The latest [MTR fare] increase will place a serious financial burden on many passengers, especially people from low income groups. They find their wages have not gone up but everything is now more expensive ... Transport subsidies are available but there are tight restrictions.
Letter to the editor, May 11
This letter writer obviously feels the pinch of straitened circumstances, and I am thus a little hesitant to say things are not quite so bad. But some things need pointing out here, nonetheless.
Let's start with the assertion that a 5.4 per cent fare increase will impose a serious financial burden on some people. I pored through the Mass Transit Railway's fare chart the other day and the highest single trip fare I could find was HK$23.70 for a journey from Chai Wan to Tuen Mun.
Why anyone should want to travel direct between these two I don't know, and I'm sure very few people do.
Of course, if you really want to pay too much on the MTR you can first go to Sheung Shui on East Rail and then pay another HK$23.60 for a one-stop hop to the Lo Wu border station. I am all in favour of this rip-off as a way of making mainland travellers subsidise Hong Kong commuters, but we shall exclude it from this exercise. And now I have a question for you. How far do you think you could travel on the London Underground for the highest single trip fare that you could possibly pay on the MTR?
The answer is that you would not even be allowed through the turnstile. The lowest fare for a single one-stop journey in central London is higher than the highest possible fare you can pay on the MTR. The words 'serious financial burden' thus seem a bit over the top as a description of MTR fares.