John B wrote:


Also, if you make two peak journeys a day even just on London
Underground, an annual Travelcard is cheaper per day than Oyster PAYG
would be.


OTOH if you only travel on the Underground once or twice a month at
most, you're better off _not_ getting a season Travelcard, but just
using a paper point-to-point season for your regular NR journeys and
Oyster PAYG on the buses.

On Jul 10, 5:48*pm, "solar penguin"
wrote:

John B wrote:

Also, if you make two peak journeys a day even just on London
Underground, an annual Travelcard is cheaper per day than Oyster PAYG
would be.

OTOH if you only travel on the Underground once or twice a month at
most, you're better off _not_ getting a season Travelcard, but just
using a paper point-to-point season for your regular NR journeys and
Oyster PAYG on the buses.

Yes... but that's not much use if you don't have an NR point-to-point
season, or any need for having one.

(Incidentally John B's advice isn't actually necessarily right - it
depends entirely on the individual circumstances but for those *only*
using the Underground for their commute then Oyster PAYG can even work
out cheaper than an annual Travelcard - this is discussed at length
upthread.)

Mizter T wrote:

On Jul 10, 5:48 pm, "solar penguin"
wrote:

John B wrote:

Also, if you make two peak journeys a day even just on London
Underground, an annual Travelcard is cheaper per day than Oyster
PAYG would be.

OTOH if you only travel on the Underground once or twice a month at
most, you're better off _not_ getting a season Travelcard, but just
using a paper point-to-point season for your regular NR journeys and
Oyster PAYG on the buses.

Yes... but that's not much use if you don't have an NR point-to-point
season, or any need for having one.

So you said in the other thread.


(Incidentally John B's advice isn't actually necessarily right - it
depends entirely on the individual circumstances but for those *only*
using the Underground for their commute then Oyster PAYG can even work
out cheaper than an annual Travelcard - this is discussed at length
upthread.)

Yes, and it's very interesting. So why isn't there an Underground-only
season? Although I don't use the Underground very often, I would've
thought soumething like that could be very useful for those who do.
(More evidence that TfL are only interested in what's convenient for
them, and not what's useful for the widest possible range of
passengers?)

Incidentally my limited-ish experience of these buses in the morning
at Vauxhall is that a good number of people pile out at Vauxhall to
get on the Victoria line

This is also the experience of my partner who commutes on SWT to
Vauxhall then takes the 87 to Covent Garden. This is cheaper (zz2-3
travelcard), seats are available on the bus, and it doesn't take any
longer (owing to the train oftentimes having to wait for a platform at
Waterloo and to the bus stops being much further away.)[1]

The same situation applies to greater and lesser extents on the
fringes of zone 1 and 2 elsewhere...leave the
train or Tube at Elephant & Castle for buses to Holborn.

However there is a wide variation in how convenient the innermost z2
stations are.
Vauxhall, Elephant and Castle and (?) Aldgate East must be the best
ones. Mornington Crescent is ok; Cally Road, H&I and Notting Hill Gate
are pretty useless. Earl's Court has astoundingly few buses, and
coming in on FGW there is no hope at all (Ealing Broadway has no
direct buses to the centre daytimes, and even Paddington is two miles
from the west end)

[1] Demonstrators in Parliament Square permitting.

On Jul 12, 10:07 am, David wrote:

Incidentally my limited-ish experience of these buses in the morning
at Vauxhall is that a good number of people pile out at Vauxhall to
get on the Victoria line

This is also the experience of my partner who commutes on SWT to
Vauxhall then takes the 87 to Covent Garden. This is cheaper (zz2-3
travelcard), seats are available on the bus, and it doesn't take any
longer (owing to the train oftentimes having to wait for a platform at
Waterloo and to the bus stops being much further away.)[1]

Thanks. I'm pretty sure a good number of people do similar. The 87 and
88 also provide good links into civil service-land (Marsham Street,
Millbank, east end of Victoria Street, Whitehall).


The same situation applies to greater and lesser extents on the
fringes of zone 1 and 2 elsewhere...leave the
train or Tube at Elephant & Castle for buses to Holborn.

However there is a wide variation in how convenient the innermost z2
stations are.
Vauxhall, Elephant and Castle and (?) Aldgate East must be the best
ones. Mornington Crescent is ok; Cally Road, H&I and Notting Hill Gate
are pretty useless. Earl's Court has astoundingly few buses, and
coming in on FGW there is no hope at all (Ealing Broadway has no
direct buses to the centre daytimes, and even Paddington is two miles
from the west end)

Aldgate East is zone 1 - it's Whitechapel that's zone 2. But that's
still fairly convenient for either a bus or a walk into the eastern
edge of the square mile (and beyond), dependent on how far one is
content with walking. Shadwell DLR is also a possibility, either for
walk into the City along Cable Street, or buses along nearby
Commercial Road (there's the 100 bus too, though it's a bit round the
houses).

I'd say Notting Hill Gate would perhaps be ok for parts of the West
End (nearer Marble Arch/Edgware Rd) given the frequent bus services
down Bayswater, though I dare say they might be fairly busy at peak
times. Cally Road might be ok for getting to the King's Cross Central
development (on the site of the old KX goods yard) when it's open for
business in a few years. Earl's Court is as you say not very helpful
(from that side of town, I suppose one could use Hammersmith to get on
the 9 or 10 to get into the West End, but that's not a short hop by
any means).

There are others, e.g. Warwick Avenue is pretty decent for the
Paddington Central development (by foot), and St John's Wood for buses
into the West End. As you say they vary widely in how convenient they
can be.

The best ones are perhaps those that provide a decent route in their
own right - e.g. Elephant & Castle to Holborn - as opposed to those
which merely mirror an existing route - e.g. Bermondsey to London
Bridge/the Borough and Waterloo, where you're just going to end up
thinking you might as well have taken the Tube the whole way! Of
course, if the financial imperative is strong enough (and it might be
at the moment) then that could trump other such considerations - and
the potential savings from avoiding zone 1 are substantial.

On Jul 10, 7:29*pm, "solar penguin"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

[snip]

(Incidentally John B's advice isn't actually necessarily right - it
depends entirely on the individual circumstances but for those *only*
using the Underground for their commute then Oyster PAYG can even work
out cheaper than an annual Travelcard - this is discussed at length
upthread.)

Yes, and it's very interesting. *So why isn't there an Underground-only
season? *Although I don't use the Underground very often, I would've
thought soumething like that could be very useful for those who do.
(More evidence that TfL are only interested in what's convenient for
them, and not what's useful for the widest possible range of
passengers?)

There haven't been Underground-only season tickets available for most
journeys for years and years - I can't give chapter and verse on this
subject, but basically they were phased out in the mid/late 80's I
think (?), and pax were migrated over to season Travelcards.

I think there were season tickets available for some shorter journeys,
and also for journeys beyond Moor Park on the Metropolitan line.
However these have also been phased out but rather more recently - the
advice for those north of Moor Park is that PAYG will be cheaper for a
5-days a week commute.

With regards to shorter journeys on the network, it's not really
publicised as far as I can tell but some shorter journeys are actually
charged at cheaper rates - e.g. West Kensington to South Kensington is
charged at £1.60 at any time woth Oyster PAYG, whereas if it was dealt
with strictly as a zone 1&2 journey it would cost £2.20 peak, £1.60
off-peak.

You can search for PAYG single fares on the TfL "Fare finder" he
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/fa...09/farefinder/