You might often resent your last Oyster touch out. London is notoriously expensive to live, work and importantly travel about in. If you make one journey, it could be particularly costly.
The one-stop journey on the London Underground Piccadilly line from Leicester Square to Covent Garden costs £2.40 for a single on Oyster or Contactless and £5.50 cash for the 260 metre journey. That equates to £14.77 per mile.
That is even more expensive that the popularly cited Heathrow Express which is £25 to travel one stop from Paddington to Heathrow Central. At 14.5 miles, that journey is £1.72 per mile. In fact, it is the most expensive one-stop underground or subway journey we could find in the entire world.
READ MORE:London Underground: Your Oyster card will fine you if you travel across London too slowly
Leicester Square station is almost visible from Covent Garden
(Image: Lucy Skoulding)
Of course, the same fare could take you all the way from one edge of Zone 1 to the other, which would reduce the cost per mile but astonishingly there’s nowhere else in the world where a similar scenario is such a high price.
The journey usually takes around 20 seconds by Tube and is quicker to do by walking at street level.
In New York, the journey between the two closest stations, Cortelyou Road and Beverley Road in Brooklyn on the New York Subway Q Train is $2.75 (£1.99) equating to just under £10 per mile. The journey, in the borough of Brooklyn, is just 300 metres.
We’ve created a Facebook group for people who travel on London’s bus, rail, Underground, Overground and DLR services.
We will keep you informed about the latest news that affects your daily commute to work, as well as at the weekend.
We’ll also let you know in advance if there are any roadworks, railworks or closures you should know about, or if there are any problems on the city’s tube network.
Join the group here.
In Paris, at 200 metres, the distance between République and Temple on line 3 is even shorter than that of Leicester Square to Covent Garden but with the ticket price being just 1,90EUR (£1.62), the journey is just over £13 per mile, still under London’s record.
In Asia and Latin America, subway prices are so cheap that the short distances won’t come close enough. We’ve excluded airport services which do not integrate into the fares system of the local subway to keep our comparison fair.
What do you think is the best orworst value for money journey you’ve taken in London? Let us know in the comments below!
If you’ve got a transport story for MyLondon, email [email protected]
Read More
Related Articles
Read More
Related Articles
