Originally Posted by orbitmic

I chose zones 1-2 in London and the nearest equivalent in most cases, but in some like Paris, I have even given you the systemwide comparator which is invariably a lot cheaper than in London. As we are all indeed aware, the suburban all zone Navigo area is way larger in both area size and population than London 1-2. (choosing tiny Paris 'intra muros' would have been very unfair indeed).

As for your second point, this is taking things even more OT but I thoroughly disagree: people like me who get a decent salary paying more taxes to subsidise public transport is not comparable to your average low paid nurse or police(wo)man having to pay that money (that's for the social justice argument as well as the need to ensure the presence of needed professions - as you know, there are many we don't have enough of in London including fire people and primary school teachers), and makes a massive difference to how it incentivises people to take public transport over their private vehicle (that's for the urbanistic argument), with all the implications this has on public health, public safety, the environment and even the work of companies.

By contrast, again, I agree with your point of Heathrow being reasonably well connected, not the best but far from the worst, and when Crossrail finally opens, it will be a great further improvement! The variety of existing connections is also way greater than for Gatwick which, at least for a small portion of the route, depends on a single rail corridor (and when a train breaks down there, all hell breaks loose!!)