Mayor Announces Fare Freeze and E-Bike Expansion – What Are the Caveats?
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
In rare good news for commuters in London, Mayor Sadiq Khan announced last week that fares will be frozen until 2025. The Mayor’s office claims that this will save Londoners up to £90 a year.
This isn’t a total fare freeze though, as the daily and weekly caps will still be increased for journeys on the rail network. This means that after March 3rd, your overall transport expenses could still increase if you use the tube or rail networks more than three times a day. Indeed, caps rise in sync with the National Rail fares which, contrary to TfL fares, will be increasing on the same day across the whole country by 4.9% on average. Conversely, daily bus and tram cap will remain unchanged.
The reactions from London Assembly members were mixed. While the Green Party’s Siân Berry praised the freeze, the Liberal Democrats’ Caroline Pidgeon cautioned that TfL’s funding needed to be sustainable, questioning where the money from the fare freeze came from. On the other hand, Tory Susan Hall called the move an electoral ploy to buy votes ahead of this year’s mayoral elections. When pressed for more details about her criticisms in an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC, Hall not only failed to provide a clear plan for raising fares as mayor, but also demonstrated a lack of knowledge regarding the current bus fare.
TfL also announced a major expansion to the fleet of cycle hire e-bikes on Monday. The move would increase the number of e-bikes from 600 to 2,000 by this summer. Whilst a major increase, this is minor compared to the roughly 12,000 regular bikes in operation. However, the cycle hire scheme’s reach will not be expanding further either, with no new docking stations having been announced. Indeed, TfL claims that it cannot self-fund any geographical expansion to the scheme, with councils needing to foot the bill to provide cycle hire bikes and stations to their local residents. However, most councils have been unable or unwilling to do so, with virtually none of Outer London having cycle hire bikes.
A fare change was also announced and will be welcomed by riders, with a £3 day pass being introduced starting March. The new pass will give riders unlimited 30 minute rides in a day, and hiring e-bikes will incur an additional £1 fee per half hour ride. This is likely to be TfL’s response to a recent drop in usage across London in the past year.
The freeze and e-bike expansion will come as a surprise to those having followed TfL’s dire financial straits since the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed, Khan’s previous fare freeze under his first term as mayor had to be abandoned in 2021 as part of TfL’s bailout conditions decided by the Central Government, prompting him to agree to successive fare rises. Ordinarily, under London’s devolved government, TfL is funded and controlled by the city itself rather than the Westminster Government. As part of the bailout, the latter has had a say in these financial decisions, leading to frequent tensions between the Labour Mayor and the Conservative government.
This shows that London’s transport network has for the most part recovered from the effects of the pandemic and adapted to shifts in commuting patterns, largely linked to an increase in remote working. Whilst the Westminster government is still partly helping finance TfL, the transport network is no longer reliant on it to fund day-to-day operations. Because of this, the Mayor is now free to set fares as he wishes and gives TfL more leeway to expand, rather than cut services.
For some, these measures will be seen as a vote-buying measure ahead of the mayoral election on May 2nd, whilst other voters will welcome the decision which will enable much-needed savings during a cost of living crisis. Whilst incumbent Labour mayor Sadiq Khan has handily won the two previous elections, changes to the voting system could make the left-leaning electorate inclined to vote for Green and Liberal Democrat candidates, possibly paving the way to a Tory victory. Voter apathy and a dismal turnout are also concerns. Khan will no doubt be capitalising on decisions such as the freeze of fares to remind Londoners that the Mayor’s office has important leverage, in hopes that they will once again support him for another mandate.