Boris Just Doesn’t Get Buses

London Mayor Boris Johnson has blown a giant raspberry at the campaign for one-hour bus tickets, spearheaded by the LibDem GLA transport chair, Caroline Pidgeon — which only goes to show how far out of touch he is with the lives of ordinary Londoners, including those based in the suburbs. Under the scheme, bus passengers would have ben able to change buses within a one hour period without having to buy another ticket. It’s a system that works brilliantly in a number of continental cities and it makes a lot of sense, particularly for young mums with kids or shopping who do not have a single direct bus route to where they need to be. Caroline Pidgeon’s campaign — which I was happy to support publicly when it was launched a few months ago — won the backing of members of all the main political groups within the Greater London Asembly. But the Mayor has still dismised it out of hand. The problem is that the Mayor seems to think — rather like Mrs Thatcher — that anyone who needs to take public transport is somehow one of life’s failures. The reality is that most Londoners do rely on public transport and Boris should be encouraging more people to use it with incentive schemes such as the one hoour bus ticket, rather than perpetuating a system whereby it is sometimes cheaper to take the car (for those who have one).