Fare Deal Rally: Ken Campaigns For Cuts

By · November 23, 2011 at 12:00 pm · 7 Comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

Photo by mikekingphoto

Ken Livingstone announced on Monday, ahead of today’s Fare Deal Rally, his intention to bring back the zone 2-6 travelcard abolished by Boris Johnson.

The former mayor has been stepping up his campaign to be re-elected as mayor of London and transport is high on everyone’s agenda, especially with fare rises predicted for 2012 and the Olympics putting the squeeze on commuters. Ken Livingstone says that ‘fares have rocketed under Boris Johnson’, though as we recently highlighted, fares have been on the increase for years. His claims over the financial impact on commuters has been disputed (admittedly by Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph) who calls Ken’s figures on fares ‘fraudulent’. Boris Johnson has also recently been accused of being creative with stats.

The Fare Deal Rally, which starts at 7pm at the Camden Centre, Bidborough Street, is a platform for Londoners to come together and support the campaign for fairer fares. Ken Livingstone says under the Fare Deal, he plans to cut fares by 5% to save the average commuter in London £800 over the next four years.

‘If I am elected I will cut the fares and introduce a 2-6 travelcard, the ZoneSaver card, saving fare-payers in outer London hundreds of pounds a year. Boris Johnson abolished it in January 2011. I will reintroduce it by October next year. The choice could not be clearer.’

Speakers will include Ken Livingstone, Tom Watson MP, Val Shawcross AM, Tessa Jowell MP, Len McCluskey (Unite, General Secretary), Sally Bercow, Dannie Grufferty (NUS Vice President, Society and Citizenship) and Sara Ibrahim (Chair, Young Fabians).

Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Report an error

  • Dave H

    Ken is spectacularly full of shit. I know that some of the knee-jerk voters love his bullshit, but his carping about Boris’s fare rises is demonstrably hypocritical, considering some of the massive rises that he presided over. It really is so tiresome.

    • Anonymous

      I have no idea what fare rises were like under the GLC (which is what I guess you’re talking about?), but when you look at fares from 2000 onwards, they really started jumping around 2008/2009.
      http://londonist.com/2011/11/london-transport-fares-2000-2012.php
      You can argue this coincided with the wider TfL investment programme, but there is also conservative (small c) ideology that says the user should pay:
      http://blogs.channel4.com/faisal-islam-on-economics/rail-fare-increases-of-30-to-40-per-cent/13290

      Want to add a riposte that isn’t knee-jerk Ken-bashing? ;-)

      • Dave H

        I think it would be easier not to bash Ken if he wasn’t such an obvious hypocrite. I’d be happy to forgive and forget his massive fare rises (e.g. 33% rise in 2006/07 for cash fares) if he didn’t rely on people’s selective amnesia when he moans at Boris’s decidedly more modest rises.

        But if he’s going to bring up the subject of fare rises, he needs to eat his own cooking.

        The fare rises suck, to be sure, but Ken is the really last person to be criticising them.

        • Anonymous

          Weren’t the massive rises in cash fares to ‘encourage’ (i.e. force) people into using Oyster? I think when you look at fare rises, it’s helpful to look at the whole – Oyster fares were held down as the cash fares went up.

          • Dave H

            Well yes, there’s always been some attempt at justification for all fare rises, from Ken and Boris alike. The key issue here is that Ken is so arrogant that he thinks that his spurious justifications are somehow more valid than others’.

            Or, more likely, he’s just relying on the voters’ selective amnesia. Either way, his carping about fares does not stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.

            It would be far more credible for Brian Paddick or Jenny Jones to criticise the fare rises, as they don’t have such spectafular ‘form’ in this area. Actually, they probably are criticising the rises, but we don’t get to hear about it — they’re just not headline-grabbers like Ken.

          • Anonymous

            This is interesting – and timely: figures provided by the Mayoral administration to Darren Johnson show average fares increases on buses rose by 23% 2005-2008 and 32% between 2009-2012, and average tube fares rose by 17% 2005-2008 and 23% 2009-2012.
            http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/london-assembly-greens-call-for-fares-debate-based-on-facts/201117597

          • Dave H

            Yes that is interesting, and especially useful to have it compared to RPI.

            Although I’m still doubtful about the validity of the stats — “average fares are calculated by dividing total fares revenue received from fare payers divided by the corresponding number of journeys”. Surely this means that if, hypothetically, people are taking more zone 1-6 journeys in 2011 than they were in 2007 (for example), it would incorrectly imply a higher fare rise? It seems unlikely that Darren Johnson, with his political affiliations, has chosen the most objective measure that he could here.

            Doing some calculations based on actual fares (single and one-day) shows that Darren Johnson’s stats under-represent Ken’s fare rises for 2005-2008 by about 3%. They’ve got Boris’s figure about right, based on these measures.

            Anyway, I still don’t see how Ken thinks he has any legitimate claim to the moral high ground in this area. Fare raises of 9% above inflation (over a four year period) are hardly something to crow about, even if your successor is marginally worse in this regard.

←
→