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Tim Roll-Pickering · July 7th 11, 01:17 PM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote:

I'm sorry but this is plainly daft for the journey you did. It is an
extremely long way round for a short cut to go from Highbury to Putney
NR via the NLL and WLL and then SWT. No one in their right mind would
take that route as a quick or effective way to travel. There are
faster routes via Zone 1 and it is an entirely reasonable assumption
that it will be the choice of almost everyone to go that way. This is
why there is only one priced route.

This argument would be more credible if there wasn't a Highbury to Clapham
not via zone 1 fare. That is the default fare too, with via zone 1 as the
alternatives.

Highbury to Clapham has a direct service at peak hours, backed up by a
same-platform interchange for the rest of the time. Taking a longer but
direct journey on London Overground (and predecessors) has long been
recognised as quite common because it's smoother for people who aren't in a
rush and wish to avoid particularly stressful interchange stations. But if
the journey involves interchanges anyway then the likeliehood falls away.