Nick wrote:
"Ian Jelf" wrote...
writes
I know "Londoners" find this hard to believe, but many of us don't wanty
to be part of your high-density overpopulated sprawling urban gloom.

But people there are probably happy with their co-ordinated public
transport and - when the time comes - Freedom Passes?

Whenever I have this debate about Bexley part of Greater London or not, the
biggest noise always seems to be made about the Freedom pass!

Probably because the holders have got the most to lose, and will
fiercely resist any attempt to take it away.

Arguably, I think the freedom pass is overkill anyway; I would support free
use of local buses to moderately distant locations, trains to central
London, and maybe tube travel in Z1 off-peak. In Bexley, I would guess that
95% of Freedom pass owners use the train and tube extremely rarely, and
probably less than 50% use the buses regularly.

Do you know any Freedom pass owners? Your guess seems wildly low!

I don't believe pensioners
are at all bothered that they can travel to Uxbridge for free.

Maybe not Uxbridge, but certainly Kingston and Heathrow, despite the
truncation of the 726 at Bromley.

How many
Freedom pass users regularly travel to Dartford and Bluewater and contribute
to "out-of-region" retail spend I wonder :-)

Unlike normal bus passes, Freedom passes are not valid as far as
Bluewater. However, they are valid to Dartford and Swanley on the train
as well as on the bus. Hundreds use Freedom passes to get to Dartford
and Swanley markets, but that's hardly "out of region".

Co-ordinated local public transport? In Bexley, that just means running
buses with the NR network, and you don't need a massive Greater London body
to draw up a few bus timetables to match those of the NR network.

Services in Bexley are so erratic that timetabled connections would be
meaningless. Fortunately most routes are reasonably frequent (with the
exception of the B14 which only runs every 30 minutes on a good day) and
buses serve every rail station in Bexley LB.