Angry about today's rail fare increases?

andyrules

Mankysteve wrote: »

Forget about this increase they its nothing they want prices to go up 25% BY 2012.

To the poster who said why not just move atlas as if only life was that simple. What about people on low paid jobs in central london where in the centre will they find a house. It's like that in many other places as well. While many choose to live a distance from work, many also don't and HAVE to travel to get to work.

This current government goes on about how it wants to see people travel further to get jobs so less people on the JSA. Most people on JSA will be low paid jobs so an increase of 2.5% is a significant extra cost to them and more likely for then to stay in JSA.

Most of the rail system in Europe is private owned and yet fares are cheaper. Just because this conservative government don't have the balls to admit they made a mess of privatisation. I'm not necessary anti Privatisation its just typical British mismanagement.

I can remember when we were told to 'get on our bikes' by a certain government - ie move house/commute/anything as long as you are employed. Whilst I don't disagree with that, it was said around the time the rail was carved up and privatised and stamp duty shot up by an unprecedented amount. Back in the day, stamp duty hit the wealthy, now it hits almost every home owner, struggling or otherwise.

Maybe one day a brave government will bite the bullet and re-nationalise - BR wasn't fantastic but at least fares were affordable and there were no shareholders to appease.

People will never leave their cars until there is a real incentive.

GillsMan7

My monthly season ticket has risen by 11% and is now £500 pcm (admitedly that's for a first class ticket). So if I work in London for the full year (not guaranteed as I'm a contractor) I'm comfortably over £5K per year for travel. But my salary is good enough that I don't mind. My trains (Southern) are generally reliable and, aside from a few gripes (tickets are rarely checked, so standard class passengers get away with sitting in first class, sort of defeating the point of paying for first class), the service is not bad so I don't mind the increase so much.

I do love the utterly simplistic view that we just move closer to the job. That's not always possible is it? You have roots, ties to an area (family, schools, etc), that make it not very convenient to move, yet your job might be somewhere else. Particularly in the South East, London has far more jobs than the rest of the reason and obviously we couldn't all move to London to be within walking distance of the job. I certainly wouldn't be able to find much work at all where I live, hence I tend to commute. It's the same for many in the South East.