Paul Corfield wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 25 Oct 2004:

Surely people take the route that is most convenient and fastest when it
comes to rail or tube travel? Do people really go through such journey
contortions in order to save a few pence?

If you don't have a lot of money then, yes, you do.

[Snip]

Flat fares will get to the
level where they become so high that they discourage short journeys thus
negating part of the reason for having a bus system.

They already are! I wouldn't take a bus for one or two stops unless I
had a pass of some kind or another - a whole pound, just for a journey I
could do in ten minutes on foot? I don't think so! With a bus-pass, of
course, it's another story.

At that stage the
fares structure will change - after all we have been here before when
fares used to 30p flat fare and it only took 3 fares revisions to get to
a graduated structure.

Did we? I don't remember that - I do remember that, until fairly
recently, you paid a fare that was graduated according to the length of
your journey.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 26 September 2004