Ken Livingstone has warned that single bus fares would need to increase from 90p to £1.50 if a new open platform bus was introduced to the capital.
The Mayor’s comments come after Conservative Mayoral Candidate Boris Johnson endorsed a new design of Routemaster buses which was commissioned by Autocar magazine.
Mr Johnson called the design the “shape of the future”.
According to the Livingstone camp open platform buses cost £600m per year taking into account the reintroduction of conductorsand the cost of the new buses.
A spokesman for Mayor Livingstone said: “This is typical Boris Johnson incompetence. Now he has unveiled his bus scheme it would mean single bus fares going up from 90p to £1.50 and a weekly bus pass from £13 to £22.”
Meanwhile Johnson has condemned LibDem rival Brian Paddick for reportedly telling LBC radio that controversial bendy bus could be adopted in outer London.
Mr Johnson said: “It is naive of Brian Paddick to suggest that those in outer London do not also suffer from congestion. The idea that the roads are all wider and straighter is ludicrous and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of life outside zones 1 and 2. Greater London does not need or can accommodate the bendy bus any more than Central London.”
“I believe in recycling too – the best place for these frankfurters is ferrying people between terminals in Scandinavian airports.”
Liam says
Boris is at it again!
The whole POINT of the bendy bus is it can hold more people than a double decker, therefore relieving congestion for commuters, because anyone that actually takes a bus to work knows that people have a habit of packing out the bottom deck leaving the top one empty.
All Boris is concerned about is the opinions of his 4×4-driving public school mates ferrying little Tarquin and Jocasta to St Barnaby’s school for the over privileged, and not one jot for the millions of Londoners that use public transport.
What an utter disaster this man would be for London, a man so vastly uninformed about London that he couldn’t even name one thing that he liked about it in a recent Q&A – and why not? Because unlike Ken he hates the place, and that’s why he wants to stay as an MP in Oxfordshire.