Fares too low to be "reasonable" says Mayor Boris

By Simon Fletcher / @fletchersimon

London transport fares are not "reasonable" says Boris Johnson - but before anyone leaps to agree, he means they are not high enough. "There are real pressures on our finances," thelondonpaper reported him as saying at yesterday's Mayors Question Time. "These are largely chronic and historic, built up by repeated failures to deal with the necessity to charge a reasonable price for services." [My emphasis].

So Boris Johnson's view is that London's transport budget is underfunded because fares don't represent a reasonable price for the service delivered. Or, to summarise, the Tory view is that Ken Livingstone kept the fares too low.

Londoners are likely to disagree that they are not paying enough. They may well feel that the fare increase imposed last year was already bad enough. Johnson raised fares by 6% overall - and in the case of a single bus journey using the Oyster card a full 11% up - but simultaneously slashed the Transport for London investment programme. Johnson's "bonfire of the transport projects" saw important new links for outer-London axed, such as the extension to the Croydon Tramlink. Higher fares but lower investment is a poor deal for the capital.

It now seems likely that Johnson will proceed with his plan for further above-inflation fare increases. It remains to be seen exactly how much higher they will go. With inflation so low any fares hike that goes significantly above the rate of inflation will cause many Londoners to feel aggrieved. A large fare increase is the last thing Londoners need when so many of them face hard times and economic uncertainty. Johnson faces pressure from Assembly members for a fares freeze at the very least. A spokeswoman for passengers' watchdog London Travelwatch said yesterday: "We would be very disappointed if the fares are very far above inflation."

Far from Johnson's claim of imprudence, Ken Livingstone left his successor with strong balances in the transport budget. It is Boris Johnson's own actions as mayor that are making London's transport finances worse: planning to lose around £50-70 million in revenue by halving the size of the congestion charge zone, cancelling the higher £25 charge on gas guzzlers which has erased another £50 million from TfL's projections, wasting money on the extra cost of scrapping bendy buses to deliver a worse service.
That's before the high cost of the "new Routemaster" vanity project is rolled out. The consequence of these policies is to place greater pressure on fares.

Under Ken Livingstone, the aim of keeping fares as low as practically possible was combined with a significant expansion of the bus service, major investment on new transport projects such as the East London Line Extension, and congestion charging to bring car use into the framework of overall transport policy. The effect was that London became the only major city in the world to see a 'modal shift' from car use to public transport.

During the election Johnson dodged claims that his policies would lead to higher fares. It is ironic that Tory politicians long campaigned to say fares under Ken Livingstone were too high but now their own mayoral administration says otherwise - and plans to hit the public with another above-inflation increase.