Everyone in the UK that is 60+ should get free local train and bus travel at any time

[magapiemag]

Why is it just people in London that get this? Everyone 60+ should get this to make it a fair system. Plenty are 60+ and not retired so still work and free bus and train travel would be a very welcomed. Is this more of London creaming the goodies for its self and letting the rest of the country with a inferior service?

Its about time some money was directed towards younger generation. Boomers get plenty as it is.

If my now dead dear father could see a problem 50+ years ago with the numbers born into my generation, then surely the govt. should have been more proactive than just foist the new retirement age onto a million+ of us too drastically in the mid-90's. There's tons of information online about how they changed the time period so I'll not go into it here.

I now (thanks to Mn) accept & agree that it's not a christmas club we've paid into all our working lives. But we should have been more prepared by the govt. well before we arrived at our present situation.

I gave up my job to help look after my Dm who had Alzhiemers. I'm 60 in 3mnths. Nobody will employ me. I'm totally reliant on my Dh to live. I just feel useless.

It is only usable off-peak, so won't be available for my commute up to age 66 when I will of course still be a viable employee in the eyes of 30/40 year olds. snorts

This is just a ridiculous argument. If those who are 60+ are STILL WORKING and would therefore welcome free travel...... doesn't that mean EVERYONE would welcome free travel as are in the same boat????

I mean its not like older people don't get discounts at most restaurants, gyms, entertainment places, etc, get subsidised energy bills, get to take a pension as well as working, are much more likely to be homeowners as part of the babyboomer generation..... oh wait. They are.

YABU and age related benefits don't really help the peopel who nost need it. HTH

sparechange it would be odd if older people weren't the majority of homeowners.

That's what all that going to work and paying the mortgage bollocks is for.

Over 25-40 years, the oldies decay and die out, then today's young people will become comparatively better off! As if by magic!

I don't think they should get all that straight away. I didn't. I had to pay for it over decades. And the government has nicked £50k from me by making me wait six extra years.

So no, enough with the endless ageism.

Is this more of London creaming the goodies for its self and letting the rest of the country with a inferior service?

It's exactly that OP. I'm counting down the days until I can get a Freedom Pass and have one more reason to laugh at the saps in the rest of the country from the front of the top deck of a No 36. It's not just my only reason for living in London; some days it's my only reason for living at all.

This is the strange thing about devolving decisions. People (speaking generally) like the idea of local decisions for local people, and being free to decide local priorities, until they see that people in another area are getting something they're not, whereupon they start complaining of the unfairness of a postcode lottery.

And, yes, enough of the ageism. And enough of the politics of petty resentment - looking at people who have got (what you perceive to be) more than (generic) you and searching for ways to confiscate it will come back to bite you in the end.

Limited

You see the world from the top deck of a London bus (including 3 grown men having a punch up on a Sunday afternoon over music someone else is playing )

"The London one is for anytime".

Not on all rail lines it isn't - it's from 09.00 only on weekdays. I have a freedom pass.

You get free bus travel in Wales from 60. I was 60 a few weeks ago and have found it very handed to get to work. I'm a support worker for adults with learning disabilities and I don't earn a fortune

user1471545174 No it's not - you can use tube and buses at anytime.

And you can use your freedom pass in any other part of the country for free buses. Likewise, anyone with a bus pass from other parts of the country can use it in London on public transport.

So those eligible are actually all getting the same thing - free transport in and around London, and a free bus network in the rest of the country.

Good luck to any of you who think your going to retire at 60 and receive state pension, bus pass or any of the other concessions, I'm almost 62 and have to wait another four years, I worked from the age of 15 at a time when there was no equal opportunities/wages or pension provisions in the work force, it's ridiculous to suggest all baby boomers are rolling in it, with their own houses and cars, I live on my own, suffer ill health but still have to sign on to JSA for a pittance to live on.

I've been seriously ill for a year, my mobility has been affected.

I was told by my consultant that I'd be better than I am, so when I enquired about a "disabled bus pass", the wait was around eight months, so I didnt apply.

I don't like putting one group of people against another, but more money needs to be put into help for disabled people, who can't change their situation.

So it isn't something that we can afford to fund, whilst so much isn't being funded.

""You get free bus travel in Wales from 60. I was 60 a few weeks ago and have found it very handed to get to work. I'm a support worker for adults with learning disabilities and I don't earn a fortune
You get free bus travel in Wales from 60. I was 60 a few weeks ago and have found it very handed to get to work. I'm a support worker for adults with learning disabilities and I don't earn a fortune""

My DD is an Adult with LDs (as well as S&L issues) and has been turned down for a bus pass. She probably won't get PIP in the future either.

I hate saying this, but we're going back to people needing to be thankful that they can work.

"but more money needs to be put into help for disabled people, who can't change their situation."

1. There are a lot people who are termed disabled who can change their situation.

1. There are a lot of 60+ people who can't change their situation.

In Scotland it's free for the over 60s but not during peak hours.

I think it's after 9.30am

I believe they get discount on their train travel too with a railcard!
ah yes - a railcard which they have to pay for and is used for off-peak travel like :
the young persons railcard.
the family railcard
the disabled persons railcard - do look them up before you assume it is only the elderly who get a discount.
and so on.

As a conservative I would like to see public transportation (trams, buses and trains) free to use and funded through a tax on cars and domestic flights. I would also nationalize the buses and trains. It's been a disaster. I don't like JC but he is correct about the trains.

I'm in the US, just outside of NYC and public transportation is cheap. Subway is $100 a month and there are no zones. Train from the burbs is $250 a month. Bus into NYC from my town is $80 a month and a tram pass is included in the cost of a monthly train pass. Our town has a contact with zip car enabling lots of households to not keep a car. The contract with zip car funds the local bus route around town which is free for 0-18 and 65+ and $1 a ride for everyone else. Everyone, rich, poor, able bodied and disabled use the public transportation options.

Disabled rail card you pay for. You get 1/3 off for you and 1/3 for a carer on national rail. And you get a slightly expanded choice of seats on the trains.

To the poster who says the government has 'nicked' £50k off them as they have to retire six years later: on a wage of £30k (which is slightly above average now, I used it as a baseline) £219 NI is contributed per month. 45 working years = £118,260 contributed in total.

Even if NI was like some kind of savings club that's only 12 years pension, with no contributions to anything else. A high percentage of people live into their 80's now. A non means tested state pension is something we can no longer fund (and it needn't be expensive to administrate; HMRC could do as they did for family allowance and simply say anyone who pays higher rate tax gets no pension.)

I do giggle when older people say they've paid for their houses over years. My generation are paying rents or mortgages that are more expensive as a proportion of our income than your mortgages ever were (and the current government made that worse by allowing the removal of cash lump sums from private pensions to keep the BTL market buoyant.) There isn't likely to be any state pensions or healthcare when we are older and we're working just as hard.

Yy to being shafted of 50K from a pension fund by the sleight of hand by consecutive govts.

We used to be divided between the "haves" & the "havenots". Now society is being pitted against each other. It's all smoke & mirrors to distract us from the wealthy 1% getting even more wealthier. Divide & conquer.

..and presumably claiming tax credits and free child care which wasn't available for the older generation

I think they should increase the free pass age to 70 and use the money to give free travel to 13-19 year old who need it most. When my eldest starts secondary school next year I'll have to find £400 a year for his bus pass and that doesn't even include weekend & travel. Plus on the rare occasion I get the bus into town it's always empty except for pensioners and costs twice as much as driving the 5 miles and paying for parking.