Originally Posted by
orbitmic
I hate to keep this thread so ot but...
A monthly travelcard zone 1-2 (the cheapest) costs £135. Even at today's awful exchange rate, that is over €150. An annual travelcard is £1404 (well over €1,500)
In Berlin a monthly travel card is €81, annual is €761
In Paris a toutes zones monthly carte Navigo is €75.20. Annual one is €827.20
In Rome monthly passes range for one zone are €24.50 and annual is €172 (only slightly more for zones 1-3)
In Madrid, abonos zone A (€54.60) or A-B2 (€72), annually, it is €543 and €720 respectively.
In Stockholm, all zone SEK860 for a month (~£75), not sure about annual.
In terms of your finding London one of the best public transport system in the world, I have of course no problem with you making that argument but could I ask what you base it on? The two main criteria I've seen used are affordability, average commuter travel time, and coverage, measured, as rightly noted by Jagboi, by the proportion of houses with given distance of stations. As mentioned though, unfortunately, the figures that Jagboi saw were badly mistaken, and in fact London compares very, very negatively to all the competitors above (not to mention the likes of Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, or Moscow) on all three criterion, so it would be good to know which other criteria you have in mind if only so that I can cheer up my many friends living in East and South London.
* PS: i'm not aware that station closure at various point in the day is a criterion I've ever seen but I know it also annoys many people when trying to head home from Covent Garden, Holborn or several city stations when they finish work at peak time).
I would whole-heartedly agree with your point if we compared London to Birmingham or Nottingham, but how do you think this compares to Paris, Moscow, let alone Tokyo or even NYC? As for targets, they are not an international standard of any sort, just that, targets set by London for a slow improvement of a situation known to be problematic for many.
Don't take me wrong, there is plenty done to try and improve the life of Londoners, chief among which the 24 hour tube which is a brilliant initiative. The network, however, remains largely what it is, not anyone's fault in particular (at least not today) but when big cities try to look for an example of network to emulate, London is just not what they focus their eyes on.
This is a fascinating conversation and one very close to my heart which I'm sure could run and run in a more suitable forum! Would you be able to confirm whether you use London's transport on a daily basis though or do you judge it on what your many friends in East and South London tell you? I ask, as I commute using two Underground lines every day to and from work, 45 minute journey time door-to-door, and while I don't quite keep a spreadsheet recording my daily journey time reliability, it's a rare day that I don't leave the house at 08:45 and arrive at my desk +/- 1 minute of 09:30. I too have many friends living all over London, many of whom have come from other cities around the world including New York and Paris, and they consistently rate the quality and performance of London's Transport ahead of their former home city. I'm not covering fares here as I recognise a lot of people think London public transport fares are expensive but is £7 a day for unlimited zone 1-6 travel, covering almost 1,500 square km (before considering annual leave etc) really that terrible value for money? It's also worth considering that we have the Victoria line running at 36 trains per hour (tph), the Jubilee, Northern and Central at around 30tph, and the majority of others (pre-upgrade) above 20tph. In addition, we have National Rail services out of most London Terminals at 16tph or above on core suburban corridors, splitting further out. Few other cities running with such old infrastructure operate at anywhere near service levels such as these. Of course, systems like Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul etc are newer, built with larger tunnels and generally cheaper to maintain.
I often travel to New York and love to travel on their Subway both as a public transport professional and enthusiast, but it feels like every time I travel in from JFK on the E I wait forever for a train, then get stuck in the tunnels somewhere in Queens at least twice, before arriving 15 minutes after the scheduled arrival. And weekend / off-peak headways on many NYC Subway lines are now at a dreadful every 10 minutes, with hugely crowded trains. In London, even places like Stanmore, High Barnet, Morden and Barking get at least three times that many on a Sunday now.