork a complaint for a teen being left behind and 'vulnerable' also getting the card off them would be difficult.
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Post by snoggle on Apr 7, 2016 16:51:43 GMT
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