Share your experiences of getting around London today as a 24-hour strike over job losses causes major disruption on the London Underground

Transport for London predicted it would be a "difficult day" if the strike was well supported today. That seems to be putting it mildly. TfL's handy widget for services updates (below) shows a snapshot of the disruption. At the time of writing it showed delays and suspensions on all but the Northern line.

That's the overview, but how was it for you? Please help us tell the story by sharing your experiences of getting around London today. Perhaps you took one of the extra buses laid on by the mayor of London Boris Johnson, or did you beat the strike by bike or even by boat? Did you share a car journey, or just walk, or are you working from home?

Please post your stories and views in the comments section below, or send photos to matthew.weaver@guardian.co.uk.

9.35am:
People should walk more it's faster than the bus, argues our London blogger Dave Hill in part two tube strike journey.

My first thought about the crowd of fellow Londoners struggling for sardine status inside a pair of rammed number 25 bendy buses from Straford as if, well, trying to climb aboard a rush hour Tube, was, why didn't they just stride off down the wide pavement towards the looming Gherkin instead?

Meanwhile, the RMT says support for the strike is "rock solid" with disruption on all lines. But Mike Brown, London Underground's managing director, insisted it's not that bad.

"Londoners will face some disruption, but the city is not paralysed - and people will still be able to get around," he said.

Main bone of contention is axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which unions claim threaten safety

Millions of London Underground passengers began their scramble for space on London's buses, boats and pavements this morning as a series of 24-hour strikes by tube workers disrupted the capital's transport system.

Today, there were suspensions and delays on all the tube lines apart from the Northern line. There were no services at all on the Circle, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo and City lines.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has ordered marshalled bike rides, 100 more buses and room for 10,000 extra boat passengers, but sources admitted that many of the 3 million commuters who rely on the tube would be reaching for their walking boots.

"If the strike is well supported then it will be a challenging and difficult day for a lot of people," said a source at the mayor's Transport for London body.

The first wave of strikes began at 5pm last night, when maintenance workers staged a walkout, due to be followed at 9pm by drivers, station staff and signallers at the RMT and TSSA unions.

The main bone of contention is the axing of 800 jobs, including hundreds of ticket office posts, which union officials claim is a threat to safety. TfL's promise that all of the jobs would be eliminated by voluntary redundancy was dismissed by the RMT union today.

Its general secretary, Bob Crow, who will join a picket line at Euston station this morning, said: "We have laid out the clearest possible evidence to the mayor and his officials that if he breaks his promises and slashes station staffing numbers he will be giving the green light to disaster, and yet he is failing to take any account of the hard facts of these three recent incidents – each of which could have had lethal consequences.

He accused TfL of "playing fast and loose" with safety by seeking volunteers to help run services. "It is about time that the mayor and his officials took the safety issues at the heart of this dispute seriously, removed the threat of these savage cuts from above our members' heads and cleared the way for meaningful talks aimed at protecting safety and safe staffing levels," said Crow.

The disruption is expected to last until tomorrow morning, as services get back to normal. TfL said some of London's 11 underground tube lines might be able to run limited services, but the network could be severely disrupted if the strike was well supported by RMT and TSSA members.

Johnson criticised the industrial action as a "trumped-up and politically motivated" attempt to attack the coalition government.

He said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason."

Further one-day walkouts are scheduled on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November. The RMT and TSSA fear that the staffing reductions will be followed by deeper cuts in TfL's 27,000-strong workforce if the Department for Transport seeks reductions in the organisation's £39bn funding settlement, which lasts until 2018.

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, wants Johnson to preserve a multibillion-pound upgrade of the tube network, which would require the mayor to seek cost cuts in London Underground staffing levels and the bus network, and higher tube and bus fares.

Frustrated London underground passengers will recognise the inconsistencies in managing director Mike Brown's attempted defence of tube ticket office closures (Letters, 4 September). Anyone who has ever tried to coax a crumpled £5 note or a newly minted coin into a ticket machine, or been overcharged on an Oyster card, will know that his bland assurance that "Staff will still help with any problems" is meaningless at a station where the ticket office is closed.

Brown says "every station that has a ticket office will now continue to have one" but omits to mention that ticket office opening hours will be severely curtailed under the new proposals.

When I – as a customer service assistant – am helping a visually impaired passenger down to the platform, when I'm dealing with antisocial behaviour, when I'm redirecting customers on to alternative routes in the event of a problem with the service, who is going to help you with ticketing issues? Not me, I'm afraid – I can't be in two places at once. As for fire and anti-terrorist measures, let's not even go there.

I shall be supporting the rail unions' strike action, in the best interests of both staff and customers.

Name and address supplied

• Mike Brown claims Transport for All's detailed criticism of the savage cuts in opening hours of so many tube ticket offices is "based on a misunderstanding". The biggest misunderstanding is the repeated peddling of the claim by London Underground that most ticket offices serve no useful purpose and frequently sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour. The reality, as LU's own figures show, is that this level of sales only applies to a mere eight stations across the vast network. There has probably never been an industrial dispute where both the unions and the management have both shown such a lack of regard for so many passengers.

Caroline Pidgeon

Leader, Lib Dem London assembly group; vice-chair, transport committee

Maintenance workers walk out, to be followed by drivers, station staff and signallers, with disruption to last into Wednesday

Millions of London Underground passengers began their scramble for space on London's buses, boats and pavements tonight as a 24-hour strike by tube workers disrupted one of the capital's major transport arteries.

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, has marshalled escorted bike rides, 100 more buses and room for 10,000 extra boat passengers but sources admitted that many of the 3 million commuters who rely on the tube would be reaching for their walking shoes.

"If the strike is well supported then it will be a challenging and difficult day for a lot of people," said a source at the mayor's Transport for London authority.

The first wave of strikes began at 5pm when maintenance workers staged a walkout, due to be followed at 9pm by drivers, station staff and signallers at the RMT and TSSA unions.

The main bone of contention is the axing of 800 jobs including hundreds of ticket office posts, which union officials claim is a threat to safety. TfL's promise that all of the jobs would be eliminated by voluntary redundancy was dismissed by the RMT union today.

Its general secretary, Bob Crow, said TfL was "playing fast and loose" with safety by seeking volunteers to help run services. "It is about time that the mayor and his officials took the safety issues at the heart of this dispute seriously, removed the threat of these savage cuts from above our members' heads and cleared the way for meaningful talks aimed at protecting safety and safe staffing levels," said Crow.

The disruption is expected to last until Wednesday morning as services get back to normal. TfL said some of London's 11 tube lines might be able to run limited services, but the network could be severely disrupted if the strike was well supported by RMT and TSSA members.

Johnson said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason."

Further one-day walkouts are scheduled on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November. The RMT and TSSA fear that the staffing reductions will be followed by deeper cuts in TfL's 27,000-strong workforce if the Department for Transport seeks reductions in the organisation's £39bn funding settlement, which lasts until 2018.

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, wants Johnson to preserve a multibillion-pound upgrade of the tube network, which would require the mayor to seek cost cuts in London Underground staffing levels and the bus network, and higher tube and bus fares.

8:38 pm: Advice on the platform at Paddington was to take the first train and change "where necessary." I'd hoped to go to Whitechapel by way of the District Line, but a Circle train came first so I jumped on. I shared my carriage with about eight other people. The big slowdown is underway - it felt rather luxurious. I got out at Cannon Street, where a sign told me that the ticket office had been closed since 3 May due to station improvement work. A man sat alone in a booth by the barriers. Otherwise, the place was empty of staff and almost of passengers too.

Above ground, the main line station was equally morgue-like. Outside, it was raining. I walked to Bank, drifting through those ancient, narrow City narrow steets I hadn't lingered in since the G20 demos and, having failed to find a different alternative location, I'm now I'm back in Liverpool Street station. The ticket office is still open, the staff by the barriers are still on duty, the information boards are still showing that a "special service" has been laid on for Bakerloo passengers heading north of Queens Park and that "minor dealys" are affecting the Circle, District and Central lines.

With nine o'clock approaching, the strike will really start to bite. Its teeth will make their mark in the morning. I'm off to catch the train back to Clapton. Tomorrow morning, I'll be going to City Hall. It's going to be a whole other day.

7:15 pm: I've made my way by Circle Line to Paddington where life is good because the in-house music system of the Starbuck's where I'm sitting has just played Toots and the Maytals singing Country Roads. Downstairs, Tube business looks slow. As I waited on the platform at Liverpool Street an announcer warned that coming delays would be "severe" and another had news that the strike was starting to bite: no trains on the Bakerloo from Queens Park to its endpoint at Harrow and Wealdstone. By the time I got here "minor delays" were being reported on the Central and District.

It was quiet on the Circle, quite weirdly so: only a dozen people in my carriage were obliged to stand, there was room for couples to engage in a little light snogging action and for me to read Boris Johnson's leader page piece in the Standard (quite a lucrative slot during the Max Hastings era, I pleasurably recall). The Mayor characterises the dispute as a struggle between modernisation and "Luddites". He describes changing station staff working practices in the Oyster age as a "duty" and he reasserts that there will remain a ticket office at every station. This last claim is true. But the weaseling begins when he writes that "opening times [will be] better matched to demand," which is one of the ways in which he conceals the issue of the 800 job losses planned. The other is neglecting to mention them at all in his piece. There's courage and integrity for you.

Back at Liverpool Street, I went to a ticket office window and told the person behind it that I needed a ten pound top-up (which I didn't) and that I found using the machines instead of a human being confusing (which I do). I asked what time the strike would shut the office down and was told this would happen at the end of the shift, which was a bit after the official down tools time of nine: "The real impact will be tomorrow. I'm afraid it's got to be done."

I said I appreciated the service I'd been given and hoped that any job loss programme would be implemented fairly (and TfL has pledged that no redundancies will be compelled). I'm not sure I was believed, but I think it was worth saying. As ever, the media are far more interested in the effects of industrial disputes than the reasons why employees are engaged in them. The RMT and TSSA between them represent 11,000 LU station staff. The potential loss of 800 represents a huge percentage.

I've a friend who works for TfL on the sub-surface side who reckons plenty of those workers will accept the voluntary redundancy terms available and that, in the end, LU management's offer will be broadly accepted. He sees this strike as very largely a show of strength in anticipation of the budget cuts to come; a warning against anyone thinking that swingeing staff cuts will be an easy option for filling TfL's financial black hole. Maybe that's what that Liverpool Street ticket office worker was telling me. If so, should anybody be surprised?

5:42 pm: I'm perched on the high walkway above the well of Liverpool Street station reading a coffee-stained Evening Standard (my spillage) which confirms what friends and colleagues who, unlike me, went out to work today have been saying – that commuters have been heading home early in order to beat the effects of today's – and tomorrow's – Tube strike.

This formally kicked off on a network-wide basis a short while ago at five o'clock, though from where I'm sitting the melee at this major public transport hub looks much the same as usual at this rush-hour time, or maybe a little quieter. People are entering and exiting the Underground barriers in numbers. Panic is in short supply.

Do not be deceived, though. Transport for London acknowledges that the expected reduction in services, however large it turns out to be, will intensify throughout the evening. That five o'clock start was for London Underground's maintenance staff (mostly RMT members). The operational staff – they're the ones the public meets and depends upon in ticket offices on concourses and so on – aren't scheduled to withdraw their labor until later (they're a mixture of RMT and TSSA members).

Meanwhile, there's another Tube strike already in full swing. A couple of hundred engineers on the Jubilee and Northern lines, employed by the contractor Alstom, downed tools yesterday. The RMT said today that the strike was rock solid. TfL said it had no effect on services whatsoever. It is just about possible to reconcile those two statements – think about it – but my primary insight is the brilliant one that there must be a Tube strike on.

I'm going to nip down to the Underground entrance again now to see if anything has changed since I arrived from Deepest Hackney. After that I'll take a stroll into the City. Or maybe an Underground train. Who knows?

Bus passengers face fare rises and reduced services as the Department for Transport targets its operators' grant

Bus passengers face higher fares and fewer routes as the Department for Transport (DfT) prepares to reduce a £500m subsidy for the industry.

The secretary of state for transport, Philip Hammond, views the bus service operators' grant (BSOG) as one of the most vulnerable items in his department's £15.9bn budget ahead of the comprehensive spending review, according to informed sources. The subsidy pays for about 80% of operators' fuel duty and its removal would increase fares by 6.5%, with a similar reduction in services. The impact would be disproportionately felt outside London.

"BSOG is one of the places where the DfT is unable to guarantee that there will be no cuts," said a government source. However, the scale of the reduction is dependent on the outcome of negotiations with the Treasury ahead of the review next month.

Go-Ahead Group, one of the so-called big five public transport operators, said last week it could cope with a phased reduction in the grant, although fares and services might be affected as bus companies act to offset the higher cost.

According to Morgan Stanley, BSOG accounts for nearly £1 in every £10 earned by bus operators. The average bus fare outside London is about £1.20.

One industry analyst said abolition of the subsidy represented a rise in fuel costs of 43%, and would push up overall industry costs by more than 8%.

Chris Cheek, editor of the Bus Industry Monitor, said the introduction of more fuel-efficient buses, such as hybrid vehicles, would mitigate the increase further and prove the industry's well-established ability to withstand shocks.

Cheek said the withdrawal of the subsidy might benefit operators.

"It would at least mean an end to the uncertainty caused by changes of public policy and the constant tinkering and attempts at micro-management we've seen," he said.

A DfT spokesperson said: "Any decision on the future of BSOG will be made in the wider context of the spending review taking into account the potential impact on community and rural transport services."

Don't let the tube strike defeat you. Our tips on on how to cycle past the queues

If you are a London commuter dreading tube strike chaos this evening and tomorrow there is an alternative to fighting your way on to overcrowded buses or a long walk.

Whether you are a lapsed cyclist nervous about busy roads, or don't even have a bike, here's our practical guide to cycling to work:

• I don't have a bike. If you're really keen, this could be the perfect excuse to fork out for a two-wheeled steed. London Cycling Campaign has lots of advice on what to look for in a new bike plus the accessories like lights and a lock that are pretty essential. Alternatively, you could try hiring a bike for a couple of days, or sign up for the new central London cycle hire scheme. It costs just a pound to access the scheme for a day with usage charges varying depending on how long you use the bike for (up to 30 minutes is free). That won't get you into work from the suburbs, but if you are commuting into a central terminus like Liverpool Street or Charing Cross then a hire bike would take you the rest of the way.

• I haven't used my bike for a while. If your bike has been rusting at the back of the garage for a few months (or even years), you may not be confident it is actually safe to ride. LCC has a step by step guide to simple safety checks. If all is not well, they also have advice on how to fix some of the basic problems.

• Isn't it dangerous? London cycling certainly demands that you have your wits about you, but it is not the suicidal activity that some people think. There are now more than half a million cycle journeys in the capital every day - nearly double the figure in 2000. And cyclists experience roughly the same fatality risk per kilometre travelled as pedestrians.

For nervous cyclists who prefer strength in numbers, TFL is organising escorted rides from the following locations at 8am on the morning of 7th September:

• Ravenscourt park to Trafalgar Square; meeting point main entrance on Kings road
• Finsbury Park to St Paul's; meeting point entrance to Finsbury Park on Seven Sisters Road
• Mile End to St Paul's (utilising Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 3); meeting point corner of Mile End Road and Burdett Road at entrance to the park
• Swiss Cottage to Moorgate; meeting point junction of Eton avenue and Adamson Road
• Brixton to the West End (utilising the Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 7); meeting point the Ritzy cinema
• Clapham Common to the City (utilising the Barclays Cycle Superhighway route 7); meeting point the bandstand on the common

• How do I avoid main roads? Transport for London has a handy "Journey planner" in the top right hand corner of its homepage for cyclists. It is designed to help you stick to safer roads. TFL also has a set of cycle maps which can be picked up at bike shops or ordered online. The londoncyclist blog has a great round up of online route-finding tools. And the much criticised Barclays superhighways are an option if you happen to have one near you.

If you have any tips for beating the strike with your bike please share them below.

Boris Johnson unveils plans for alternative travel as London Underground warns most journeys will be affected by walkout

Most journeys on London Underground will be disrupted in the next 48 hours, Transport for London warned today as a series of strikes over job losses were due to start.

Last night, around 200 maintenance staff on the Jubilee and Northern line walked out in a separate dispute about pay.

A more significant strike gets under way at 5pm today, when thousands of members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) will walk out in protest at plans to axe 800 jobs at ticket offices.

Further action will begin at 9pm tonight, when drivers, signallers and station staff start another 24-hour walkout.

The unions say safety and security will be compromised by staff cuts and reductions in ticket office opening hours.

Transport for London warned that most journeys will be disrupted, with the biggest delays expected tomorrow.

But London Mayor Boris Johnson said he was "determined to keep London moving", and dismissed the strike as "pointless and politically motivated".

The mayor and TfL have laid on alternative modes of transport , in attempt to minimise the disruption. They include 100 extra buses, escorted bike rides, marshalled taxi ranks, and the capacity for 10,000 more journeys on the river Thames.

Volunteers will be also positioned at tube, bus and rail stations to help people with their journeys and provide maps and other information.

Johnson said: "Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason.

"The extra measures we have put in call for a team effort and people will need to consider buses, boats or bikes as an alternative to their usual journeys. This planned action will cause disruption for millions of Londoners and I call on the unions to get round the table and show common sense."

The RMT said the use of volunteers during the strike was a further example of TfL playing "fast and loose" with safety. RMT's general secretary, Bob Crow, said: "There do not appear to be any corners that London Underground are not prepared to cut in order to bulldoze through their lethal cocktail of job and safety cuts.

"Sending out a few volunteers without the necessary operational licences and training to try and run a few trains is a disaster waiting to happen."

Crow added: "Instead of meaningless PR gimmicks from the mayor, he should start telling his officials to take this dispute seriously and he should also start putting tube safety before the dash to slash budgets."

TfL denied the RMT's allegations and said it would never do anything to compromise safety on the underground.

More staff cuts are feared as TfL completes a cash-strapped revamp of the tube network. The unions plan further stoppages in October and November.

The transport commissioner, Peter Hendy, said: "We continue to make every effort to avoid a dispute. There is no need for any action as the changes we are introducing come with no compulsory redundancies, and mean that stations will remain staffed at all times and every station with a ticket office will continue to have one."

He added: "Due to the success of Oyster, just one journey in 20 now involves a ticket office, and some ticket offices sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour."

Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the TSSA, said the mayor was behind the proposed job cuts, adding: "His plans to slash ticket office opening hours go considerably further than those he opposed in 2008 when trying to get elected as mayor, and our members rightly see them as the forerunner for additional cuts in October when the government delivers its dreaded spending review."

The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, said: "A tube strike will be bad for passengers, bad for business and bad for London.

"At a time when public finances are under pressure, any strike by tube workers will be seriously damaging — undermining the case we are making within the spending review for continued investment in the tube."

When the 24-hour strike by RMT and TSSA members of London Underground staff begins at five o'clock this evening and many Londoners ask out loud why, oh, why they might find a few answers by focusing on the wider political picture. The unions certainly are. They say the dispute is about passenger safety, which they claim will be reduced as a result of 800 job losses resulting from the closure of a number of ticket offices, reduced opening hours at others and the accompanying redeployment of some staff to different duties. Transport for London stresses that no redundancies will be compulsory, that every Underground station will continue to be staffed at all times and that there is a greater police presence at many stations than before.

Ken Livingstone announced ticket office closures and staff re-deployments in 2007, but was in a position to couple it with a plan to increase in LU jobs, not reduce them. Those were pre-credit crunch days, and Ken knew how to speak the unions' language. It's a different world now. As Dan Milmo reports the anticipated cuts to London's transport budget is likely to hit parts of LU where the unions are strongest, so today's strike sends a warning about the future too. Ask Bob Crow: "The planned cuts are part of a multi-billion black hole facing the Mayor due to the costs of the failure of tube privatisation and an attack on funding levels from the ConDem Government," he says. "Not only are ticket offices and ticket staff jobs threatened but hundreds of other station staff posts are also on the line."

Boris is laying on extra buses. Ken will be at Rayners Lane station inviting commuters to ask what happened to Boris's manifesto pledge to negotiate a no-strike agreement.

Also this week, regular political business resumes at City Hall - on Tuesday Kate Hoey will be attempting to convince the London Assembly's economic development committee that the 2012 Olympics will generate a substantial sporting legacy. I'll be looking at responses to the government's plans to change the way that homeless people are counted. Has rough sleeping in London been tackled as effectively as some claim? Also, the amazing saga of Labour's process for selecting a mayoral candidate for Tower Hamlets was finally completed yesterday, but I've a feeling the story is not yet over.

• TfL's £39bn funding settlement until 2018 to be reassessed
• London Underground staff face 800 redundancies

The London transport network faces waves of industrial unrest amid fears that more jobs and services will be cut under Boris Johnson's funding settlement with the government.

Transport secretary Philip Hammond and Johnson, the London mayor, have identified the preservation of multibillion-pound upgrades to the tube system as a key priority. However, on the eve of a one-day walkout by tube workers over staff cuts, transport experts have warned that preserving the underground revamp will inevitably lead to deep cuts in Transport for London's operational budget – setting the mayor's TfL authority on a collision course with trade unions.

Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation and a former TfL board member, said possible cuts "will force the pace on industrial relations issues". The London Underground, which carried 1 billion passengers last year and accounts for 45% of TfL's revenues, employs about 20,000 people and would be a prime candidate for cuts if the upgrades are preserved.

"There is probably scope to reduce the cost of operations at London Underground because it is heavily unionised and has not been subjected to competitive pressures," said Glaister.

But the difficulty of carving out costs on the tube network will be underlined tomorrow, when the RMT and TSSA unions are due to begin a 24-hour strike over plans to cut 800 jobs including 450 ticket office posts. TfL says the changes will not involve compulsory redundancies, but union officials claim they are a threat to health and safety.

Tony Travers, director of the Greater London group at the London School of Economics, said TfL would have no choice but to tackle parts of the organisation where trade union representation is strongest. Up to half of the LU workforce, including train drivers, station staff and engineers, could walk out on Monday – causing massive disruption to 3.5 million tube commuters.

Travers said: "Preserving the upgrades will concentrate the reductions in spending on the parts of London Underground that are most strike-prone, which are the bits featuring the RMT, the TSSA and [drivers' union] Aslef. So it solves one problem but it creates many more."

The chancellor, George Osborne, has told departments to prepare for cuts of between 25% and 40%, with TfL facing deep cuts because it accounts for nearly a quarter of Department for Transport spending. Overhauling the Northern, Victoria, Piccadilly, Circle, District, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines by 2018 will cost TfL about £10bn. Under the previous mayor, Ken Livingstone, TfL secured a £39bn funding settlement from 2010 to 2018. However, that is now likely to become a smaller four-year settlement with the fate of the £16bn Crossrail scheme to be decided by the Treasuryin a beauty contest with capital projects from other departments across Whitehall.

Government sources claim Crossrail is unlikely to be scrapped, although the scope of the project could be curtailed. Peter Hendy, London's transport commissioner, said TfL would "not cease" to make the case for the upgrades but was also determined to protect frontline services. "This includes a commitment to all stations being staffed at all times, and to protecting the quality and volume of Tube and bus services so important to our customers and to businesses across the capital."

A DfT spokesperson said: "The decision about where to make savings following this autumn's spending review will be for the directly elected mayor. However, we have a shared commitment with the Mayor to economically-important projects such as Crossrail and Tube investment."

Contingency plans ready as London Underground workers get set to walk out over job cuts

Transport bosses and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said yesterday they would "pull out all the stops" to help commuters during the planned strike by London Underground workers on Monday.

Johnson said contingency plans would include an extra 100 buses, escorted bike rides, marshalled taxi ranks and capacity for 10,000 extra journeys on the river Thames boats.

Union leaders said they intended to go ahead with the strike after talks broke down yesterday. Thousands of tube workers plan to walk out for 24 hours from 5pm on Monday over plans to cut 800 jobs.

"Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a tube strike will not deter us from getting around," Johnson said. "I have asked Transport for London to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the [unions] RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason.

"The extra measures we have put in place call for a team effort and people will need to consider buses, boats or bikes as an alternative to their usual journeys. This planned action will cause disruption for millions of Londoners and I call on the unions to get round the table and show common sense." He said volunteers would be drafted in to hand out maps and other information.

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said London Underground had failed to remove the threat of cuts to safety and safe staffing levels that would have allowed for "meaningful discussions".

But the TfL commissioner, Peter Hendy, said: "There is no need for any action, as the changes we are introducing come with no compulsory redundancies and stations will remain staffed at all times and every station with a ticket office will continue to have one." He added: "We regret that Londoners will be disrupted if the strike goes ahead. However, the RMT and TSSA leadership will not stop LU from moving with the times. Due to the success of Oyster, just one journey in 20 now involves a ticket office." Up to 200 tube maintenance workers will also strike on Sunday in a separate row over pay and conditions.

The free travel pass is a great boon to many older people, but serious questions have to be raised as to whether it should be a universal benefit at 60. We are now in an era of huge cuts in public funding and there are more urgent social care needs among the poorest and most vulnerable older people than a free pass which can and is used by people who are still at work, such as Keith Ludeman, chief executive of Go-Ahead (Let pensioners pay one-off fee for bus pass, says Go-Ahead, 3 September). There are serious questions as to whether it is the poorest older people who benefit most from the universal free pass, or whether, as in so many other cases, it is of more value to the wealthier people. Rather than go down a means-testing route, though, one answer may be to raise the age of eligibility for a pass.

Leon Kreitzman

Chair, Age Concern Lewisham & Southwark, London

• A one-off payment for bus passes would, indeed, cut the £1bn annual cost, but it would seriously affect the poorest pensioners. A better solution would be to make all benefits received by pensioners (bus passes, winter fuel allowances, free TV licences and NHS prescriptions) taxable so better-off pensioners contributed according to their means.

John Howes

London

• The greatest benefit of the bus pass is that pensioners who have lost their cars through ageing and ill health can still get about without worrying about the cost. They meet neighbours on board who become friends that help each other when needed, and save the social services far more money than the obnoxious Ludeman complains about.

Brian Robinson

Brentwood, Essex

• Transport for All's attack on London Underground's staffing proposals (Letters, 30 August) is based on a misunderstanding. Our proposals have come about because ticket sales at stations have dropped significantly since the introduction of Oyster, so that now only one in 20 journeys starts with a visit to a ticket office, and some stations sell fewer than 10 tickets each hour. Under our plans, every station that has a ticket office now will continue to have one, and staff will remain in every station in exactly those areas that Transport for All want them to be: in ticket halls and on platforms where they can help customers, not hidden away behind under-used ticket office windows. Staff will still help with any problems and provide a reassuring presence across the network – including for older and disabled Londoners, many of whom receive a Freedom Pass which requires no interaction with either ticket offices or machines.

Mike Brown

Managing director, London Underground

Industrial action on London Underground to start on 6 September in protest against plans to cut 800 jobs

Talks aimed at averting a series of strikes by London Underground workers from next week have broken down and the industrial action will go ahead as planned, union leaders said today.

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said LU had failed to remove the threat of cuts to safety and safe staffing levels that would have allowed "meaningful discussions" to take place.

Thousands of Tube staff are due to launch the walkouts from next Monday evening, 6 September, in protest against plans to cut 800 jobs, threatening travel chaos in the capital.

The RMT accused LU management of "sabotaging" talks today at the conciliation service Acas with officials from the union, and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association.

The RMT's general secretary, Bob Crow, said: "LU management knew very well that meaningful talks could not proceed while the threat of cuts to safety and safe staffing levels hung over our members' heads – their failure to remove that threat sabotaged any prospect of making progress.

"RMT and TSSA negotiators completely demolished the LU line that the cuts are simply about new technology and the Oyster card. The planned cuts are part of a multibillion black hole facing the mayor due to the costs of the failure of Tube privatisation and an attack on funding levels from the ConDem government.

"Not only are ticket offices and ticket staff jobs threatened but hundreds of other station staff posts are also on the line. It was the presence of those very staff that averted potential disaster in recent incidents involving fires at Euston and Oxford Circus.

"RMT and TSSA have been presented with a stark choice. We could sit back and wait for a major disaster while safety cuts are bulldozed through, turning the Tube into a death trap, or we can stand up and fight for passenger and staff safety.

"On Monday we will be making a stand on safety and safe staffing levels on behalf of all Londoners."

Chief executive of Go-Ahead Keith Ludeman says his own experience of applying for a pass has suggested one way of saving taxpayer cash

Pensioners could help address Britain's multibillion-pound deficit by paying a one-off fee when applying for a free bus pass, according to the head of one of Britain's largest public transport groups.

Free bus travel for over-60s is likely to escape the chop in next month's comprehensive spending review after it became a battleground in the general election leadership debates, but its £1bn annual cost still looms large for the Department for Transport and the Department of Communities and Local Government, which share the expenditure. The chief executive of Go-Ahead, Keith Ludeman, said his own experience of applying for a pass had suggested one way of saving taxpayer cash while preserving the scheme in its entirety.

"Having just gone through the application process myself, you could have some sort of charge when applying for it," said the 60-year-old. "People would not object if it meant that this very popular scheme was able to continue. It would be sensible if there was some way providing a benefit at reduced cost."

Last year Ludeman warned that the 11 million pensioners who enjoy the scheme "cannot be given a blank cheque" and suggested putting a cash limit on passes once they become part of an Oyster-style national smartcard programme.

When I'm 65

However, the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, has so far declined to voice serious threats against free bus passes, instead raising the possibility of higher rail fares and reductions in the Bus Service Operators' Grant (BSOG) that pumps around £400m a year into the bus industry. Instead, it is understood that Hammond has proposed accelerating the timescale for the raising of the point of eligibility for a pass from a person's 60th birthday to their 65th.

Cutting the BSOG, however, appears to have fewer backers in Whitehall. Ludeman joined other public transport operators in warning that reducing the grant, which pays for around 80% of fuel duty costs, would inevitably result in higher fares across England and the dropping of some routes. Go-Ahead carries 1.6 million passengers a day on buses in London, Southampton and Tyne and Wear, as well as an award-winning service in Brighton. The group said today that the sudden removal of BSOG could hit the bottom line by £48m unless costs were taken out, and fares increased, to mitigate the impact.

Ludeman said the main impact would be outside London, where bus subsidies were much lower, if the Department for Transport decided to phase out BSOG over a number of years: "Outside London, if there were reductions over time we would have to manage that through fares and reductions in output."

A spokesperson for the DfT said the £1bn basic cost of the scheme would be untouched: "The government is focusing its efforts on finding efficiencies through reforming the administrative and reimbursement arrangements of the scheme rather than by cutting back on the entitlement offered to older and disabled people."

Age UK, a charitable group, expressed concerns over the Go-Ahead proposal. "We would be concerned that charging an administration fee would put some people off applying for the bus pass, particularly the poorest pensioners who rely on this concession to get out and about and be independent," said Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age UK.

Ludeman spoke as Go-Ahead reported a 0.7% increase in revenues for the year to July 2010, with pre-tax profits falling by a quarter to £88.7m due to the performance of the rail division, which comprises the Southern, Southeastern and London Midland lines. The Southeastern franchise is now receiving a taxpayer subsidy of £4.5m a year because its high-speed rail service, launched to great fanfare last year, is missing revenue targets.

However, analysts said the results were good nonetheless after Go-Ahead reported better progress than expected in reducing its debts and reassured investors about its ability to withstand public spending cuts, such as the potential elimination of BSOG. "There is a little bit more confidence that they can cope with the likely cuts in government support for bus use," said Gerald Khoo, analyst at Arbuthnot Securities.

If Crossrail's future remains in significant doubt the people building it, banking on it and hoping it will pass their way appear blind to the peril they are in. Jobs are being advertised, "key milestones" are being passed, opportunist piling and demolishing has been taking place and people in Kensal Rise are hoping for a Crossrail station of their own.

Bemoaning high levels of government spending on the capital, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins wants transport secretary Philip Hammond to "kill the project forthwith." But while the idea of employing people to fill in the holes already dug in Oxford Street, Canary Wharf and Paddington honours a particular Keynesian muse, perhaps resources would be more profitably invested in completing an enterprise that will produce rather more fulfilling work for rather larger numbers of people. Transport for London commissioner Peter Hendy made much this point in his letter of response, adding that only about one third of Crossrail's budget is coming from the Treasury anyway.

In any case, this all looks academic. Crossrail might be pared down or trimmed, but it sounds like those new trains are still on their way: the bankers will stand for nothing less. As for the Tube upgrades, those will take longer to complete but will happen eventually (and more cheaply, claims TfL, now they've got full control). The trickier questions now are what will Mayor Johnson sacrifice from the rest of his befuddled transport plans when cuts to the rest of the transport budget come, and how much higher he will dare hoist fares to compensate? Some unpalatable combination of the two seems unavoidable. Higher fares mean fewer votes, but so might scrapping free travel for kids, scaling back your cycling ambitions and opting out of transport-related public realm improvements. Tory governments: who needs them, eh, Boris?