HOW much for the Olympics?!?!

I travel 26 (13 one way) miles every day to work, and pay £105 a month for my oyster card zones 1-3… this means that if I don’t catch a single bus / tram / tube/ train to anywhere else in this 31 days other than work, that I pay £4.60 per day… or 17p per mile..

This is the equivelant of a train / car to Durham (13 miles) how much would you expect to pay for that? A lot more than £4.60 a day!

Then factor in all the times I go to Leytonstone, Shoreditch, Stokey, Tottenham Hale, Putney, Kilburn, Balham etc. to see my mates after work or trips out a weekend… further to this, add in the minimum £10er you pay in any UK city for a taxi home after a night out compared with the night bus - and its quite clear that the amount that London travel costs is paltry for what you get…

Brid – I’m on the road a lot with my job, similar to Vinny, I’ve not seen a crumbling road since the last time I was in Europe

I think the oyster cards represent excellent value- with my weeks travel card on it I can make unlimited tube/bus/train/DLR journeys as many times a day.

It's just using cash to pay for the tube that is the issue.

Why would anyone use cash to pay for the tube? You just buy an Oyster Card on deposit and return it later?

Well, I don't do it.

I didn't know you could do that.

I think it's comical how the government have told the building contractors that they have this extra £22 billion set to one side just incase they run into budgetory problems!!

The builders must be rubbing their hands together right about now!

It would be like turning up to buy a used car, telling Arfa Dailey that you've got 10 large to spend THEN asking how much it's gonna cost you.

from what I can gather from the ES last night, most of this 'extra' money is for contingency.. in fact the vast majority is for contingency?

The car simply should not be a comparable proposition to public transport in cost terms.

A saver single from Newcastle to Wakefield is about £20 which puts it on a par with the petrol + wear and tear.

When you start putting more people in the car, it becomes so much cheaper than the train that it is laughable.

It simply shouldn't be like that - I'm not saying jack petrol tax up even further - the train should be about a fiver for that kind of trip.

You misunderstand, I asked you what your solution was, not what you want.

What's your masterstroke for delivering this?

Yes they could, but we have no way of measuring satisfactorily the economic benefits that come from increased tourism and investment in the country and that part of London as a result. I simply don't think this is 'dead money' in the way that the Iraq war money is - I have no idea if finanacial gain from the olympics will outweigh this initial expenditure but it is pretty certain that it will offset a sizeable chunk of it in the short term.

more businesses = more sales of products/more employees = more vat/income tax = more money in the treasury



Brid you are letting yourself down in this thread mate

Plus you could ask the question, how does a drop in centre in scotland help 8million in London?

Why? What difference would it make it to the 'rest of the country' if it were in Birmingham?

Birmingham isnt in the north

Manchester has had shit loads of redevelopment and had the commonwealth games. Leeds is now the 'financial capital of the north'. Newcastle is radically different to what it was 10 years ago. Birmingham has had a ridiculous amount of development in the city centre. Isnt it Londons turn (especially considering 8 million people live here)?

Brid - you need to chill out fella, I strongly recomend a five hour session of listening to Radiohead non-stop without a toilet break.