please empty your brain below
When will find out 2013 travel card prices?

MarcB | 08.11.12 - 7:30 a.m. | #

I think Paris Velib bikes charge £1.36p day access charge with first half hour free, so we are, until January for bicycles , cheaper than France.
Of course the French could put their rates up next year.
Fortunately I have two bicycles of my own.
The Paris tube train single ticket is much cheaper than London I think £1.36p compared to London's £4.40p!. This I think could deter some foreign tourists and give London a name for being expensive. I think Public transport should get greater government subsidy to keep the fares as low as possible whilst still investing in new infrastructure. Cities are healthy and nicer without being clogged with cars, cheap regular public transport will encourage less use of cars.

John | 08.11.12 - 7:31 a.m. | #

Travelcard prices are out too, look within dg's 'those fares' link.
A welcome surprise is that those prices rise with inflation, but the Pay-as-you-Go Oyster daily price caps, both peak and off-peak, are frozen.

Gordon | 08.11.12 - 7:45 a.m. | #

PS Except for buses and trams.

Gordon | 08.11.12 - 7:51 a.m. | #

@Gordon - over at London Reconnections they have more details on the fare rises including about Travelcards.

Whiff | 08.11.12 - 9:54 a.m. | #

Annual Borisbike access is still a bargain at less than £2 a week, but now that daily access is uncompetitive with going by bus, there may be fewer casual users - which is good news for us regulars who might actually find the system no longer collapses under the strain of rush hour several times a week. (45 minutes I spent on Tuesday night trying to find somewhere to dock, after a ten minute journey!)

timbo | 08.11.12 - 10:08 a.m. | #

@ Timbo - 45 minutes to find a dock? Good grief that is ridiculous. You could have walked your journey and done it in less time overall.

I've never hired a TfL cycle but do look at the bays as I walk or bus past. Many look to be full a lot of the time and it does make me question why people use the scheme when you could end up unable to return a cycle at your destination. What is the point of a system that wastes a multiple of the user's journey time in trying to return the bike?

PC | 08.11.12 - 10:29 a.m. | #

London's underground ticket prices are the most expensive in the world, and you don't even have a 24 hour system.

http://www.treehugger.com/cars/subway-fares-around-the-world.html

Michael in the Netherlands | 08.11.12 - 10:42 a.m. | #

@PC - I haven't used Borisbikes either, but I assume the fact that people do is because there is usually a docking spot. The potential problem, though, would still worry me, because I like certainty in my travel time. Some people have more tolerance of uncertainty (typically younger people, I think).

@Michael - London /does/ have a 24 hour public transport system. Those of us who live in rest-of-uk are rather jealous of London's night buses. OK they take longer than a tube, but at least they get you anywhere you want without stumping up wads of cash for a taxi.

Malcolm | 08.11.12 - 10:53 a.m. | #

In answer to Malcolm, I did mention in my post the word UNDERGROUND.

Michael in the Netherlands | 08.11.12 - 10:56 a.m. | #

So if I buy my years access on December 31st 2012 that'll still be £45 for the year, right?

Londoncitynights | Homepage | 08.11.12 - 11:43 a.m. | #

@Londoncitynights

Yep! December is often a busy month at rail ticket offices because of people doing similar with their yearly tickets.

Never been as advantageous as cycle hire though!

| 08.11.12 - 12:04 p.m. | #

Sorry Michael, yes you did. What I meant was that, although London does not have a 24 hour tube, it does have a night bus service, which I think is pretty good. But of course this does not directly address your point about tube fares - I was going off at a bit of a tangent.

Malcolm | 08.11.12 - 12:06 p.m. | #

About inflation fair increased are wrong in my opinion although I suspect Diesel and Electricity prices, which must account for a fair proprtion of the costs have also risen above inflation at the same time so I suppose it's understandable.

Whilst the rise in bus fares is especially high the fairs in London are still way cheaper than you'll find almost anywhere else. My local bus now charge £2.70 one way for a single journey into town (there is no peak/off-peak here) and it has risen by 30p over the last year too, more than 10%. There are no smart cards to reduce the fares either. Part of the problem is that whenever someone uses the free bus passes the over 60s (65s?) get I believe the fare paid to the bus company from the council is based on a percentage (60?) of the single fare. It's certainly not 100%. So to make up the shortfall many operators have being putting the fares up above inflation.

Jon Combe | 08.11.12 - 12:41 p.m. | #

The extra revenue generated by the increases just about covers the underground drivers' pay.

Dave | 08.11.12 - 9:21 p.m. | #

The fact that I tolerate the needle-in-haystack search for a docking point shows how rubbish are the alternatives - a bus route that seemingly goes out of its way to find one of the most congested streets in London, or a midget train that passes close by but only stops half a mile further on. I can usually find somewhere to dock in the morning on the first three attempts but my record is nine. In the evening they usually manage to get a redistribution van to Waterloo within fifteen minutes or so, but on Tuesday it was 45 - in which time I could have done the original trip, and back again, twice more.

timbo | 08.11.12 - 10:26 p.m. | #

In Central London hardly anyone drives anyway, so it's not as if cutting or holding down fares would encourage tube/bus use.

I've no idea what the Borisbike split is between casuals and regular commuters. It must be incredibly hard keeping enough bikes in the right locations, and expensive too.

Mikey C | 08.11.12 - 10:30 p.m. | #

I normally use my own bike if I am using a bike, but a couple of weeks ago I didn't have it in London so I tried the cycle hire thingum. One journey was fine, I picked up a bike in Selby St E1 and dropped it easily in WC1, but on the Saturday I picked up a bike in Theobalds Road and attempted to cycle to Farringdon to catch a south bound train. I could not find a docking station near Farringdon, a look at the map later showed there are none. I also looked unsuccesfully near Blackfriars. I later found a docking station in Southwark St, thinking I could catch my train from London Bridge, but that was full. I eventually ended up leaving the bike in Park Street almost 10 minutes walk from London Bridge Station. Complete rubbish. I would have got where I was going earlier if I had set off on foot.

Lorenzo | 09.11.12 - 3:43 a.m. | #

There are plenty of docking stations in the Farringdon/City Thameslink/Blackfriars area - e.g Snow Hill, Hatton Garden, Stonecutter Street, Temple Gardens and Godliman Street. The problem is that most of them are tucked away in back streets and difficult to spot - each station has a map showing where the others are, but that's only of use once you have found the first one.
(The other problem is finding a free docking point at any of these stations).

timbo | 09.11.12 - 7:26 a.m. | #

I cannot see monthly travelcard prices... Are they there and am I just blind?

EskimoPie | 09.11.12 - 7:44 a.m. | #

No separate tables; it just states above the weekly Travelcard table:

"A month (sic) Travelcard is priced at 3.84 times the 7 day Travelcard, and an annual Travelcard is priced at 40 times the 7 day Travelcard."

Gordon | 09.11.12 - 8:21 a.m. | #

Timbo, perhaps I'm just used to the convenience of my own bike, but I wouldn't count any of the docking stations you suggest as being near a 'Thameslink' station.

I appreciate that it must be difficult to serve rail stations because of the high potential demand, but notice TfL have attempted this at Waterloo, with 3 large docking stations, but notice they are all currently empty.

I think cycle hire is a great idea, but it didn't work for me on this occassion.

Lorenzo | 09.11.12 - 12:17 p.m. | #

I've never used a Boris bike, so a question - if you can't find a dock, don't you get stung for the overtime fees? I read that during the last tube strikes, people were just leaving the bikes on the road - what happened to the fees then?

Joh | 10.11.12 - 3:27 p.m. | #











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