In message , at 09:21:29 on Tue, 19 Nov
2019, Recliner remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/18/trans...-tube-dlr-bus-
tram-fares-sadiq-khan-says-11173313/

At a time when political promises are being made daily, it always pays
to ask about the small print.

So when Khan said

"I want to be crystal clear - no ifs, no buts - what you'll pay
if I'm elected Mayor in May 2016 is what you'll pay at the end
of my 4 years in office."

What he delivered was: all fares on buses and trams, plus single pay-as-
you-go Tube and DLR fares; but Daily and weekly price caps, plus weekly,
monthly and annual travelcards, are not included in the freeze.

So lots of people are paying many pennies more.

There are inevitable structural reasons why this might be the case, but that
simply brings the original pledge into more disrepute.

To be fair, I think he always made clear that his promise only applied to
TfL fares,

If you can find a quote from him *before* the election, distancing
himself from "no ifs and buts" into "well, actually... on the trains
it's just daily tube fares, not even seasons, let alone suburban rail
services" a lot of people would be interested.

And at the time it would have lost a lot of votes, especially south of
the river.

and not those that included any actual or potential mainline rail use,
over which he had no control.

I think it's part of the opaqueness of fares setting that Londoners
might well think that national rail fares *within the zones*, while
being higher than tube fares for an equivalent trip, could be set by the
Mayor rather than the DfT. It'd have to be in the franchise agreements
of course.

While we are on the subject, who sets the Crossrial (nee TfL Rail)
fares? And is there an expectation in Khan's pledge that those might be
pegged as well (on routes currently operated by TfL Rail).

The wobble in the price caps is especially eggregious, because they could
easily have a protected price cap for travellers all of whose trips were on
TfL.

True.


--
Roland Perry