Into the night

It's well known that greenies are big fans of public transport - and I'm no exception.

Yet some people take a dim view of sharing a moving vehicle with other members of the public - Margaret Thatcher is widely thought to have said that a man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.

Having turned that age last year, and looking around at my fellow travellers on a double decker, that's a lot of Londoners who should be considering themselves on the scrapheap.

Yet aside from the fact it's good for the environment, using public transport in London has the added benefit of providing everyone with plenty of anecdotes to share in the pub.

Night buses - generally full of people on their way home from a night out - are infamous for provoking all sorts of weird, hilarious or truly shocking incidents.

(As it happens, my stories haven't got any more exciting than being invited by a total stranger to a house party in Hampstead and a separate episode of someone being sick on my shoe.)

So it was with joy - mixed with sorrow that it's needed in the first place - that I noticed that the Campaign for Better Transport has launched the Save Our Buses campaign.

In London alone there are plans to cut subsidies to buses by 40%. Even though City Hall has promised this won't affect Londoners through maintaining routes as much as possible, the scale of the cuts mean it seems likely at least some services will be affected - or fares will have to go up.

But the gap between the cost of public transport and that of motoring has been growing wider and wider. Between 1997 and 2010 the real cost of motoring nationwide, including the purchase of a vehicle, fell by 7%, while bus and coach fares increased by 24%.

At the moment subsidies mean that some of the most vulnerable Londoners - pensioners, the unemployed, school kids - can travel for free or at a much lower cost than other passengers.

So whilst the party might still be in full swing for young Londoners on their way home in the early hours this weekend, many others in the Capital - and across the country - could soon find themselves with little to celebrate.

- Henry Rummins, Communications & Media Team