If you want a weekly summary of rail-related transport news, Ian Visits and London Reconnections have you covered every Friday. I'm here with a much less interesting round-up of London's less newsworthy dregs, most of them not even about trains.
💷 The Mayor announced his 2026 fare rises in December but didn't publish the usual detailed fare tables alongside. His Mayoral Decision documentation was finally (and silently) published last week. We now know TfL fares will rise on average by 3.2% on 1st March 2026. (but on the tube, DLR and Overground it's 6%). Also the freeze on bus and tram fares lasts only until 04:30 on 5 July 2026, by which time "the Mayor must decide whether to extend the current bus and tram fares freeze or introduce changes to the fares".
🚡 In further fare rise clarification, the single fare for a one-way dangle on the cablecar will remain at £7. However the round-trip fare will increase by 50p to £13.50 (i.e, you'll only be saving 50p for a double crossing). Also the price of a 10-ticket carnet will increase from £19 to £20, i.e. it'll now be £2 per journey, so buy now to beat the March fare rise.
🌺 If you fancy seeing the Hawaiʻi exhibition at the British Museum, you can get two tickets for the price of one if you show proof of travel via the TfL Go app at the ticket desk. For those of us who don't pay as we go, a TfL Oyster photo card or a TfL Staff photo card are also acceptable, which is a nice improvement on previous offers. Alas the 30% off entry to Kew Gardens offer expired at the weekend, having run since 2024.
🚽 The toilets at Wimbledon station are closed from 28th January until "early spring", whenever that is.
💳 I mentioned previously that Chase have agreed to sponsor all TfL's Oyster pads for the next five years, replacing Google Pay as ‘Official Payment Partner’. The first stickers appeared in December but over the last week they've started spreading all over the network so you'll be seeing them everywhere imminently. According to the contract TfL have to have every pad stickered by 2nd March, after which they rake in £2½m a year until 2030. The sponsor is entitled to suspend payment if "the Government of the United Kingdom dissuades members of the public from using public transport for any reason" for a period of at least 30 days.
🚌 A recent consultation proposes diverting route 310 between Archway and Finsbury Park to travel via Holloway Road rather than Crouch Hill. We know there's no business case for route 310, it exists solely to ease travel between Golders Green and Stamford Hill, but hopefully following a different route to the 210 will boost wider ridership.
🚆 There are no trains through Dartford this weekend, or next weekend, or for the entire week after that. It's for engineering works replacing rails and for narrowing the gaps at Dartford station. Replacement buses will operate between Slade Green and Gravesend and between Barnehurst/Crayford and Dartford.
🚌 Bus stop U in Aldersbrook still has a yellow poster advising passengers that route 308 will be diverted over nine future weekends due to Crossrail construction work. The poster is nine years old, its contents having expired in September 2017, and I'm not saying it's London's most out-of-date bus changes poster but it must be right up there.
🚡 Have you ever wanted to use the cablecar but been held back by an access need? Well now you can apply for an IFS Cloud Cable Car Digital Access Pass and staff will know how to assist. Relevant needs include visual assistance, level access, distance limitations, audible information, urgent toilet access, priority boarding and help from staff while queuing. An IFSCCCDAP also permits an essential companion/carer to travel free of charge, although you still have to pay because the card's not a freebie. If you already have an Access Card you don't need to apply again. Also you don't have to have a special card to ride the cablecar, you can just turn up, but it might just smooth your journey.
🚌 Starting tomorrow the frequency of buses on route 3 is decreasing to every 12 minutes rather than every 10 minutes.
🎨 Art on the Underground are launching an "Art Map" in March 2026 which'll be available to pick up from zone 1 stations. I don't know any other information, having merely seen a poster, but it may well be an update of a previous Art Map launched in 2016 (which was very good, is still relevant and which you can download here).
🚌 Bus route 724 will be stopping at the bottom of Scots Hill, Croxley Green, from 22nd February. Ditto the 725 which is like the 724 but goes to Stevenage not Harlow.
🚲 The cycle hire docking station at Manbre Road in Hammersmith is closed until Tuesday 3 March. I did say this was dull transport news.
