Poll on LT's future
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ORGANISATIONS and people interested in public transport in London are to be asked by the Greater London Council to help decide the future of London Transport.
The GLC is distributing 100,000 leaflets giving details of the various options ava!lable for the financial running of the Capital's public transport.
The Council also intends commissioning a major opinion poll to gauge Londoners' views on the subject. Five different approaches are outlined in the leaflet, which also explains the Council's view of what the likely result of each option would be. The participant is asked to tick the option favoured and return a card included with the leaflet to the Council.
Approach one involves LT being run as a business and being required to break even. This approach, the leaflet suggests, could result in LT fares being 40 per cent higher and bus services cut by 40 per cent by 1987.
Approach two involves using the present fares as a basis for income and keeping them rising with inflation. This, the leaflet contends, would also result in service cuts and job losses.
Approach three — the option added since June (CM, July 3) — suggests a fares cut of 36 per cent next year which would bring them back to the same real level as in 1970. Although this would result in fares being 41 per cent lower in 1987 than they are today, the leaflet still considers that this approach would warrant a four per cent bus service cut.
Approach four requires either a new interpretation of the Transport (London) Act of 1969 or a new Act. Fares would be cut by half and restored to their preMarch level and from then rise with inflation. This approach would entail LT receiving a "comparable level of support to other less important European cities' transport systems" and would still result in the need to cut bus services by five per cent.
The final approach, which predictably the GLC favours, is a return to "Fares Fair". It envisages fares being halved and then frozen. This would result in bus services being 13 per cent better and bus use rising by, it is contended, 18 per cent. The leaflet also outlines the financial implications to London ratepayers offered by each approach.