London parents, did you know about public transport changes?

It’s always easy to go after children and families- it’s easy because the media and government have spent years hammering the idea that if you struggle financially then it’s your fault and you shouldn’t have had children.

Pensioners are less likely to have had their income affected by Corona than working age and don't have kids to support and have often paid off mortgages. Their disposable income has overtaken working age in the last few years. I guess the tories want to keep their vote which is why they never get shafted by cuts in the way young people do.

Over 60s are taking a small hit, freedom passes will only be valid off-peak (so, same as the rest of the country).
My DM was kicking off about it. Evidently her need to travel round London free in rush hour is more important than children getting to school. Her crusade didn't get very far, as everyone outside London on her social media thought it should have always been off peak travel anyway.

@queryuiop not at the moment, although that's a very temporary measure and is also supposed to change. Given the buses are still fairly empty I don't think they'll be losing a lot of revenue and I haven't really seen kids on the bus at all.

To be clear- buses and trams are free for all kids, trains and tubes are free for U11s with a zip card.

Another thing to remember is that low bus fares are partially offset by massive tube and train fares- my travelcard costs nearly 2k a year from zone 4, so we already pay 4k as a household annually. We already have the most expensive public transport system in Europe for a capital city (maybe the world). As Mayor, Johnson decided TFL should become entirely self financing, which no other capital city does.

I'm from a rural area and the buses are awful and runiously expensive. They're mostly used by over -66s who get free travel. But most people have cars, usually multiple per household, and the financial cost of ownership is much cheaper (environmental cost remains high). It's not the same.

I know there are heads and MATs really concerned about potential impacts on attendance of vulnerable kids and lobbying DFE. Some Boroughs are massive- mine is huge and you can easily be allocated a school at the opposite end, 10 or so miles away.

I think it's outrageous & they really need to look at the freedom pass.

Do you have to pay for London buses at all at the moment? I assumed that the "no need to tap in" meant they were free by default.

It does seem wrong to charge children suddenly, especially as so many get daily buses to and from school, and parents will have chosen the school based on free travel.

I think all travel on public transport for children going to and from school should be free nationwide. Bus fare, for school, costs us £30 per week.

Petition against this here
www.change.org/p/transport-for-london-stop-tfl-from-removing-free-travel-for-under-18s?

@ListeningQuietly please make your own thread about your anger as to your local bus provision. If you want to start that argument, I'll happily pay a fiver every day for my kid to get to school if you also give me your house prices, your council tax rate, your car insurance premium, your lack of ULEZ tax and a ton of other things! And before you start, no it's really not that easy to move out of London and no, I probably don't earn more than you!
I tried to be nice but you're being outright horrid and passive aggressive. I feel bad your kids have to pay, but take that up with your MP, not a thread informing LONDON PARENTS of this stupid new idea.
Goodbye, enjoy your lovely fresh air and low car insurance, wherever you're from.

And thinking about it, TFL makes money by selling tickets. They are using the money they are now charging children to ride on buses to subsidise the Freedom Passes for the over 60s. When I was young my grandparents used to give me money but now granchildren are expected to subsidise their grandparents travelcards.

I would remove the freedom pass for over 60s is they need to make cuts!

I am not surprised that over 60s in your area also benefit from free travel ListeningQuietly but it very wrong that they do. I have checked the London councils website and the London Freedom Pass is partly funded by TFL themselves, 5%, mainly funded by London local authorities and then there is a govt grant which only covers part of the cost.

I don't think London is a special case but I do think the over 60s have unnecessarily been made into a special case. We have an ageing population so we are going to be giving an increasing percentage of the population non-means-tested free travel and the burden to pay for this will fall on the younger generations.

And I do appreciate the problems with rural travel, DH comes from the back of beyond in Scotland and there's one bus a day!

I don’t think London is special- I perfectly understand your venom for such decisions but like I said all this does is disadvantage children, many of whom are living in poverty or will be pushed into poverty. Your sympathy isn’t for “London”- whatever that covers- it’s for children.

What is your point about brexit voters and bus supply?

But I don’t get why you can’t champion your cause rather than wish ill on others.
We tried but under bus deregulation law it was deemed anticompetitive
see the multiple court cases where sensible local authorities tried to unravel the rules using London as an example
but were told "London is special"
hence the utter lack of sympathy
check out the Brexit vote versus bus supply map

I think possibly what has riled some people is the posters pleading that London is a special case while not acknowledging or perhaps even understanding the issues that children in rural areas face. It comes across as slightly ignorant and is bound to annoy those who have one or two buses a day and pay £600 a year.

I think that most people might agree that it should be prioritised that all children get free or some form of subsidised travel.

I too know of very wealthy, working people who use their free transport passes and it seems wrong.

My children have always faced what Londoners now which is awful!
But I don’t get why you can’t champion your cause rather than wish ill on others.

By comparison, not only does it cost me over £200 a month to travel to work but as of October 2021 it will cost me £12.50 to travel down the road to Sainsbury’s - so thanks to the low emission zone extension I have to get into debt to get a new car and get rid of my 2009 hatchback diesel. I’m bitter but it wouldn’t make me feel better if you were penalised the same way.

onlyfools
But the fact you take glee in children, CHILDREN being disadvantaged is disgusting!
Que
My children have always faced what Londoners now are
I am glad that preference by postcode is removed
and rightly so

ListeningQuietly public transport outside of cities are a disgrace-
I would happily champion reform
But the fact you take glee in children, CHILDREN being disadvantaged is disgusting!

SE13
As per threads passim ad nauseam
the difference between London and the rest of the country gets our goat.

When my kids were at 6th form the ONLY bus in and out of 11 villages was cancelled with 5 days notice.
Fares not an issue - the bus stopped.

When a rival company takes over your route, an annual pass becomes worthless

Bus fares for under 11's work out at £5 a day

In cities, kids can walk to an alternative provider
in the Test valley the schools are 11 miles apart ...

London had it right, but now has to face the new normal

Disgraceful! As if the number of working households below the poverty line wasn’t high enough.
As for the London bashing there are some of us who are low- middle income earners struggling to survive on the City we come from. We aren’t all high earners from abroad!
I only have a toddler but there is only 1 secondary school within walking distance and it’s technically in another borough- every secondary in our borough requires two buses! It’s disgusting what the tories have done- fine let it cost me over £200 a month to get to work, congestion and low emission tax me to death meaning I have to get into debt for a new petrol car- but leave the children alone!

Tbh, this just brings London into line with other areas that have to pay.
It will be a significant payment, but not an unreasonable expectation.

It's really disappointing that a thread giving London parents the heads up about their children's ZIP cards needing to be topped up so they can get to schoo,l has turned into a race to the bottom.

You're right; outrageous bus fares outside of London are not fair. It's not fair that you have to pay the bus fare for your child to get to their nearest secondary school. My point about the withdrawal of free bus travel for under 18s in London is that it's come at a time of year that means it's too late for parents to take that into account when applying for secondary schools for their Y6 children. It will be lower income families that are disproportionately affected by this and whose children may end up not returning to/starting secondary in September. They're already more likely to be living in over-crowded accommodation, have poorer health etc. and now some of them will be faced with decisions about whether or not there's enough money to get them to their allocated school. Admissions appeals are already running behind so it's unlikely any borough is going to want lots of parents declining the allocated place and restarting the process in the hope their child can be placed at a school that it's safe to walk to i.e. not along a dual carriageway.

Tinned
If London becomes like the rest of the country - 4
so that free bus fares explicitly exclude school age kids

@TinnedPearsForPudding, it hasn't been announced because it won't happen until they can make the necessary changes to the IT systems. If you think about it, they're not currently set up to deduct funds when kids swipe in on buses. They'll also need to launch an information awareness campaign.

It's going to be a disaster if lots of kids end up stranded without credit on their cards. It's very fiddly to set up auto-top up on Zip cards because first you have to link them to an adult Oyster account. The instructions for doing it are not at all clear. I remember tearing my hair out over it.