It's time to scrap the tube zones

The tube zone you live in can become a form of identity. It says something about your economic means and social type. Are you, or your parents, stupendously rich yet somehow pay half the council tax everyone else does? (Zone 1.) Were you once cool, but now you have children? (Zone 3.) Does your morning consist of blearily watching your personal space slowly erode on the long commute? (Zones 6+.)

But this is Stockholm Syndrome. We’ve lived our lives as hostages to the zones for so long, we’ve begun to feel affection for our captors; even to dream that they might love us back. 

They don’t, and this is a proposal to liberate ourselves and scrap them altogether. I’ll come to what we could replace them with — a system that would both save most passengers money and give TfL’s coffers a boost. But for now, just focus on the very obvious aesthetic reasons to show the zones the door. One of the simplest ways to alleviate the migraine-inducing effects of the modern tube map would be to de-zone it.

As a case study for this grand redesign, let’s take the Jubilee line. It cuts across Zones 1 to 5 and has no branches, making it a bit easier to deal with. And we’ll use peak journey prices for adults with no concession, to keep it simple.

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