Paddick: £40 a mile on the Tube

The Liberal Democrat mayoral candidate highlighted that they pay £4 in cash to go a tenth of a mile - between Embankment and Charing Cross. The cash fare between Leicester Square and Covent Garden equates to £13.33 a mile.

Even using an Oyster Card, these journeys cost £15 and £5 respectively per mile, according to the Liberal Democrats.

But Transport for London hit back, accusing Mr Paddick of selecting a one-stop journey - between Embankment and Charing Cross - made by only 19 people a day. A spokesman said: "For this and other shorter journeys we encourage customers to walk." However, Mr Paddick emphasised it would be cheaper per mile to travel on the Orient Express from London to Beaulieu in the New Forest or fly standard class to America.

Attacking Mayor Ken Livingstone, he said: "It's over 120 times more expensive per mile travelled to take the Tube from Embankment to Charing Cross than it is to take a train from London to Birmingham.

"It's even cheaper per mile to fly to New York. No wonder Londoners and visitors to the capital are raging when it costs the earth to get from A to B. What kind of Mayor makes people pay through the nose when they are getting a cattle class service on the Tube every day?"

Mr Paddick aims to cut fares through efficiency savings at Transport for London but has made no pledge on the issue.

The Tube fares were compared with flying from Heathrow to New York. A £499 ticket for the 3,458 miles equates to 0.14 per mile. A nostalgic trip on the Orient Express from London to Beaulieu, at £190 equates to 2.07 per mile for the distance to the New Forest.

Other journeys highlighted were from Oxford Circus to a number of Tube stations. To Marylebone it worked out at £3.64 per mile using cash or £1.36 with an Oyster card, to Paddington £1.90 or 71p, to King's Cross £1.67 or 62p, to Victoria £1.33 or 50p or to Waterloo £1.29 or 48p.

The cash fare for a single Tube journey in central London rose from £3 to £4 last year.

But Transport for London stressed that only 3.5 per cent of people travelling by Tube pay in cash.

A spokesman said: "The comparisons between fare cost per mile are flawed because the challenge of keeping London moving is of a different scale. Bus and Tube alone carry over 10 million people a day where the whole UK national rail network carries between 3-4 million and there are around 630,000 daily passengers on UK flights."

The TfL spokesman added: "2008 Single Oyster fares are frozen at 2007 prices which is contributing to the record numbers of passengers we're seeing using the Tube."