The release of tube ridership figures today, showing journeys down, is an attempt to shape the debate about the forthcoming announcement of next January’s fares package, in such a way as to justify a big increase.

The mayor is trying to soften the blow – not financially to Londoners, but to his reputation.

Boris Johnson already announced last year that he is committed to above-inflation fare increases year-on-year.

This January Boris  Johnson whacked up fares by six per cent overall, despite Londoners feeling the effects of harder economic times. In some cases the fare increase was even higher. Single bus fares by Oyster went up by eleven per cent, hitting many Londoners on low incomes hard.

Johnson will feel the heat if he hurts Londoners in the pocket when so many people are worried about their jobs or being forced to work for less pay.

So TfL is preparing the ground for the fares rise by releasing the tube ridership figures.

Johnson’s problem is that TfL’s budget projections would be a lot better if he had not taken so many damaging financial decisions himself, slicing out revenue streams in an ideological frenzy in favour of the motor car at the expense of London as a whole.

To repeat my point from earlier today, on the issue of the government’s row with Johnson over air quality, the mayor is planning to throw away £50-70million every single year by halving the size of the congestion charge zone. He axed the £25 higher charge on gas guzzlers driving into the zone which was projected to bring in around £50million a year. He dumped the mutually beneficial agreement with Venezuela, meaning that TfL now has to fully fund half price travel for people on income support itself.

Add to this his wasting of Londoners’ money by taking bendy buses off the roads in favour of a solution that is worse for congestion, air quality, and capacity. He plans to waste yet more money on his ‘new Routemaster.’

The mayor should be looking for ways to avoid a damaging fare increase, both to protect hard-pressed Londoners in the midst of a recession, and to press ahead with London’s previous success in promoting public transport.

All the signs are that an announcement on a fare increase is imminent. Londoners using public transport will pay while drivers of the most polluting cars have been protected.

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UPDATE, 19:20: BBC London has this clip on its website, in which Johnson is pulled away by his minders before being forced to comment. Yet another example of how unaccountable this mayor is compared to his predecessor, who held weekly press conferences. But although Johnson’s unwillingness to comment is revealing, the BBC’s future coverage ought to look at how the mayor himself is making things worse financially – such as hi disastrous decisions on congestion charging.