On 12 Feb, 16:47, "Boltar" wrote:
If not, then you have a choice. And your decision has been to pay for
the Tube rather than make these lifestyle changes. Go figure...

No mate , when I started working in london the fares were reasonable.
I didn't get a job here *knowing* how bad the fares were because they
*weren't* that bad. They been slowly forced on me as the years went
by.

This is simply not true (unless you started working in the middle of
Fares Fair, in which case that's rather unfortunate but a fairly
obvious one-off...)

In 1992, a monthly z1-6 Travelcard cost £91.40. The same card now
costs £165.20. [1]

Based on inflatiion (RPI), £91.40 in 1992 is the same as £126.71 in
2005. As a share of median earnings, £91.40 is the same as £152.12 in
2005. And as a share of GDP per capita, £91.40 is the same as £174.94
in 2005 (this is much higher than the earnings figure because of the
increase in income inequality...) [2]

Trending things forward to mid-2007, inflation has been running at
about 2.5% for 2 years, so the figure now would be £133. Earnings
growth has been running at about 5% (including inflation) so the
figure would be £168ish.

In orther words, if you've got a job where you've seen the same kind
of rise in earnings as the average UK worker, then you're spending the
same share of your income on your Travelcard that you would have spent
in 1992 (and I've actually rigged the figures against myself here,
because fares rose 14% between 1992 and 1993 - if I'd started a year
later then the calculation would have shown today as noticeably
cheaper).

[1] http://www.publications.parliament.u...0001/cmhansrd/
vo010409/text/10409w07.htm

[2] http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org