Livingstone's gravy train

Print
Workers' Fight workplace bulletin editorials
9 January 2007

Mayor Livingstone's Transport for London has endorsed an increase in cash bus and tube fares by 33%. Low-paid workers have already been priced off the tube and trains. Yet even the "discounted" Oyster card fares on the buses are 25% up, to £1 per journey. These are the highest fares in the whole of Europe.

Livingstone says these fare hikes are "necessary" - to pay for investment in transport and to push people to opt for the Oyster, which offers 20% savings, even if it is not accepted on local rail services. Of course, the pre-pay Oyster means that ticket office jobs can be cut, and since it means paying in advance, it certainly helps TfL's finances.

Which is just as well, given that this quango has 76 "employees" earning over £100,000 per month!

The highest paid is TfL boss, Peter Hendy, a multimillionaire already, who gets a £320,000-plus-bonus salary. He took over from Bob Kiley, an ex-CIA agent brought over to facilitate the contracting out of the Tube's tracks to private sharks, while appearing to oppose it. Kiley was the highest paid "public servant" in Britain, on £1.1m, and still gets £3,200/year for "consultancy services"!

High fares do not only fund Livingstone's gravy train, but they just extend "congestion charging" to tubes and buses to solve the problem of transport under-investment in a tried and tested way: make it too expensive for people to ride! This stinks.