The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

Down the Tube? Up the social ladder

Public transport by name is increasingly exclusive by nature.

By Rowenna Davis Published 23 November 2011 16:52

Next time you're on the Tube take a look around you. If you think that it's increasingly full of white, business class professionals, it's because it is. According to newly-analysed data from Transport for London, slipping down the underground escalator means taking a step up the social ladder.

The data paints a stark picture of a growing social divide in our city. While richer groups speed to work underground, poorer and more diverse ethnic groups are forced to take the bus. Public transport by name is increasingly exclusive by nature.

The latest figures show that almost four in five of London's Tube users are now managerial and professional workers, and the situation is getting worse.

In 2003, Londoners in the bottom half of the income spectrum made up 28 per cent of Tube users, but in the latest data from 2009, this dropped to 22 per cent.

It is hard not to link these divides to a difference in fares (the cash price for a Zone 1 single fare is now £4). This week I've been talking to cleaners and caterers who cannot afford to use the Tube in the city they call home. Instead they flock to the bus, which remains expensive and problematic.

Take Elena, a cleaner from Columbia who works for £6.08 an hour. She holds down two part time jobs. Without access to the Tube or train, she has to leave her North London home at 5am. Together with hoards of other workers on the minimum wage, she gets a chain of buses before dawn breaks. Her need to travel between jobs means that she spends almost five hours a day travelling for six hours work.

At present Elena pays £68.40 for her monthly bus pass. If she were to buy a full travelcard with Tube access, it would cost £106, approximately one fifth of her monthly wage after tax.

The mayor doesn't seem to get the problem. Since Boris Johnson was elected, the cost of a weekly zone 1-4 travelcard has increased by 23 per cent, and he remains committed to 20 years of above inflation fare increases.

Migrant workers like Elena are particularly likely to be affected. According to TfL's figures, some 39 per cent of bus users are from black and ethnic minority communities compared to 29 percent of Tube users.

Bus dependency also continues to cause massive problems for families. Alberto, another cleaner, says his daughter has to leave the house at 5am with his wife. She waits at her mum's work reading until school opens, and she always arrives tired. Meanwhile Alberto makes his anxious journey across London. If he misses one of his busses or falls asleep, he risks being fired.

"I've seen the transport prices rise like crazy but the salary never increases," he says, "For a salary increase you have to fight. Throughout the years my money buys less and less so I'm encouraging the workers to get organised ... The problem is getting worse."

There are economic consequences too. Transport is the circulatory system of our economy, but workers like Elena have been known to turn down jobs because they are too expensive to get to. It also makes it difficult to make English classes, and it hits women hardest.

London Transport figures

According to the figures -- unavailable online but released by TfL to the New Statesman -- some 78 per cent of Tube users are now from managerial and professional groups, defined as ABC1s.

In contrast, just 22 per cent of Tube users come from C2DE groups associated with the bottom half of the income spectrum. This compares to 37 per cent of bus users who are from this category.

When the Greater London Assembly estimates that roughly half of London's population is in each group, something is clearly out of synch.

Although this decline in diversity was visible when Ken Livingstone was mayor, he's developing policies to buck the trend. If he is elected next year, he says he'd cut fares by 5 per cent in 2012 and freeze them until 2013.

As for Boris Johnson, we don't know what the consequences would be if he won another term in office. Under his watch, TfL have suspended the Underground Users Survey until further notice.

If such a move saves costs, it also buries bad news.

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More from Rowenna Davis

View the discussion thread.

20 comments

Sat, 2012-06-16 13:21 — Hugo Daddy (not verified)

"The cash price for a zone 1 single fare is now £4." Actually, it's £4.30:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/14416.aspx

But the point is that surely nobody who spends any amount of time in London pays the cash price for travel; on Oyster, it's £2, which is less than half the price and frankly consistent with bus travel in other UK cities (for instance, where I live). And how much is an Oyster card nowadays? £5? (It was £3 back in 2007, when I got mine). In other words, the outlay for the card is recouped in three journeys. I see the point of the article, but leaping immediately to the highest price band undermines it somewhat. You might as well argue that milk is extortionate nowadays based on the price of a pint from Fortnum and Mason.

Wed, 2011-11-23 18:34 — Sabrina Johnson (not verified)

Expensive transport is not just an issue for migrant workers. Think of those supporting themselves on low wage jobs (store assistants, junior level office workers, catering staff etc), poorer non-migrant families and young people over 16.

How can such people save to support themselves later in life, if they can't even afford to live in the present?

Wed, 2011-11-23 19:11 — Nigel (not verified)

This is part of a worrying trend - tube and train fare hikes, property prices, yuppification of working class areas, gated communities, giant high-end housing developments, relocation of large offices of low-level staff outside London.

The socially jumbled up city London used to be is being segregated, and poor areas shunted to the outskirts or out altogether. The result will be uprooted, fractured communities and a soulless city of the rich.

We need Ken back in - he will make sure the rot is at least slower than under Boris.

Wed, 2011-11-23 19:13 — Fergus Pickering (not verified)

All I can say is the tube is bloody crammed with people every time I travel on it. And they don't look rich and white to me. Just as the High Speed Train from Margate is not full of rich people, just people.

Thu, 2011-11-24 23:57 — Woolligen (not verified)

Eatyourgreens, casting my mind back I remember a time before the creation of TFL. I believe back then, the bus companies were not integrated and privately run. There was no overground (which is a delight to travel on). I am willing to say that London transport has never been so centrally organised. Let us remember, we are paying because of decades of no investment in the past.

Thu, 2011-11-24 00:24 — Politico (not verified)

Rowenna, whilst you may be regarded as a young and keen reporter, it is clear that London is not all about Labour, transport or otherwise. You really need to get around the country. It is clear Ed Miliband wishes to move the party forward and surround himself, be it policy advisors, researchers, even MP's that have their roots in London. This is done out of convenience. It is also clear that your regular trips to the office of Ed Miliband in London presents the argument that you are wishing to follow a political career. Individualism and self interest is the order of the present Labour Party dream.

With regards to transport there is something hypocritical going here. The Labour Leader championed Adonis as Transport Minister but kept his distance from him during his Academy ventures with Blair. Yet he was using the same Third Way philosophy. He was still New Labour. Ed Miliband is still New Labour.

Whilst Climate Change secretary he spent most of his time trying to convince Cabinet Members that an extra runway at Heathrow was not necessary (or did he). He allegedly argued with Geoff Hoon and then Peter Mandelson but then lost the battle at that time. Again New Labour stalwarts.

In 2008 -9 during the global economic crisis as Alistair Darling has said openly quite recently, every body in the cabinet wanted to keep spending, that would of course include our Labour leader. Now he wants to make cuts.

We need a leader who does not make uturns whether it be transport, education or the economy because it suits.

It is clear Rowenna that a path to a Labour career comes from journalism, lawyers, economists, barristers, policy advisors. Take Chukka Ummuna, can you tell me what Chukka Umuna has done and what warrants his position. How does a lawyer from London (again)get so much good treatment and tender loving care. He has simply no idea about community.

Perhaps the content of his wallet dictates his position. Hardly Labour. Maybe its a power thing. He does not represent anything remotely Labour.

He has so many policy advisors because he is so OUT OF TOUCH and so OUT OF HIS DEPTH

Ed is yet again playing the wrong tune with the wrong piper. A complete disaster. This is the new Real Labour. The Power elite all from London. This is not the way for Labour to win an election again. Who is serving who?

If truth be known no candidates from London should be a MP's in Northern England. Labour is rife with such inequality.

You need to look at a better transport system for MP's commuting to and from London.

Ed Miliband needs to get some b*$"*, sorry courage and face his demons and should stop hiding away in smoke filled rooms in London.

Sometimes an APOLOGY goes a long long way Ed

Happy for you to reply

Thu, 2011-11-24 00:33 — Shinsei67

1) Rich people travel underground in overcrowded, hot, noisy trains. Whereas poor people travel overground in fresh air and with a view. Hmmmm. Your complaint is what exactly ?

2) Hordes, not hoards.

3) Ever thought of using a bicycle ? I potter around London all day at 10 mph on an old bike and without breaking into a sweat.

Thu, 2011-11-24 00:50 — Politico (not verified)

Quite simply Rowenna, before one complains about elitism in the underground IN LONDON one should first concentrate on the elitism in the Labour Party IN LONDON

Tue, 2011-12-06 11:49 — Dan (not verified)

I think this article is very interesting, and largely true.

The figures sound very off though. I find it incredibly hard to believe that a whopping 4 out of 5 are managerial or professional.

I think the problem with this is with the NRS social grades.

How on earth is C1 classified as "managerial and professional"
this group includes many routine white collar workers.

The muddling of low paid clerical, admin workers etc. with professionals, supervisors and small businessman will have massively distorted the picture of who is using the tube.

I agree that the tube is increasingly pricing the lowest paid above ground and onto buses, but this article definately exaggerates that problem.

Thu, 2011-11-24 09:51 — Lee Jones (not verified)

This isn't a new phenomenon. My understanding is that the trend was accelerated by Ken Livingstone as a deliberate strategy: he pushed tube fares up to help pay for expanded bus services, in full knowledge that it would price poorer people off the tube, but at least they would get affordable buses. Boris Johnson made things much worse by ramping up bus fares with total disregard for the poor. But the initial segregation was a deliberate strategy by Ken - I think historic TfL figures would bear that out. So bringing Ken back in would be unlikely to solve the issue of segregation, even if it made bus fares more affordable for the working poor.

Thu, 2011-11-24 15:03 — EatYourGreens (not verified)

This calls in to question what the public transport system is FOR - at the moment it appears to be driven by the need to make a profit, as more and more of it is farmed out to private companies or sold off entirely.

Until public transport is re-focussed to providing an efficient and cheap means of transport for EVERYONE, this type of story will continue to appear.

Thu, 2011-11-24 15:05 — EatYourGreens (not verified)

Politico, why shouldn't Rowenna make valid points about the transport system?

You seem to be defending the position that the Tube network is becoming too expensive for those who are not well off - why is that?

Wed, 2011-11-23 17:14 — swatantra

Good article. This is real poverty at first hand. We should be helping these hard working people get to their jobs, basic but essential jobs, that keeps London moving smoothly and London clean for the office workers that don't have to get up at 5am in the morning, cold and dark mornings.
Thats why the Unions are going on strike, on behalf of people that can't afford to strike.

Wed, 2011-11-23 17:34 — Louise (not verified)

Very interesting and I agree except for the tube being predominantly white. It simply isn't.

BUT this does change a bit depending which stations you're at...

Wed, 2011-11-23 17:41 — Charlie Brooker

Great article, a worrying development - it's worth pointing out that bus journeys cost £2.20 without an Oyster card, cheaper than the tube but still prohibitively expensive for some (especially young people.) As wages have declined in real terms over the last few years, transport costs should have been reduced or at least frozen. Yet another method of indirectly taxing the poor.

Wed, 2011-11-23 17:49 — Smiler (not verified)

I blame Ken. He was a disaster for London.

Wed, 2011-11-23 18:04 — Imran (not verified)

"In 2003, Londoners in the bottom half of the income spectrum made up 28 per cent of Tube users, but in the latest data from 2009, this dropped to 22 per cent."

Have you got a link source for that data, Row? Would be interested in seeing the full range.

Wed, 2011-11-23 18:06 — George (not verified)

"As for Boris Johnson, we don't know what the consequences would be if he won another term in office."

His commitment to 2% above inflation fare rises every year until 2018 points to unsustainably affordable transport for all Londoners, regardless of occupation ...

Wed, 2011-11-23 18:13 — andy (not verified)

What trains have you been on, they are not predominantly white. Travel in London is far more expensive than other countries. Tube fares are just not viable to people on the minimum wage. Boris should cut fares, but we know he won't. Ken increased fares every year when he was Mayor, and now he's saying he will cut fares if re-elected, we know that isn't going to happen.
It looks like people on the minimum wage are on a lose lose situation.