Thousands of unemployed Londoners will be entitled to half-price bus and tram travel in a scheme designed to make it easier for them to find jobs during the recession.
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Now, that’s something practical
Freaking fantastic idea.
What nonsense. London should follow our highly-esteemed and perfect statesmen LKY who “is not in favour of subsidising transport “because then you will have unnecessary travel””.http://theonlinecitizen.com/2008/02/uniquely-singapore-–-f1-or-f9-income-statistics/
Judging by LKY says, what London does is only promoting Unnecessary travel.
Instead London should follow proven Singapore government ‘s footstep in increasing the transport hike in both and bad times so to prevent unnecessary travel. Nevermind if their citizen protest, London can send those complainers to jail. Money more important !
I thought the ending to the Guardian report was quite ironic:
“As Johnson answered questions, four students were thrown out of the public gallery for staging a silent fares protest in which they held up posters asking for lower fares for students.”
Can our poly students who are asking for fairer fares go to Parliament?
While in S’pore prices go up in recession, obviously to help us. Yap, I pay more to help myself. Might as well dun spent.
hehe, nice.
theonlinecitizen (#4),
Student protests over transport fares is an ongoing phenomenon of many years already. While students enjoy 30% discount on annual, monthly and weekly travel passes in London, the public transport operator TfL refused to extend the discount to single journey tickets and daily travel passes.
The annual travel pass sounds great on paper but students are unable to obtain their student travel pass at the start of the academic year due to administrative delay. This delay is usually up to one month, which means students would miss out the first month of discounted travel on the annual travel pass.
However, after many years of student protest, TfL has given in and has agreed to allow the annual travel pass to be backdated to the start date of the academic year and students with the annual travel pass can claim back the discount for their London transport fares during the period between the start of the academic year and the actual issuance date of the annual travel pass.
While protests is usually tolerated, it does not mean the protesters do not get arrested. It is not uncommon in London that protesters are arrested and then released without any charge later. It is actually the police exercising their right to detain people and they are using it to disperse a protest.
it will never happen in never-never land here. oh- why so? market forces so they say. oh we can’t cross-subsidise from other fare-paying commuters. somewhere they have lost a screw – why can others who have a heart to do so as in London?
here we get lip service – how many millions set aside to help this, help that – but actual amount disbursed do we know?
oh we go for targetted assistance for those who really need them? then many would have fallen through your criteria and died long ago.
Some say Clutch Mentality….well in troubled times, we all need a helping hand.
I read in Newsweek that Johnson’s vision for London is to make it a pleasant place to live and work in….nice.
It is a great idea. But it would never happen in S’pore.
The way the London public transport is set up very differently to S’pore. The London city govt has control over the routes planning, fare structure and monitoring service standards while and actual bus operation is performed by private operators. The city govt can implement discount when necessary without any losses to the private operators. In difficult times like these, they have a very flexible system in place to help its citizens.
See link for more info.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/londonbuses/1554.aspx
Here, the “so called public transport operators” have to answer to their shareholders first.
How do you differentiate between those who are unemployed and employed? This policy if very difficult to implement in Singapore unless our government is able to issue unemployment pass to Singaporeans.
In Spore you wait long long, half price, impossible, increase in price yes !!! Blood sucker govt.
everything they say is lock not key
when pm lee ELDEST son
married zhangzhiyi
only then will he reduced the transport fee on a 1-2-1 basis
meanin?
go pay
returned trip FREE of CHARGE
perth public buses has been doing it
for donkey of years
whether recession of boom town charlie
12) Muhamad Nur
When there is a will, there is a way. Putting up huge signboards all over the place showing the MPs’ smiling faces is also difficult and expensive, but they still managed to do it.
why must one split hairs Muhamad Nur? why can’t all citizens enjoy some relief from the cost pressures? must one always be so calculative to the extent that one must divide the population into two groups? employed – pay full fare. unemployed – half price. But that’s how this country is being run. means testing, HDB market pricing, etc
It won’t happen. In Singapore, the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer.
While other countries, less developed and less rich than Singapore, are doing their very best to help their people by lowering prices, subsidising funds and cutting taxes to alleviate citizens sufferings, what are our esteemed elitist leaders, Mini$ter$ and MPs doing? No wonder someone got burnt badly!
Talk and talk, paying lip services and take the easiest way out by keeping to their stand of “Not to depend on the govt too much”, “Must not become a welfare state” and “Welfare is a Dirty Word”. And on the other hand, keep increasing costs and prices such as ERP charges, GST, shop and office rents, HDB flat prices, public transport charges and Ministers’ Salarie$, bonuse$ and perk$!
What kind of feelings are we supposed to have towards their kind of leadership? Be happy and shut up? Don’t protest? Simply keep suffering in silence?
For how long can we keep suffering in silence? One day it will surely explode!
From: One Suffering-in-Silence Citizen.