Mayor's Transport Fare Increases to Hit Thousands of Vauxhall Residents

5.12.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 18th Oct 2009

Tranport price rises will hit Vauxhall residents hard

Conservative Mayor Boris Johnston has announced a massive hike in bus and tube fares, in combination with cuts in bus schedules and off-peak tube services. Overall, bus fares will rise by a staggering 12.7 per cent and Tube fares by 3.9 per cent, at a time when the CPI inflation is currently at 1.1 per cent; the increases include:

• A single Oyster pay-as-you-go bus journey rises 20% from £1.00 to £1.20

• A seven-day bus pass rises 20 per cent from £13.80 to £16.60.

• Most Oyster pay-as-you-go Tube fares will rise 20p per trip.

• The daily cap on Oyster bus and Tube travel increases by 50p.

The increases will hit the pockets of Vauxhall residents hard, at a time when an economic survey conducted by Vauxhall Liberal Democrats shows that 2/3 of Vauxhall residents surveyed already felt worse off when compared to last year. Vauxhall Lib Dem Parliamentary Campaigner Caroline Pidgeon said:

"For the second year in a row the Mayor is punishing Londoners with an inflation busting increase in fares. Incredibly even a short bus journey involving just one change will set people back £2.40.

"Boris Johnson boasts about freezing his share of the council tax bill, but his continual hiking up of fares means he is taking significantly more from the wallets and purses of hard up Londoners."

"This is a Mayor who gives with one hand and takes not once, but twice with the other hand."

Liberal Democrats have already proposed a package of measures that would help to hold down fares, including:

• Stop the huge waste on removing bendy buses: the three routes affected so far are already costing £12.6M for a poorer service: the remaining nine will cost a further £37.8M - TOTAL: £50.4M

• Delivering just one vehicle of Boris' vanity project the "New Routemaster for London" by 2011 will cost £3million.

• LU must stop "gold-plating" the Tube upgrades and changing the specifications - this costs a fortune and has delayed the Jubilee Line upgrades

• Force TfL Managers to go and properly test the market to justify the high costs they are claiming on the stupid PPP deal - Tube Lines has already challenged them to do this and would be willing to let a competitor do the Piccadilly Line work.