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?

How do you define a pensioner, I'm 62, I don't get a bus pass, if you saw me sat on the bus would you assume I'm riding for free.

Not sure how this would be funded, means testing would be too expensive I think.

My mum is a very sprightly & young-looking 65 yr old and all my grandparents lived to a very ripe age (90's, 100+!) so when I refer to old people/pensioners I usually mean people who are much older than 60's

Oh and of course totally ridiculous that my mum & dad could get a free bus pass - they both still work and are loaded!

No.

I would like students 16-19 or even early twenties to get it, if anyone has to have anything for free. They get paid much less on the minimum wage, it's expensive to go to college and they need all the financial help they can get. I have never understood why it is ok to pay 24 year olds less than the full minimum wage, and as for paying apprentices £3.40 or whatever it's a complete insult to their hard work.

I am much more fussed about having a better basic min wage for all ages over 18 than I am about subsidizing bus travel for the over 60's especially as over 60 isn't even elderly anyway, it should be from the pension age onward (if at all).

You don't get a bus pass unless you claim it, so the loaded pensioners, could, like Prince Charles(!) not claim. (Yes, the idea of Charles just waiting at the nearest bus stop, and checking the timetable to see when the next bus is due, is laughable.)

On the other hand, one argument is that it has encouraged elderly people to get out and about, e.g. go to town and go to a cafe, whereas instead they would have gone to the Drs for a minor ailment, just to get out of the house and have company.

I do think 16-19 year olds should have free passes too.

Not all 60+ are loaded. My dad is 60 and still working, he's worked since he was 15. He doesn't own his own home or have any savings/pension due to working in manual jobs (mainly hgv and warehouse). My mum was disabled and in and out of hospital for the 10 years before she died after working her whole life before that.

My dad has always earned minimum wage or just above due to the type of work he's done. Not everyone can work their way up to become a manager or similar. He doesn't have much chance disposable income after paying rent/bills/travel to work. A bus pass would be all but useless to him though as he starts work at 5am so the options are driving or taxi to get there.

I'd rather see free travel for those still in education. Where I am it's between £10 and £15 per week to get to the local high school / sixth forms, more if you get a place at one further away, which is difficult for many families to find, especially when you have 2 or more children.

We oldies get free offpeak bus in our area, not that we use it much, but were very excited when we recently visited Budapest with our UK bus passes to find that we got free travel on buses, trams, the Metro and even river boats. As a bonus the Metro was startlingly clean, pleasant and un-scary even at night. No doubt this arrangement will disappear with Brexit.

So no, enough with the endless ageism.

^ this.

It doesn't take long for the generalisations and sweeping statements to be thrown about does it.

Where I am children start paying for busses/once they turn 5 so its not just 16-19 year old that would really benefit from free travel.

In my area of Plymouth you can ask for A kid for a Quid, which is one ticket they can use for how ever many buses all day, covers age five to sixteen.

Mismo we also have that, although it's only if they travel with a full paying adult, so the adult pays nearly £4, and children £1 each for a 10 min trip into town.

If they go alone, so on bus home from school, it's about £2 per journey.

mismo the age for when you claim your pension, so 65+ ish...

Oh dear - what a lot of ignorance, bigotry and ageism on this thread. 'Always', 'never', 'everyone' and 'no-one' are very dangerous words to use.

Of course more older people in this country own their own homes - it's what they spent their whole lives working for, but bricks and mortar done
pay the bills. The house will go when the money is needed to pay for care when they are too frail to look after themselves. Or are the children who think that their parents are 'loaded' going to give up time and jobs to care for them? Probably not.

And there are many, many women who worked hard all their lives on low, unequal wages, whose bodies are wrecked because of it and who are now unemployed and because they are over 60 are unemployable and have no income and no state pension. No state pension with no notice, often. Their husbands are expected to support them, even though they have paid into the system for decades. We might as well be back in the 19th century.

So please, lay off the 'everyone' when talking about the over 60's. Young folk are supposedly better educated than all the old fogies, so you should know better.

Nope Mismo, no free childcare, tax credits (for those on a joint income of

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

London pays 30% of all taxes, and gets 11% of public spending whilst having 12% of the population.

Its so sad to see the way attitudes in this country has changed. We built Council housing as there was a housing crisis after the Blitz, and returning veterans were forced to squat.
We used to care about each other and felt able to provide a decent minimum standard of living.

My mum gets free bus and rail travel, as does my sister and two brothers. They prefer bus. They also get free entry into various attractions. In Northern Ireland.

I think it's an excellent idea to get people who qualify out and about and visiting. You are issued with a card. The payment is taken should you choose to travel. It also secures public transport, especially bus routes in rural areas.

Stop being so stingy. They all paid into the system, none of them have had expensive treatments such as cancer.

Sorry, only my mum, who is 91, get free entry into various attractions. The others aren't old enough to qualify.

My dad and MIL get free bus travel here in Scotland- neither of them have any need for it as they are both wealthy people. I'm happy for anyone over retirement age on a low income to have it, but not people like my dad and MIL.

If regional authorities are not providing free travel for 60+ that is something to take up with them, not with those authorities who do. Keeping people mobile and active on public transport has significant general benefits on health and wellbeing which saves money from other budgets.

That said 60+ seems very early these days - I'd push it up in line with state retirement age and give more free travel to the younger end. In most of Europe travel concessions last until 25 so we ought to be able to help at least until 22.

Means testing tends not to be cost effective for wider benefits. Possibly means test to catch 60+ low income but make it a global benefit at state retirement age.

In Scotland you get the free bus pass at 60 as well which came in something like 2004 and can be used at peak hours. My dad uses his to go to his p/t job (aged 73). It also covers the Glasgow underground. Not on trains though.

The 60 thing, at that time, tied in with womens retirement age. I think it would have been harder to introduce a benefit with differences linked to sex at that point hence men got it as well even though they were not at retirement age. Its still available aged 60 but I think there is a strong argument to linking it to retirement age.

The issue should not be a race to the bottom and complain that some people have it or its only available in certain places. Thats just a race to the bottom. Instead we need to decide on why public transport is so expensive and then chose politicians who will change that. The money can come from other sources of government expenditure ranging from very expensive mass killing of innocent people devices through to proper tax structures.

Mountain Peaks I am mid-50s so free travel is pretty unlikely by the time I reach the age, but the train definitely doesn't allow discounted travel before 9.30 am.

I agree that if anyone should get free/reduced travel it should be young people, who often rely on public transport to get to school/college or home from university.

What's the justification for giving it to people who are 60+, often they're well off and perfectly capable of driving?