Boris Johnson is facing calls from City Hall’s Labour group to limit next year’s expected fares increase.
Transport for London’s business plan anticipates an annual fares increase based on July’s RPI inflation rate + 1%.
With RPI confirmed at 2.5%, fares on London’s bus, Tube, London Overground and DLR services could rise by 3.5% next January.
Labour clams this would see the cost of a single bus and tram journey increase from £1.45 to £1.50 and a single Tube or TfL rail fare, currently 2.20, rise to £2.28.
Transport Spokesperson, Val Shawcross AM, said: “It will feel like groundhog day for commuters who, for the sixth time since Boris Johnson became Mayor, will face another round of above-inflation fare rises next January.”
While TfL draws up proposals for fares changes, Mr Johnson must personally review and approve them before they can be implemented.
The Mayor’s office say that process isn’t due to take place until later this year and that he remains committed to “bearing down on fares” while maintaining an “unprecedented” level of investment in the network.
While the new fares package has yet to finalised, City Hall has previously confirmed that TfL are working on plans for a part-time travelcard aimed at reducing fares for part-time workers and those who work from home for some of the week.
Mrs Shawcross claimed the Mayor, who recently confirmed he intends to become an MP in 2015, “is set to leave behind a rotten legacy of above inflation fare rises throughout his Mayoralty.”
Liberal Democrat AM Caroline Pidgeon said an above inflation increase “cannot be justified next year.”
She said while it was important that “high levels of capital investment” be sustained, the expected fares hikes “far exceed the very small increases in pay being received by most Londoners.”
Ms Pidgeon said the Mayor should do more to tackle the use of taxi, air travel and hospitality expenses by TfL and Crossrail bosses, and curb TfL executives’ use of mobile phones, to avoid “an inflation busting fare rise in 2015.”
