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London Travelcard pricey?

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
edited January 2023 in General Chat
Is it becoming too expensive to travel by public transport? Since the London Travelcard was first introduced in 1981 the cost of a zone 1-6 one day pass has risen to £7.50. Whilst commuters can be asked to pay £1472 for an annual zone 1-4 travelcard to work

Do people still find it handy to buy a one day pass say for weekend day/night outs?

Prices just gone up!
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So the prices have only gone up to £7.50 in 29 years of inflation?

    Yeah its expensive, but are average wages in london higher for a reason? £7.50 beats walking.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What about the unemployed and low waged- people need to move about job hunting and on a weekend night out have spare cash left for the bars and food

    If Boris Johnson is serious about getting Londoners to spend us out of recession then travelling shouldn't be so prohibitively expensive.

    How about another 1980s style borough council funded fares reduction on London's public transport? this time follow or change the rules so it's legal
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Generally people who live/work/spend a lot of time in London have an Oyster card and those who don't will buy (if they're smart) a day travelcard with their train ticket which is only a couple of pounds more if that.

    It's a bit of a non-issue to me tbh.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    KiwiFruit wrote: »
    If Boris Johnson is serious about getting Londoners to spend us out of recession then travelling shouldn't be so prohibitively expensive.

    Where do you suggest the money comes from, to fund this?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    but still £7.50 is not a HELL of a lot, I am pretty sure if I was to drive around london for a day it would cost me a HELL of a lot more for my car than £7.50

    as previously said, regular users would have an Oyster Card, Non regular users who commute would usually get it with a train ticket, the only numptys who would pay the £7.50 are people like myself who would park/leave the car at the station on the outskirts and grab a ticket, and heck £7.50 is not A HELL of a lot for traveling around london,
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Doesn't bother me, I get free travel in London :razz:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Hmmm yeah to be honest I don't really find it a problem...

    For me from my home town, with a YP's railcard, the price of a ticket to central London is £7.25. Combined with a travelcard (zones 1-6) on top of that its £10.35. To be able to get into, around, and back from London (offpeak though) for just over a tenner is pretty good IMHO.

    In my area, to get a bus from home to the next town, where I go to school (maybe 4 miles), it costs around a fiver for a return. So if I was going to rant about transport, it would be on that :razz:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Calvin wrote: »
    Doesn't bother me, I get free travel in London :razz:

    I do too.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well bully for you two.

    My weekly Oyster pass is £29 so a little over £4 a day. Not a massive expenditure.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Calvin wrote: »
    Doesn't bother me, I get free travel in London :razz:
    Freedom pass or child exemption? I remember the days when only under 4s travelled free
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote: »
    Generally people who live/work/spend a lot of time in London have an Oyster card and those who don't will buy (if they're smart) a day travelcard with their train ticket which is only a couple of pounds more if that.

    It's a bit of a non-issue to me tbh.
    The alternative is the car. When a season travelcard is so expensive, trains late and the underground at breaking point, no wonder many folks still opt for the convenience of the car.

    ****Save the planet***
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    KiwiFruit wrote: »
    Freedom pass or child exemption? I remember the days when only under 4s travelled free

    Neither - I work for TfL
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Melian wrote: »
    Where do you suggest the money comes from, to fund this?
    In the 1980s the GLC under lefty Ken Livingstone compelled every London borough to divert rates money towards making bus fares cheap. However middle class Bromley borough took the case to court saying their ratepayers had no access to the Tube network and were subsidising a service they didn't use. I doubt Boris will push through anything along these lines :(
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Calvin wrote: »
    Neither - I work for TfL
    Lucky you.........isn't that a lifetime perk?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    KiwiFruit wrote: »
    The alternative is the car. When a season travelcard is so expensive, trains late and the underground at breaking point, no wonder many folks still opt for the convenience of the car.

    ****Save the planet***
    The underground isn't really at breaking point. I don't see where you got that from.

    The buses run regularly and the only time I've seen the tube really stupidly I-can't-even-get-on-a-train busy is when you expect it to be - rush hour, weekends and public holidays/summer/christmas period.

    I think for going round London all day taking as many forms of transport you want as many times as you need, £7.50 is a pretty good deal.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    KiwiFruit wrote: »
    In the 1980s the GLC under lefty Ken Livingstone compelled every London borough to divert rates money towards making bus fares cheap. However middle class Bromley borough took the case to court saying their ratepayers had no access to the Tube network and were subsidising a service they didn't use. I doubt Boris will push through anything along these lines :(

    But bus fares are cheap. It costs £1 to go from anywhere to anywhere. Yet when I used to pay bus fares in Plymouth, it would cost me anything up to £2 a time. That was just to get from the hospital into town - a 20 minute bus ride.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Franki wrote: »
    The underground isn't really at breaking point. I don't see where you got that from
    Didn't mean literally- referring to rush hour overcrowding, constant signalling delays and regular strikes by militant trade unions. Hardly conducive to getting people to give up car travel.

    Franki wrote: »
    I think for going round London all day taking as many forms of transport you want as many times as you need, £7.50 is a pretty good deal.
    What one person can do in a day is limited, for getting about the Travelcard is convenient and a good deal but still not a dirt-cheap good deal. When the scheme was launched in the 1980s it was innovative and a big money saver, but fares inflation has eroded the gain for passengers

    If someone is lonely and bored however, an all zone one day Travelcard to cruise the city's bus/tube and suburban trains is excellent, especially if you set out at dawn and back home at night!
    I used to do that :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If you're at the point where getting the travelcard is your cheapest option, you're doing a fair bit of moving around.

    Rush hour overcrowding is going to happen no matter what. If you have a huge amount of people all trying to get on one train then there's going to be overcrowding. I haven't really had a lot of problems with signalling delays enough for it to be considered "at breaking point" and to be honest, I would much rather be on a slightly delayed tube that's going a bit slow than sit in London traffic at rush hour. Maybe that's just me.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Costs me £2.50 to get into the city centre from the village where my parents live.

    I still think the travel card is pretty nifty.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Travelcards are good value, anyone who thinks otherwise should look at other options travelling around London.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Calvin wrote: »
    Travelcards are good value, anyone who thinks otherwise should look at other options travelling around London.
    get into your friends car travelling A to B :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Calvin wrote: »
    Travelcards are good value, anyone who thinks otherwise should look at other options travelling around London.

    Exactly, I may not like the fact that my season pass keeps going up but I really have no other reasonable option to get to work or out and about in London.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The rise in travel fairs is really hurting some people. I live in zone 3 and don't go in to zone 1 too much. With work and going out, I probably spend around £15-20 a week transport...

    When I was in Kingston it was horrible... To get a travel card from there to London is around £200 a month! So it's so hard if you jump right from a low income job to getting work in central... If you're on the dole and have an interview which requires on peak travel, you can pay up to £18 for an on peak travel card.

    Piss take
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    How much is a days travel card or the equivalent with an oyster?
    It's really expensive for me. I'm going to London for a few days in a couple of weeks and the transport costs are really going to hurt me.

    I live in Istanbul and a single public transport ride here is 1.50TL, which is about 60p, and any transfer within 30 minutes is half that. Prices are also halved on public holidays. I know it's not a useful comparison but to pay so much more in London and even all of England seems so expensive!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    katchika wrote: »
    I live in Istanbul and a single public transport ride here is 1.50TL, which is about 60p, and any transfer within 30 minutes is half that. Prices are also halved on public holidays. I know it's not a useful comparison but to pay so much more in London and even all of England seems so expensive!

    I would also assume that the average wage in Istanbul is below that of London so the comparison isnt really fair. Getting a cab around South Africa is really cheap, but then wages there are really low.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Before anyone who uses London transport starts whinging about costs, they should check out what public transport costs outsides of london.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Before anyone who uses London transport starts whinging about costs, they should check out what public transport costs outsides of london.
    Thing is in London people are encouraged to use public transport and cut congestion. In many provincial towns the authorities plan on basis most people have cars and are not encouraged to rely on buses even though a service is provided
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The best solution is to get a bicycle. But if you live too far from work to cycle then a monthly bus pass is a cheaper alternative to a full travel card. The early morning buses are quite fast, so are good for work commuting. Though the daytime buses in London are very slow.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Living and working in London I think the Oyster card is pretty good value. As others have commented, the alternatives are a lot more expensive. Though during this time of year, air conditioned tube carriages would be nice Mr Johnson!

    Cycling is also a good option. People don't seem to realise that as well as London being relatively flat (compared to, say, Bristol) there is pretty good cycling infrastructure. It may not be Amsterdam, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.
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