Cheap fares cut costs
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-07-15Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 14 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 14
ampaig LABDUR ACCORDING to London Transport's official report, the Labour GLC's cheap fares policy actually reduced the cost per passenger to public funds.
It also brought "a small but significant reduction in the use of private car s, a reduction in traffic congestion and, undoubtedly, a reduction in road accidents."
Peter Masefield, the retiring boss of London Transport, presented the report last week and called for an increased public subsidy to LT making it possible to cut fares by 20%.
LT bosses clearly have their own reasons for wanting low fares: who wants to manage a decaying, declining, high-fare service? But their report highlights the blind viciousness of the Lords' ruling that the cheap fares were against the law.
When fares were cut 32% last October, passenger numbers went up 10%. This March, after the Law Lords' ruling, fares were raised 96% and passenger numbers went down by 18%.
London Transport now receives a lower rate of subsidy (27%) than any other major urban transport system in the world. Paris receives 52%, New, , York 70%, and Milan 83%.