There are over 5000 Oyster Card validators across the TfL network.
How much do you think it would cost to sponsor them all?
If you said £1,647,437 you're wrong.
That's how much it cost Google to sponsor them in 2020.
They've been paying a similar amount annually since.
But now it's time for a new sponsor to wade in.
And they've agreed to pay £2,500,000 a year.
For five years.
Starting 1st January 2026.
Contract here.
The new sponsor is American bank Chase, a subsidiary of JP Morgan.
If you've never heard of them that's the point.
What they want you to know is a) they exist b) they have a debit card c) if you use it you get 1% cashback.
And they'll let you know by screaming at you from every contactless pad for the next five years.
Here's one already in situ on the Waterloo & City line.
As you can see, the advert takes up over half of the pad.
Who needs passenger clarity when you can have £12½m?
The contactless symbol and the word 'Oyster' are much less prominent.
Three alternative payment methods (Amex, Mastercard, Visa) are even smaller.
As for previous sponsor Google Pay, it's suddenly nowhere to be seen.
The important bit is the smallprint which says See chase.co.uk/TfL for eligibility, limits, exceptions and T&Cs.
It's 1% cashback, which isn't much.
Make a £3 tube journey and it's 3p.
You're going to need to make 100 tube journeys to buy a coffee.
But it's better than getting no cashback at all.
Also it's a maximum of £15 cashback a month.
Only 'everyday travel', groceries and fuel purchases apply.
Also it's new customers only, and only for a year.
After a year you only get 1% cashback if you pay at least £1500 a month into your Chase account.
It's all got a bit sickening on TfL's LinkedIn account. We’re proud to have partnered with Chase as our ‘Official Payment Partner’. 🤝
You’ll start to see the Chase brand take pride of place on over 5000 contactless Oyster readers across London very soon.
Keep your eyes peeled!
'Official Payment Partner' is just weaselspeak for sole advertiser.
TfL's head of Commercial Froth is also very excited.
"This commercial partnership with Chase is a great example of how TfL can work with brands," she said.
The arse-licking of brands is very much a TfL speciality.
Get used to tapping your card or contactless device on the Chase pad.
For the next five years.
The road bridge at Clapham Junction station has always been a fairly horrible place to walk through, not quite of Finsbury Park proportions but grim nonetheless. Now that's all changed thanks to an art project in conjunction with the London Festival of Architecture and a winning design submitted by a community group. Over the last few months the 100m tunnel has been transformed into a brightly-lit panelled passage, supposedly pigeon proof, and my goodness it looks a lot better.
The design comprises six repeating panels depicting local icons including Battersea Park's Peace Pavilion, the cupola at Arding & Hobbs and the chimney at Battersea Power Station. Lavender, daffodils and bumble bees represent nature and the buried river the Falcon Brook is in there too. As for the lighting it's blue at present but can be changed if anything colour-specific needs commemorating. It's a fine nod to the end of Wandsworth's year as London Borough of Culture (should anyone outside the borough have noticed).
2) See in 2026 from a unique vantage point
I am contractually obliged to mention every time the Dangleway promotes anything ridiculous, so here we go again. New Year's Eve anyone?
Book now and you can enjoy a view of the fireworks at midnight from a cabin above the Thames. What's more more your evening begins with a three course meal accompanied by live music, followed by dancing before boarding your flight. Alcohol provision includes a glass of prosecco on arrival, half a bottle of wine with your meal and a flute of champagne to toast the New Year in the sky.
The downsides are that the meal takes place in the room that houses the Cable Car Experience, a truly soulless shed, also you might spend the entire evening in there if bad weather makes your midnight flight impossible, also "fireworks viewing is subject to weather conditions" so you might see nothing of note, also you may be crammed into a cabin with up to 9 other people, also the Dangleway is five miles from the proper fireworks at the London Eye so what you'll mainly see is East Londoners firing random rockets. And all for £299 a head, so I don't think I'll be the only one giving the New Year's Eve Fireworks, Dinner and Cable Car Experience a miss.
3) Discover connectivity in your local area
Connectivity Tool is an online map (provided by the DfT) which displays how well connected any location in England and Wales is to everyday services by walking, driving, cycling and public transport. Originally it was a professional service requiring registration but now there's Connectivity Tool Lite for anyone, just launched, and it's a lot of fun to investigate. The country's been divided into 100m squares and each assigned a connectivity score out of 100, then the entire grid coloured in. Trafalgar Square scores 96, Inner London is almost all over 80 and even the middle of Richmond Park scores 41. The highest score I can find is 100 around Aldgate East station. Meanwhile Birmingham peaks at 90, Stonehenge and Lands End are both 15s and the middle of Dartmoor is a big fat zero.
You can also 'Explore the score' to discover how the overall score was calculated, the weighting being public transport 52%, walking 40% and cycling 8%. At Bus Stop M, for example, the overall score of 93 comes from 'Public transport 95', 'Walking 89' and 'Cycling 93'. My Dad may be surprised he scores 30, despite his Norfolk village seeing less than ten buses a day, but a high cycling score has provided a boost. For further interrogative fun you can ask the map to show scores for just one form of transport, and for a fascinating flourish you can turn on the location of every station, tram stop, ferry terminal and bus stop in the country. Full documentation is provided. Happy playing (and hello to fellow smug members of the 90+ club).
1) Two Piccadilly line stations are partially closing next year
Barons Court: Monday 19 January until mid-June 2026
Eastbound trains will not stop. Mitigation 1: Walk to West Kensington instead (only 500m, so not terrible). Mitigation 2: Catch a westbound train to Hammersmith and change back there.
(and after that, about five months when westbound trains won't stop)
Southgate: Monday 5 January until mid-March 2026
No entry to the station (exit only). Mitigation 1: For Cockfosters, take bus 298 or 299 (only seven buses an hour, could a be a wait) Mitigation 2: For Oakwood, take bus 121 (only six buses an hour, could be a wait) Mitigation 3: For Arnos Grove, take bus 298 or 382 (the more frequent 382 takes twice as long)
(basically three grim months in N14)
Also:
• Cutty Sark station is closed until spring 2026.
• No down escalator at Maida Vale from 7 January until mid-March 2026.
• No Piccadilly line trains beyond Rayners Lane fron 24 December to 4 January.
• No service on the Bank branch of the Northern line after 10pm from 12 January until late May (Mon-Thu only).
2) DLR extention to Thamesmead gets public thumbs up
The results of the DLR Thamesmead extension consultation have been published.
» 76% said they thought the route via Beckton to Thamesmead was the right route (I'm amazed it's that many).
» Less than 15% of respondents had issues with the either of the proposed station locations.
» 30% of respondents wanted to extend the DLR further (there's no funding, said TfL).
» 53 respondents wanted more New Routemasters on London bus routes (because they are sad obsessed weirdos).
» Only 4 respondents expressed concern about the removal of safeguarding for the Thames Gateway Bridge (so that's dead then).
3) Rare Overground hybrid in new rail timetable
A unique Suffragette/Mildmay hybrid service now operates late on Sunday evenings.
The 2324 from Barking Riverside runs to Upper Holloway, then skips Gospel Oak, then serves all stations from Hampstead Heath to Willesden Junction.
The last westbound Suffragette line train thus morphs into the last westbound Mildmay line train.
If you have a rail-related YouTube channel and are running out of ideas, there's one for you.
45 Squared 44) ALBION SQUARE, E8
Borough of Hackney, 100m×40m
This is one of my favourite squares. It's tucked away in a dense grid of streets just east of Haggerston station, and I only stumbled upon it during lockdown because I eventually walked down the right road. It's also incredibly well documented so I could drone on about its history for ages, but let's just get all that out of the way in one quick sentence.
Albion Square was developed by the Middleton family in the 1840s on land alongside Stonebridge Common, a fragment of which survives close by, and mainly comprised on-trend Italianate paired villas sold for about £400, each lit by gas from the get-go, initially marketed as a middle class haven with a locked central garden but by the 1890s it had fallen out of favour and the square had become an eyesore, so well done to the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association for hiring Fanny Wilkinson to restore the central space and opening it up to the public, although by the 1930s things were pretty shabby again with many properties subdivided into rented flats, so much so that Hackney council proposed redeveloping everything in 1966 but the middle classes successfully fought against demolition having realised there were classy bargains to be had, successfully getting many of the properties listed, though it wasn't until 1977 that the iron railings were reinstated, and in its centenary year Albion Square Garden won first prize in the Small Publicly Maintained Garden section of the London Garden Squares Competition, and now won't you look at the place with its multi-million pound homes and prime herbaceous borders. Sorry if that was a bit brief.
The best part is the inner oasis, long and thin with gates on each side and overshadowed by four mature plane trees. There are also eight sturdy cabbage-palms adding an exotic touch along the central walkway, which loops like dumbbells at each end. December is not the best time to admire the planting and the grass does look somewhat shabby at present, but shoots that looks like crocuses are bursting up in one bed so a burst of colour can't be too far away. You can tell the horticulture's a cut above thanks to the cutesy gardener's hut by the western entrance, inside which a wicker chair, straw hat and wooden stepladder await better weather. Everyone else has to make do with a dozen public benches, four of which are hexagonal and encircle the aforementioned plane trees. The local parking enforcement officer prefers to skulk at the far end.
In the very centre is a rare Passmore Edwards drinking fountain, one of just three of his philanthropic gifts that survive in the capital (thus outnumbered by his libraries). It was installed in 1910 with twin marble bowls, and if its gold text and taps look sparkling that's because it was restored by the Heritage of London Trust a couple of years ago. The gardens' noticeboard looks at least 60 years old and has some pleasingly retro posters pointing out that dogs must be kept on leads, also a more recent screed warning visitors to keep a safe distance from 'large tractors, ride-on mowers, pedestrian mowers and strimmers'. As for wildlife the trees are not immune to the curse of the parakeet, but all I saw down below was a tentative pigeon.
If instead you walk the square outside you get to admire some mighty fine villas that an estate agent could, but never would, describe as semi-detached. They have yellowbrick walls with superfluous stucco, also basements where scullery staff would have been hidden away, also an excessive number of chimneypots. In some cases it's just a facade, everything behind having been knocked through to create an architect's wet dream, a transformation number 6 is going through at present. Ignore the slightly less authentic quartet on the western side because they're part of Albion Terrace, not Albion Square, built on the site of a piano showroom, formerly gymnasium, formerly ballroom and concert hall, formerly school, formerly literary and scientific institute. Perhaps the quirkiest feature is that Albion Square has four different styles of streetsign, none the most recent design, one of which is an iconic rarity depicting the now extinct NE postcode.
And by visiting a square in Hackney I've now achieved my intended aim of blogging about a square in every London borough as part of my 45 Squared project. Best of all I've achieved that with square number 44 so there's one more to go and all I have to do is decide how best to finish. I started with the largest London square and last week I did the oldest, so something appropriately superlative would be ideal. It has to be in the National Street Gazetteer and it has to be one I haven't blogged before otherwise Noel Square would be a shoo-in. I've got a week to mull it over.
This is the entrance to the lift between Liverpool Street mainline station and Liverpool Street tube station. It's a rubbish lift, being unreliable, slow and much too small for its key location at Britain's busiest railway station.
Someone's now tried to exemplify how rubbish the lift is by displaying these pictograms. Which are also rubbish.
Where to start?
The top row of pictograms shows that 4 people is OK but 6 is too many. Fair enough, but what about 5? Is it an edge case that tips the balance or is it safe enough if the fifth person isn't too fat?
(to be fair the answer is on the floor at the entrance to the lift where it says, in words, 'Maximum of 4 people at one time'. Admittedly that's not helpful to anyone who can't read English, but a pair of pictograms showing 4 Yes 6 No totally fails to define the borderline)
The second red pictogram does show 5 people but one of them has a suitcase, thus suggsting it's the heavy bag which tips things over the limit. Again it's impossible to deduce whether '5 people' or '4 people and a suitcase' falls under green or under red.
The second green pictogram is the only one to depict a bicycle, presumably with its rider standing alongside. It suggests there's room for just one other person and a suitcase, but it's not clear wheether a third person could fit in if they were luggageless.
The third row is the first to clearly define a limit - two heavy people and a wheelchair yes, three heavy people and a wheelchair no. It's not clear whether three people without luggage can accompany a wheelchair.
The last green pictogram shows 4 people, one of whom just happens to be very small and in a pushchair. The last red pictogram adds an extra person and a suitcase to this scenario, but we can't tell if just one of these extras would be OK.
It is a very small lift so maybe some of the red pictograms are showing groups that can't cram into the limited space, but that would be about practicalities rather than 'safe lift loading', meaning the title was inaccurate.
I don't doubt that someone's checked various weight combinations before presenting us with these four green and four red combinations, but they remain insufficient to accurately define what can and what shouldn't fit in the lift. I can imagine baffled passengers standing in front of the lift entirely unable to deduce whether their group is green or red ("there are four of us but we have two suitcases, help!").
The clearest instruction remains 'Maximum of 4 people at one time', as written on the floor, although one of the pictograms (three people with luggage and a wheelchair user) is actually red not green.
Oh and if you enter the lift at the other end there are no warning messages or pictograms whatsoever. I have rarely seen ridiculouser.
Update: I've managed to find the previous sign by wandering round a VR representation of Liverpool Street station.
It used to be a laminated sheet of A4 paper and it used to say
MAXIMUM LIMIT
4 PERSONS
OR
2 PERSONS & PUSHCHAIR OR WHEELCHAIR
That's clearer, if rather too simple.
It's also what the four green pictograms appear to show, with the addition of 2 PERSONS & BICYCLE. However the pictograms have a lot of superfluous luggage which muddies the water somewhat. They also include more people than the poster suggests, for example 2 PERSONS & PUSHCHAIR CONTAINING CHILD & PERSON PUSHING PUSHCHAIR.
It's the red pictograms that don't help because they don't exemplify the minimum unacceptable load.
The scrappy poster isn't perfect but I'd argue it's easier to understand than the pictograms (assuming you can read it).
Also I note that the safety limit above the buttons says "MAXIMUM LOAD 18 PERSONS OR 1300Kg".
And now we're only allowed FOUR persons, that's how unreliably awful this lift is.
There are plans to replace it and add additional lifts as part of therevamp of the station, although they're controversial and rely on building a 'landmark' building above the concourse and are likely years away, if they happen at all.
In the meantime the awful juddery lift with the ridiculous pictograms continues to connect three levels of Liverpool Street station, and we should all be ashamed it exists.
Major-General James Wolfe died a national hero in Quebec in 1759, having led British forces to a key victory over the French. Canada wouldn't be the country it is today without his posthumous victory. James had been born just 32 years earlier in Westerham, a town at the foot of the North Downs in the westernmost part of Kent, where his brief but illustrious story began. The house he grew up in was originally called Spiers but was later renamed Quebec House in honour of his triumph, then gifted to the National Trust by a Canadian philanthropist. And boy do they do Christmas.
NATIONAL TRUST:Quebec House Location: Westerham, Kent, TN16 1TD [map] Open normally: April to October Open for Christmas: 11am-3pm, Saturday & Sunday (until 21 Dec) Admission: £8.00
You can hear the carols from the street. They carry over the twiggy hedge and old brick wall, confirming to those approaching that they are indeed in the right place. Step into the timbered hall to see the first of the decorations and get your card scanned, if you have one, then set off round young James's old stomping ground where the great soldier once played soldiers.
Some rooms are fairly unadulterated. The drawing room on the first floor still has a fireplace, oak furniture and a basket of logs, although the fire extinguisher in the corner is plainly not original. The upstairs bedroom has a four-poster with authentic triple mattress, and a paint scheme retrospectively deduced by investigating wall samples down a microscope. Objects aren't labelled so you have to ask a volunteer what they are ("ah yes, that's James's Flemish lace shawl used to protect his clothes while powdering his wig"). But you really can't miss the Christmas intrusions because they're all over the house, even on the landings and up the banisters, and all on a particular theme.
This year it's 'A Georgian Operatic Christmas at Quebec House', so think scrolls of manuscript paper and soaring choral soundscapes. The drawing room contains an amazing stage with naval galleon adrift in a turbulent cotton wool sea. The bedroom has two bewigged ladies with shell bodices holding performing marionettes, and the Bicentenary Room contains a splendid puppet theatre. Perhaps most delightful are the crocheted eclairs (yes you read that right) scattered everywhere alongside other creamy pastries and woolly macarons. They took four months to make and I'm not quite sure what they have to do with opera, but what an original addition to Quebec House's festive dressing.
The smell emanating from the kitchen was divine, which turned out to be fresh-baked shortbread, with the finished biscuits on offer to visitors in the coach house along with a glug of sweet or spicy hot chocolate. I partook willingly. I'm told one particular volunteer takes control of the seasonal makeover each year and hasn't yet revealed to the others what next Christmas's theme is going to be. It's a lovely way of attracting visitors at the end of the year, a chance to enjoy all the usual Wolfe history at Quebec House with an intrinsic festive flourish... until next Sunday afternoon, then closed until Easter.
Westerham is miles from any station so the easiest way there by public transport is via the 246 bus.
246 - Westerham
It terminates here on Westerham Green beneath a sloping triangle of grass surrounded by teashops and cafes, also a statue of General Wolfe and another of Winston Churchill sat in a comfy chair. Just up the high street are a traditional butchers and a former coaching inn, and across the way is a characterful churchyard perched above the fledgling river Darent. This is lovely, I thought as I waited for my bus home, indeed Westerham Green might be TfL's most agreeable bus terminus.
Unless it's here.
464 - Tatsfield
This is The Old Ship in Tatsfield, terminus of the brief and quirky 464. The bus pulls up beside a village green complete with duckpond, old wooden fingerpost and flinty cottages, also a proper wooden bus shelter with a bookshelf in it and a small post office with hanging baskets out front. The bus driver even gets to nip into the pub to use the toilets, which is better than pissing in a metal shed at the arse end of Biggin Hill, and nothing's stopping passengers dropping in for a pint during the hour between buses. Maybe Tatsfield really does beat Westerham.
Or perhaps it's here.
146 - Downe
This is the village of Downe where the hourly 146 pulls up beside a medieval church amid a curl of cottages. It has a proper rustic feel, less a bus stop than a quaint turning circle around a tree with a memorial bench, like rural services used to be in the old days. The two adjacent pubs both have Tudor roots and boast Charles Darwin and Nigel Farage as former regulars, and all that's really stopping Downe from winning outright is the surfeit of parked vehicles and lack of rural view.
Or maybe there's somewhere nicer, more charming, more impressively throwbackly heritagely rurally peripheral. I'm thinking places that make you go "ooh this is surprisingly nice" as you get off at the last stop and survey your surroundings. I'm assuming they'll be somewhere in outer London or beyond rather than alongside a tourist trap in the centre. I've scoured the suburbs and come up with what I think are the next seven and wonder if you agree. Suggest a terminus and if it's in my list I'll reveal it, and if not I might add it. Can we come up with TfL's ten most appealing termination points?
• 464: Tatsfield - Duckpond, village green and Surrey pub is possibly unbeatable.
• 246: Westerham - A sward of green under Churchill's gaze, plus ubiquitous refreshments.
• 146: Downe - Historic village centre with unmodernised turnaround loop.
• R7: Chelsfield - I'm pretty sure this is fourth, outside The Five Bells in the old village.
• 404/466: Caterham on the Hill - Beside Westway Common, not amazing but all rather nice.
•
• 353: Forestdale - The top of an unusual estate alongside a gate into Selsdon Woods.
• 235: Sunbury Village - By The Three Fishes and Orchard Meadow, almost Thamesside.
• H13: Ruislip Lido - Gateway to waterside recreational nirvana.
• 375: Passingford Bridge - No terminus is more rurally middle-of-nowhere.
Honourable mentions: 150 Chigwell Row, 161 Chislehurst War Memorial, 215 Lee Valley Campsite, 404 Cane Hill, 434 Ridgemount Avenue, K3 Esher
Sometimes you just want to go for a nice walk, nothing too taxing, a bit of a stroll, heritage underfoot, downhill all the way, quirky timbering, Roman echoes, fully leafleted, continuous retail opportunities, a bit niche, won't take long. So here's a brief high street trawl in Kent, nowhere near enough to make a day of it but a nice walk all the same.
Edenbridge is the westernmost town in Kent, i.e. very nearly in Surrey, located eight miles south of Biggin Hill. It's been a market town since 1279 and has a population of about ten thousand. It's named after a bridge across the river Eden, a major tributary of the Medway, which'll be the climax of our walk down the high street. And it's only 40 minutes by train from London Bridge should you want to head down, the more convenient of the two stations being Edenbridge Town.
The key thing about Edenbridge's high street is that it's perfectly straight because it overlays the London - Lewes Roman road. A bypass was finally built 20 years ago, chopping off the segment we're about to walk down, although it remains open to traffic throughout so best stick to the pavement. Station Approach delivers you to the top end where the key landmark is the Women's Institute Hall, because that's very much the sort of town Edenbridge is. It's already clear that the high street's going to be lined by some properly interesting buildings, but the Georgian presbytery and stained glass lantern are but a taster for what's coming later.
Things pick up properly below Boots where the first information board is, also Boyce's Bakery which is the epitome of proper family-run iced bun nirvana. Chain coffee gets a look-in at Costa opposite, the long white building formerly a coaching stop called the White Horse Inn with upper beams dated 1574. As for Magic Wok this started out as Mrs Tickle's teashop in 1860, then became a drapery, then the Co-op, now fried noodles. Follow the alley beside the stationery shop to find the former cattle market, now a car park, one end of which is reserved for town's weekly market every Thursday. I was expecting better, enticed by the website's offer to "soak up the season’s atmosphere", but in reality all I found was a very long fruit & veg stall, a table of artisan bread, some doggy treats and a glum man failing to sell any decorated reindeer.
My main reason for visiting on Thursday was that Eden Valley Museum was open (also Saturday, also Wednesday and Friday afternoons). It's based in Church House which is a 14th century, indeed upstairs you get to walk on original floorboards circa 1378. They describe themselves as a social museum and every room is packed with stuff, from hop-pickers' hoes to the old market bell, also cricket balls made locally for the 1999 World Cup and ten gold Iron Age coins unearthed nearby in Chiddingstone. I confess I never knew Winston Churchill won top prize for the best fat sow at the Edenbridge Fatstock Show in 1933 (one of his Blue and White crossbreeds, not the man himself). The place feels proper in a way that many glossier museums don't, also they retain an astonishing amount of local backstory in a full case of ring binders, also the volunteers are lovely, also it's all free.
The next building down is Ye Olde Crown Inn which is even older than Church House, still with a central gap where carriages would have been driven to the stables round the back. The pub juts out into the high street causing a long-term impediment to traffic, but on the positive side this means a narrower gap for its inn sign to span the street. The town square is similarly compact and perversely triangular, off which a short side street leads to the parish church of St Peter and St Paul. The font and Broach spire are 13th century, the door was locked and I'm afraid Edward Burne-Jones' stained glass window doesn't look so impressive from outside. Don't go hunting for the old tannery, once Edenbridge's largest employer, because that closed in 1974 and Waitrose has been built in its place.
You get quite blasé about shops in old buildings by the foot of the high street, even if they are just doling out tattoos or chips. Just past the final tandoori is the feature than gives the town its name, the Great Stone Bridge, although this is a Victorian replacement for the previous five-arch packhorse version. A trust set up in 1511 to maintain the bridge has since abdicated its responsibility to Kent council but still doles out its dosh to charitable causes. And at the subsequent mini-roundabout the bypass swings in from the right bringing this nice walk to a close. I hope you appreciate this photo because three black-clad teenagers on the riverbank took offence and started following me after I'd taken it, despite me having ensured they weren't in shot.
I had hoped to continue along the riverbank but that was an absolute mudbath so I thought better of it. It's a shame because the town council have published ten excellent walking routes in the locality, also multiple heritage trails around the town because where else do you think I got all the above information from? Leaflets are freely available at the museum and also at the station, indeed I've rarely been to a town as engaged with its heritage as is Edenbridge.
It's bad news for passengers on tubes and trains whose fares must increase by "inflation plus one per cent" (as agreed in the government Spending Review in July).
It's good news for passengers on buses and trams as fares are frozen (but only for four months after which presumably they'll increase).
What follows is my annual summary of TfL's fare rises, an analysis now in its 17thyear because having some historical perspective on this is important. I'll come back and update all this when the Mayor finally confesses all.
Sadiq would like to have frozen fares as he did in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2024, but the new government has forced his hand. We'll only help fund transport projects if you raise tube fares ahead of inflation, they said, so he has. Whitehall didn't specify anything about buses so he's left them unchanged, for now. tbc: The July inflation rate was 4.8% so inflation plus one is 5.8%, but we don't yet have the averaged-out fare rise for 2026.
Cost of a single central London tube journey
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Peak
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.50
£2.80
£2.80
£2.90
£3.10
Off peak
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.40
£2.50
£2.70
£2.70
£2.80
£3.00
2026 sees another 20p on tube journeys around central London, the second largest increase of the Mayor's decade in charge. He's keen to emphasise "no single pay as you go Tube fare will increase by more than 20p", whereas I'd call this out as an above-inflation 7% increase. It's also a massive 29% increase since 2021, although also only a 29% increase since 2016 if you prefer to take a long term view. n.b. These are PAYG fares for Oyster or contactless users. No news yet on the cash fare.
Cost of a tube journey from Green Park to Heathrow
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Peak
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.10
£5.30
£5.50
£5.60
£5.60
£5.80
£5.90
Off peak
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.10
£3.30
£3.50
£5.60
£5.60
£5.80
£5.90
This year's rise is only 1.8% but follows a deliberate hike in September 2022 when the Mayor announced that travel from Z1 to Heathrow would always be charged at peak rates. This raised fares on the Piccadilly line by £2 to keep central government happy, raising revenue while not overly impacting on the daily life of Londoners. The tube fare from central London to Heathrow remains massively cheaper than the obscene £15.50 you'll face if you choose the convenience of Crossrail.
For travel to other stations in zone 6, not cash cow airports, the off-peak fare from zone 1 rises 20p to £4.00.
Here's where the financial pain is.
Off-peak fares outside zone 1
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
1 zone
£1.50
£1.50
£1.60
£1.80
£1.80
£2.00
£2.20
2 zones
£1.50
£1.60
£1.70
£1.90
£1.90
£2.10
£2.30
3 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.80
£1.90
£1.90
£2.20
£2.40
4 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.90
£2.00
£2.00
£2.30
£2.50
5 zones
£1.50
£1.70
£1.90
£2.10
£2.10
£2.40
£2.60
As recently as 2020 all off-peak tube journeys in zones 2-6 cost just £1.50. Since then TfL's accountants have been sequentially distorting the fare scale to better reflect distance travelled, and last year finally stretched each of the five fares to a different price point. Now the Mayor's whacking another 20p on.
What's worse is that each of these five fares is rising by far more than the 5.8% baseline. An extra 20p for every journey across 1 or 2 zones equates to an 10% increase (for example Stratford to Canary Wharf or Wembley Park to Harrow), while off-peak journeys across 3, 4 or 5 zones rise by 8-9%. The shortest suburban journeys will now cost 47% more than they did six years ago and the longest 73% more, increases that are both extortionate and deliberate.
The Mayor's press team must be delighted that nobody's noticed quite how much they've screwed the suburbs.
Cost of a London bus journey
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.50
£1.55
£1.65
£1.75
£1.75
£1.75
£1.75
Bus fares, by contrast, see no increase at all.... for now. The Mayor is often kinder to bus passengers because they include the poorest amongst the electorate, so they'll continue to benefit from his prolonged fare freeze. The daily cap for bus journeys remains £5.25 (i.e. three single fares). We wait to see what'll happen in July when he either does or doesn't raise them properly.
National Rail fares aren't rising next year which means Travelcards will cost the same in 2026 as in 2025. That's excellent, but it's thanks to government intervention rather than Mayoral input.
Cost of an annual Z1-3 Travelcard
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
£1520
£1548
£1600
£1648
£1696
£1740
£1808
£1916
£2008
£2100
£2100
As a result all daily/weekly caps for tube and rail journeys will also be frozen. For example travelling within zones 1-3 all day will still cost no more than £10.50. This may also mean, if you swan around London enough, that any fare rises on your individual journeys will be absorbed within the static cap.
No news yet on the cablecar.
Cost of a single Dangle
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
£3.50
£3.50
£3.50
£3.50
£3.50
£4.00
£5.00
£6.00
£6.00
£7.00
tbc
It all starts in March with an increase in train fares, then a sneakier rise in bus fares in July which the Mayor can currently describe as a freeze. There's never been a year like it, and it isn't good but it could have been a lot worse.
It's time to kill off another London bus route, the fifth such erasure this year. Routes 347, 118, 414 and R6 have already been extinguished and at the end of this week it's time for the 283 to join them at the big terminus in the sky. Except it's all smoke and mirrors.
The actual route disappearing is the 72. TfL's cunning plan is however to retain route 283 but renumber it 72. This is because they've learned that Londoners complain more if double-digit numbers disappear, so it's better to kill off a three-digit number instead.
The 72 and 283 are both runty routes that operate between East Acton and Hammersmith, a distance of four miles. They used to run much further across Hammersmith Bridge, the 72 to Roehampton and the 283 to Barnes. But Hammersmith Bridge has been closed to traffic since 2019 so TfL have finally decided to bite the bullet and scrap one of them. Cutting the total number of vehicles will ensure a tidy saving. The issue for locals is that the 72 goes the quick way via Westfield and the 283 goes all round the houses, quite literally, so cutting the faster route helps absolutely nobody. I've been for a last ride.
London's next dead bus 283: Hammersmith to East Acton Location: west London, outer Length of journey: 4 miles, 30 minutes
We begin in the gloomy confines of Hammersmith's upper bus station, a glum glazed island encircled by double deckers. As many as four different routes follow the first leg of the route to Shepherd's Bush, so most potential passengers just hop on the first that arrives. My sole companion is a chatty lady with a lot of shopping who'll be deeply engaged in a telephone conversation for the next fifteen minutes. We exit via the concrete ramp and escape onto the gyratory, where I see Riverdance 30 is playing at the Apollo until Sunday. A glittery tunnel in the shape of a steam locomotive has been jammed into the entrance to the shopping mall for reasons not entirely apparent. The town centre remains busy with pre-festive shoppers, only a few of whom choose to board our 283 in preference to the 220 and 295 in front.
It's not hard to buy brunch at the foot of Shepherd's Bush Road, although it gets harder as the restaurants are followed by several public utilities and a school playing field. The stop at Brook Green marks the passage of the long-buried Parr's Ditch, whose path is now marked by a long recreational stripe dotted with planes and limes (the former trees, the latter bikes). Local residents are very much at risk of paying mansion tax on their £2m+ homes according to the Evening Standard, although that's the price you pay for living so close to bijou patisseries and indie cheese shops. An unhealthy man boards and chooses to sit in the seat immediately behind me while continuing his coughing fit, which immediately makes him my least favourite passenger. Gosh there's a lot of hotels along here.
Shepherd's Bush Green is a doddle to negotiate if heading north, but takes many minutes longer in the opposite direction because you have to crawl round the whole thing. I immediately take against the Hoxton Hotel for having the audacity to suggest that 'Friendsgiving starts here'. Route 72 currently continues straight ahead past Westfield and Television Centre but from next weekend will have to turn left and slum it down the Uxbridge Road where the entire economic outlook changes. The street here is lined by non-aspirational brands and hopeful independents like Sports Dimension, Vape Box and 99p Or Less, also the fruit-filled bowls of Shepherd's Bush Market. Ocean Collection isn't a bad name for a fishmonger but I wouldn't have chosen Sham Land as the name of my supermarket. That said this is now prime bus territory and a lot more passengers have piled aboard.
The 283 is now attempting to find the optimum road to turn right into the estates of White City. It can't take Loftus Road where the football stadium is because that's always been a dead end. It can't take Bloemfontein Road because southbound 283s come that way and there wouldn't be space to pass. It can't take the next six roads because they're too narrow and so we eventually find ourself negotiating into Wormholt Road, kindly flashed on our way by a patient Superloop driver. Here the houses are mere terraced semis, then genuine council houses, and because this is 283-only territory this is where many of those on board want to get off. It's farewell to the chatty shopper and the thoughtless cougher, also the slightly weird man who made a point of announcing "all the way" four times just before he sat down.
This is off-piste White City, a parade of shops adrift amid a maze of streets so contorted that the central bus stop serves route 283 in both directions. The retail offering includes takeaways and a laundrette but also a much-needed and well-disguised foodbank, The Hub @ 75. Tucked beneath a stack of modern flats is what was once a lido, then a council swimming pool but is now the Parkview Centre for Health & Wellbeing. One last turn should permit our escape, this past the ugly blue and grey hodgepodge that houses Queens Park Rangers football club. Only one of the letter 'a's is almost falling off. Anyone considering living locally should be aware that the Queens Tavern only opens on match days, so most of the time the only drinking options hereabouts are overpriced bars on the footprint of former BBC premises. One last push and we'll finally escape onto Wood Lane, twenty minutes down.
And here come the roadworks. The junction with the A40 Westway is currently a mess of cones and rubble so takes longer than usual to queue through. A set of temporary traffic lights then stalls us awhile before we can turn left into Du Cane Road, then another set stops us again barely a hundred yards later. We're now on the far side of the Central line, otherwise uncrossable for the best part of a mile, and barrelling due west for the second time. A lot of ugly things have been built here on the edge of Wormwood Scrubs, most notably an austere prison and a hospital whose multiple extensions would win no architectural prizes. TfL like to send lots of buses to hospitals and Hammersmith Hospital currently merits five. Those aiming for White City or Wood Lane stations can catch two but when the 72 disappears they'll only have the 272, a lesser service with an unhelpful 16-minute frequency. Squeeze in everybody.
Only three passengers remain aboard after HMP Wormwood Scrubs as we slip back into classier residential territory. This is the Old Oak Estate, an appealing cottagey nod to Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement, all terribly conveniently located around East Acton station. One last burst up Old Oak Common Lane will finish it, just two stops before bearing off into the commercial dead end of the Westway Estate. This is where they filmed Reggie Perrin's workplace Sunshine Desserts, but don't come looking because that's long gone and what's here now is a loop of cash and carries, food prep outlets and tool hire warehouses. The 283 terminates alongside the 72 at a bespoke pull-in stand complete with proper toilets, shared additionally with West-End bound route 7. From Saturday it'll be just the two routes, indeed they've already whipped off the 283 tile from the bus stop like it never existed.
London's actual next dead bus 72: East Acton to Hammersmith Location: west London, outer Length of journey: 4 miles, 35 minutes
What I did next was ride all the way back again but on the route that's really being killed, the existing 72. I assumed it'd be quicker because it goes direct but instead it got caught up worse in the roadworks, then took eight minutes to negotiate round Shepherd's Bush Green, then waited three minutes more for a change of driver. It was also much busier than the 283 I'd caught before, being particularly popular with hospital patients and the Hammersmith-bound, with all seats taken long before we reached Westfield. Those who haven't read the notices are going to be mighty perturbed when it hares off round the backstreets on Saturday, still labelled 72 but very much no longer the Wood Lane stalwart.
One nuance I haven't mentioned is at the southern end of the route where the existing 72 continues from the bus station to the north end of Hammersmith Bridge. The new 72 will be doing this too, so technically it's not a complete renumbering of the 283, it's a renumbering of the 283 plus one extra stop at the end. Only three of us made the pilgrimage to the terminus on my journey, everyone else bailed by the shops, but having one route that does this stumpy extra is useful for anyone thinking of walking across Hammersmith Bridge. Six years after it was closed to traffic, scrapping the 283 for a 72 that's really the 283 is seemingly the best way to go.
And a final word to whoever it is at TfL who maintains bus stop infrastructure, because the terminus at Hammersmith Bridge is a disaster zone of mis-signed stops, misplaced facilities and unhelpful information. Buses still terminate at a dolly stop on the edge of a roundabout with no indication of departure times and no shelter from the elements. Two former shelters remain 100m closer to the bridge, both now entirely useless because they're no longer served by buses, so if the closure's going to be permanent then maybe remove one and shift the other.
One of the defunct stops still has a '72' tile despite no 72 stopping there for six years, also a map of Bus changes from August 2019 that's now factually incorrect and two maps from 2020 falsely claiming that the bridge is closed to pedestrians. Meanwhile the Countdown display at bus stop S patiently displays all 72 departures despite the fact the bus stop doesn't display a 72 tile and drivers don't stop there, and if they did then passengers would be turfed off just 100m later at the end of the route. If anyone with half a brain stepped out of their cosy office and actually looked at the bus stop set-up north of Hammersmith Bridge I hope they'd be ashamed enough to do something about it, ideally soon.
What would London look like if it was the other way up?
It would look like this.
What I did
I took the Greater London boundary (red).
I rotated it through 180°, centred on Charing Cross. (click to embiggen)
Places that would no longer be in London
» Uxbridge, Ickenham, Harefield, Ruislip
» Enfield Wash, Enfield Lock, Chingford
» Collier Row, Harold Wood, Harold Hill, Hornchurch, Upminster
» Chelsfield, Green Street Green, Biggin Hill, Old Coulsdon, Chessington
Places that would now be in London
» Carpenders Park, Bushey, Oxhey, Radlett, Borehamwood, Cuffley
» Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Grange Hill
» Purfleet, Dartford, Swanley, South Darenth
» Woodmansterne, Stoneleigh
» West Molesey, Walton-on-Thames, Sunbury, Ashford, Staines, Wraysbury
And how far would the tube stretch?
What I did
I visited a site called Trainspose.
It lets you superimpose maps of Metro systems on other cities.
I tried to keep the Circle line much the same. (you can have a lot of fun with this site)
North of the river there'd only be tube lines out to Leytonstone (Richmond), Southgate (Morden), Golders Green (Brixton) and Heathrow (Dagenham).
But south of the river the tube would stretch as far as Kempton Park, Cobham, Richmond Park, Croydon, Beckenham, Bromley, Eltham, Bexleyheath, Erith, Swanley, Lullingstone and Wrotham.
Some would say that'd be a big improvement.
Obviously if you rotate London and the tube through 180°, all the stations end up in the same place.
At London Bridge station ministers and designers mingled with the general public beside a Hornby train set, which is the largest train anyone's physically branded yet.
Lots of people on social media had thoughts about the new branding.
I've concealed my opinion amid 20 other comments I read yesterday.
• Looks like someone knocked over a pile of paint pots in B&Q.
• It looks great - an iconic British image for our publicly-owned railways.
• This looks faffy. And very garish.
• Not as bad as I feared but still looks like it was designed only with one train shape in mind.
• Controversy as I don’t hate the new proposed GBR brand and livery.
• "Designed in-house at the DfT" yeah... you can tell.
• There a lot to like here: Loving the return of double arrow and Rail Alphabet.
• Still think there needs to be some variation by speed and regionally.
• Sweet mother, GB News are operating trains now!
• The GBR livery seems to be the same shapes as TransPennine but with some fills changed in Paint.
• It's fine.
• Minimal would have been so so much better.
• Would be nice to see local trains in local colours with GBR kept for cross country services.
• Reminds me of the Olympic teams, which seems like an acceptable level of patriotism without going down the flag shagger route.
• To be fair I feared worse.
• I’m in favour of this, although it’ll look pathetic/insane on a two-car Class 150 pootling through Nunthorpe.
• The worst aspect has got to be that long diagonal white wedge. Imagine how jarring it will appear while the train is in motion.
• Awful corporate nationalist slop.
• Why isn't the double arrow symbol aligned so its horizontal bars match the x-height of the text?
• I'm afraid this livery seems more about vanity than it does about the needs of the passenger.
• Frankly I don't care what colour the trains are or what branding GBR is going to use. More importantly, do the trains run reliably?
Don't fret, this isn't the final design, it's work in progress. As Tim Dunn messaged yesterday...
Yesterday I nipped over to @transportgovuk to have a look at some #GBR branding development work. What's missing from the narrative of it being touted as a "brand reveal" is that it's more of a "look and feel": it certainly hasn't been finessed creatively yet. Reading between the lines yesterday is that these concepts will be developed by a GBR brand and marketing team; but since the org doesn't yet exist, and the people haven't yet been appointed, this is a loose starting point for them to work from.
If you have any thoughts, here's a special comments box for men over 50. comments
Everyone else, feel free to comment below.
I understand some readers weren't especially interested in yesterday's post.
Today I offer five different posts in the hope that nobody feels the need to complain again.
Is this London's most fractional speed limit?
Drivers entering Ruxley Manor are asked not to exceed 4¾mph. This seems an extraordinarily precise request.
Speed limits are normally a multiple of 5 and invariably whole numbers, so to request just under 5mph seems plain weird. Most cars can't register non-integer speeds anyway, and even on a dial the necessary nuance is impossible to distinguish.
The 4¾mph limit may be to encourage drivers to stay below 5mph. It may be a joke. It may be because the pedestrian approach to Ruxley Manor is dangerously substandard because the owners refuse to make room for pavements. It's not a metric conversion thing because 4.75mph = 7.64kmh which is even more fractional.
Whatever, I can't think of any other speed limit anywhere that's even "something and a half miles an hour", let alone this absurd "and three quarters".
DLR rolling stock debacle shortens more trains
Dozens of new DLR trains were meant to be in operation by now, their chief purpose to replace old rolling stock and increase capacity. Alas only three have made it into passenger service and they've since been withdrawn as a precautionary measure due to a braking issue in wet weather. This is becoming more of an issue because 18 of the oldest DLR units have already been sent for scrap and the remainder are almost life-expired, so TfL are trying to squeeze as much use out of them as possible.
In July all Stratford to Beckton trains were cut from the timetable, resulting in 10 minute gaps on the Beckton branch, and the frequency of trains between Stratford and Canary Wharf was reduced. These were meant to be temporary measures introduced to coincide with the start of the summer holidays, but five months later they're still in place. And now we have a new cut.
Trains between Bank and Lewisham are to be reduced in length from three carriages to two over Christmas and the New Year. TfL's official advice is to "allow extra time for your journey as trains may be busier than normal", also to consider travelling off-peak where possible. This sacrifice will help preserve the remaining time buffer on the oldest trains, but is also an admission of how close we're getting to not having enough rolling stock to run a safe timetable. Pray that any operational issues with the new turquoise trains are sorted soon, else more 'temporary' reductions in service will be needed before things get better.
Christmas at Ruxley Manor
Readers in southeast London and northwest Kent may be familiar with Ruxley Manor, the super-duper garden-centre-cum-retail-village on the Maidstone Road that's a massive draw at any time but especially at Christmas. Every autumn they clear out their usual stock and go all out on flogging festive goods across umpteen departments, and the hordes descend. Yes they sell Christmas trees but also Christmas gonks, warm white LED squirrels and Yoda-shaped infinity mirrors. Yes they have thousands of baubles but also winter-wrapped woodland creatures, microlight pinecones and faux china gingerbread houses. It's entirely superfluous and it's all being snapped up by beaming suburban folk with surplus cash to burn.
One highlight is the model railway layout bedecked with snow and miniature cottages, complete with two perspex domes where small children can creep under the table and pop up in the middle. It looks enchanting but is really a sales pitch to sell Lemax Christmas Villages, a twee nostalgic world assembled from collectable buildings including a Pop-Up Christmas Cookie Shop (£34.99), Santa Carousel (£79.99) and Ludwig's Wooden Nutcracker Factory (£99.99). Elsewhere the gold twist reindeer come with an exhortation to "consider lighting up your front drive", and if anything doesn't illuminate there's probably a more expensive version that does.
This is mainstream pickings for the outer suburbs, also catnip for those who only come to browse and admire. I can well imagine traipsing round something similar on the edge of Norwich. But the more I explored the more I sighed at the enormous amounts being frittered away on festive fripperies, and wondered what that money could provide if it were spent on something more useful. One can only admire Ruxley Manor's business sense, but if you ever need evidence that some people could afford to be taxed more without damaging their standard of living, you only need to head to the outskirts of London in December. And try not to come home with a Pre-Lit Snowy Yule Log or a Mains-Powered Bratwurst Market Kiosk.
What are boys called these days?
Sourced from the selection of names on the rack of personalised die-cast lorries at Ruxley Manor.
On Friday the Mayor made a big splash launching a new high-capacity electric ferry crossing between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf.
It's his replacement for an over-optimistic footbridge that was never going to be built because it would have been cripplingly expensive. Now we have a new ferry and a new pier at less than 10% of the price, shuttling across the river every 10 minutes just like its diesel predecessor. This one's got space for 100 bikes, which is approximately the number that use the free Silvertown cycle bus every day so let's hope some cyclists actually turn up. I turned up.
Alas it wasn't running, the previous boat was. Apparently the electric vessel "will be progressively phased into operation, with full operation and exclusivity of the route targeted for Spring 2026." And they haven't even started route-sharing yet because, according to Tom Edwards, "the electric ferry will start carrying passengers early in 2026 after crew training." Maybe the Mayor should have launched it next year instead, because nobody'll be catching it yet.
