Transport in London is shit

I understand this semi-reluctant pile-on and side with the semi-reluctant pilers-on but Branwell Bluebell you take it far dictating who can and cannot grumble and in what capacity

Strikes should never be illegal, but more should be done to make them less like to happen. However, we don't need Taylor Law, we need Mitbestimmung.

I'm not saying who can and cannot grumble (I should be so lucky to have that power!) but more... be aware of the cultural mores behind people's behaviour.

There is a distinctly British way to say "well, that was shit, but we got through it, for the sake of the greater good" which will be accepted and even encouraged, but if you come in a thread like this and say "well, that was shit but you should be more like NYC, where we just made striking illegal, so this couldn't happen!" you are very rightly going to get a kicking. Now I leave you to it.

cheerio

"I'm new here, help me understand why strikes aren't illegal, like they are in NYC" vs "I been here 12 years, when do I get to consider myself local?" is really kinda disingenuous a bait and switch.

cf. "I'm out of here" vs. "back for another dig"

really kinda disingenuous a bait and switch.

This following you know what else doesn't happen in NYC? People getting their cancer treated, for free, by the state. is pretty rich

do you really think that laws like this are put in place to help vulnerable people?

No, I definitely don't think that, and I didn't mean to phrase it like I did think that - I did mean that they DO help vulnerable people, in the sense that they eliminate a scenario where a sick person can't get to the hospital using public transport while employment discussions are happening.

you should be more like NYC, where we just made striking illegal,

Transit striking has been illegal in NYC since the late '60s

cf. "I'm out of here" vs. "back for another dig"

I'm not out for digs! But I also couldn't bail after Also much easier to believe you are the only person in the world who matters than consider the people who provide you services also deserve to be treated like human beings., which is a super fucked up thing to accuse somebody of when you don't know anything about what they're going through. And when it really does misrepresent what I've been saying entirely.

Also, on your part, you could have (or maybe could still?) organized patients from your hospital and their families and supporters and taken signatures/requested a meeting/appeared at a gathering of the striking organization to outline the mutual benefit of an agreement that reduces your suffering while increasing support for their cause.

I like this idea (incredibly ambitious for anyone dealing with something like heavy medical treatment, where getting out of the house is an achievement, but it's a very good thought. Charing Cross hospital has a cancer support center called Maggie's where these sorts of ideas are discussed and could theoretically be enacted). I wonder how it would be received by the striking organization? It seems like here people think I've meant to say that because I think sick people shouldn't have to deal with what a strike means that I don't think the strikers' concerns are valid, which isn't the case.

my cf. was not directed at you Walter Galt but Branwell Bluebell

Perfectly possible to sympathise with strikers' concerns and think that strikes shouldn't be allowed to happen, which is ultimately what you're trying to say... isn't it?

xp

Any sympathy for the taxi drivers' action in Central London today?

lol, uber is having its biggest sign-up day in two years, up 850% on last week

which, duh, so many people probably hadn't even heard of uber before this and i don't think anyone has loyalty to cabbies per se

i mean, i've had good cab experiences and bad cab experiences but when the bad ones involve homophobia or racism or just plain ol ripping you off massively, it's hard to really go to bat for them when a better service exists

(nb: i have never used uber! because am not in the habit of taking cabs regularly. i am def going to at least investigate it now though)

I have a moderate amount of sympathy for them. The rules on metered cabs might be outdated but the suggested that Uber don't provide metered cabs because the devices used as a meter (smartphones) aren't physically attached to the cab seems fairly absurd. Either change the rules or enforce them properly.

are the vehicles/drivers on uber regulated with regard to safety, etc, in any way?

In a manner of speaking:

http://valleywag.gawker.com/why-is-uber-charging-you-extra-to-not-get-assaulted-1567825107

jfc

i mean, i've had some sketchy cabbies and ridden in some shakey jalopies in my time, but this seems a recipe for disaster. but i guess its an app that goes on yr smartphone and it saves someone money, so...

Just went to the shops and passed a gazillion cabbies stopped in traffic, out of their cabs and chatting to pedestrians about their Uber beef. Which I don't blame them for having, actually - nobody likes being undercut by tax-sheltering scum, do they, writers?

exactly, suzy.

Other topics: dodgy rapey Uber drivers in the States; French cabbies protesting who won't take any shit from anyone, hooray for them; Boris Johnson, useful idiot; in short, I managed to talk to five bald gorblimey dudes for 10 minutes and UKIP didn't come up once.

i've had the occasional racist/sexist/homophobic cab driver before, i'm guessing there will also be racist/sexist/homophobic uber drivers?

i've also had lovely cab drivers who went out of their way to take care of our welfare. and that one insane dude who explained to me over the course of a half-hour ride that all michael jackson needed was a dude who would be his real friend and not care about his fame, and how this nutty cab driver was the guy to be that friend.

My transport difficulties & frustrations are well documented in this thread, but in my experience over the last year I was splitting cab fares between Uber and Hailo (another app that calls exclusively black cabs) for a while, and while Uber was almost always cheaper, the black cabs were incredibly nice and helpful 9 out of 10 times (funnily enough I *did* get a big UKIP speech during the last one, but the same guy helped us in and out of the car and up to the front door with our stuff!)

Minor note I suppose but SO many Uber cabs stank of either cigarettes or cheap cologne, which is a fuckin' drag when you're going back and forth to a hospital and feeling exhausted and generally sensitive to that kind of environmental stuff

cabbie update, both uncharacteristic: fantastic (private) taxi driver taking me to the airport. massive rasta, stressed the importance of considerate driving, had been working nights for 20 years cos he preferred it. felt black cab guild was frequently a protection for poor driving and high prices (he said he'd had his can written off three times by drivers jumping red lights). said police also helped protect poor black cab behaviour. was taking with a pinch of salt, but he was fairly measured.

and then cab driver in glasgow today who was a massive lefty. we strongly agreed given the current government some sort of revolution was long overdue on the trip and he was heavily and articulately critical of the financification of culture.

transport in london is in the process of making me late for a wedding. never seen that much or suburban nw london before & wish I wasnt starting now

transport in london is shit at the weekend for the forseeable

Those cutesy cartoon poem things on the tube telling you to remember to drink fucking water or whatever may be the worst things done by humans ever.

the '30s/Max Fleischer style cartoons? really horrible. and London Underground generally has a reputation for inventiveness and quality around their public information creative work.

the premise for these is unfathomable.

they wouldn't bother me except the lines of the poems never seem to scan

i just assumed lots of bacon hipsters injured themselves commuting last year

hey wouldn't bother me except the lines of the poems never seem to scan

― sktsh

They don't! And they could be made to really easily. So annoying.

in china they like
to eat duck, 'n' trotter
so remember
to drink fucking water

it's quite hard!!

London Bridge this week has been o_O.

http://twitter.com/MarkOffice/status/554920025937936384/photo/1

Oh well - just picture the usual "apocalyptic scenes" (as the Standard calls it) at Brixton tube, caused by bus strike.

lol, the replies of people saying "it's always like this" and "it's because of the escalators not the buses" in between online editors going CAN WE USE YOUR PHOTO (FOR FREE) PLEASE

Looks like recent cycle superhighways being consulted on are getting approved for development... though not without a lot of anger from taxi orgs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30993893

Nice infrastructure to have, but would be even nicer to see more connectivity to the routes from places regular people actually live, i.e. outside of zone 1...

^

german documentary I saw last year on London cycling said people talk about London cycling infrastructure, but London doesn't have a cycling infrastructure. two things needed - one, the links to places people live and commute from, two enough infrastructure to ensure the old and the young can cycle happily and safely. i still get a lurch of nervousness every time I have to tackle Hyde Park Corner or vauxhall bridge.

HPC and Vauxhall Bridge are both areas that are due to be improved through upcoming superhighway schemes. Hyde Park Corner will have a track from Constitution Hill to Knightsbridge station, shared with pedestrians, and Vauxhall Bridge will have a segregated two-way track the entire length. Do you think the proposals will help your journeys there at all?

London's cycling infrastructure is developed in a really patchwork way and it doesn't help that there's been a disjoint between Ken's stuff and Boris' stuff, TfL's stuff and local authority stuff. Like I'm p sure the London Cycle Network was due for improvement under Ken, but scrapped under Boris. TfL comes out with these big exciting cycle superhighway schemes, meanwhile individual councils work on various 'quietway' routes that may or may not link up to other infrastructure or be constructed to TfL design standards. And TfL design standards are another thing entirely... guidelines say one thing, TfL does another thing. Difficult to keep up with.

Also, disclosure: I did a lot of work on these recent consultations and there are so many amazing, ridiculous comments that I would love to share. Like, seriously read comments comparing the development of cycle superhighways to the work of Hitler, Khmer Rouge, King Herod...

Always torn between what's worse about London cycling, lack of safe or segregated routes, or the appalling condition of 99% of the roads. Even the ones without actual potholes have absurd scarification from years of unorganised and unregulated digging.

yeah, i know, the uxbridge road is like the surface of the moon in places, and as for new oxford street.

salsa - i knew about the vauxhall work, but didn't realise they were doing HPC as well. probably doesn't help me that much - tend to cycle up Grosvenor Place and over onto Hyde Park itself, and the other way, from the Knightsbridge Road corner around to Grosvenor Place.

Vauxhall is certainly lethal at the moment though and there's no doubt the improvements will help. Going north it's not so bad, though the cycle route is poorly integrated with pedestrians and the bus garage. Southwards is a catalogue of danger though:

cigarette paper thin cycle lane, which both buses and hgvs partially or wholly enter. if you take the vehicle lane, which is safer, you tend to get a lot of abuse and dangerous driving. If you DO stick to the bike lane you have traffic turning left across you at the other end of the bridge, and a difficult segue into the bike lane in the pedestrianised underpass, again poorly integrated. if you choose to take the underpass, you a) need to get in the correct lane (I'm heading to Brixton), meaning at some point you have to go across three lanes of traffic. You then have snaking, fast traffic, changing lanes at the last minute into the underpass, all at high speed, an inaccessible bike lane hanging right on the other side of the underpass, meaning you again risk abuse and dangerous driving by taking the centre of the lane. the bike lane also crosses a pelican crossing, where bikes aren't stopped, which is v dangerous for pedestrians unless you're a careful cyclist, which enough aren't for it to be a danger.

so: the changes absolutely make a difference for the bridge part - not sure about the south-side underpass though? I thought there were changes planned for that, but need to look at them again.

i also understood that plans under ken were shelved under boris. i'm not totally averse to quietway routes - there's some good ones - but they're pretty much 'cyclists go where we say and stay away from cars' and aren't always convenient for actual journeys.

i can imagine the comments! there is a loathing among some people, not just in the area of cycling, of infrastructure (or policy) designed to help different people live together and reduce the pressures and stresses of living in a crowded city. it's rank stupidity.

enough infrastructure to ensure the old and the young can cycle happily and safely

not holding my breath. not letting my kids cycle by themselves until they're 40 years old

comments presumably on these sorts of lines from the head of the LDTA, salsa? sacrificed on the altar of bio-ism....

Yeah, there were plenty of rambling things like that, although 'sacrificed on the altar of bio-ism' and 'eco-warriors' battling everyone is a new one.

re: Quietways, I tend to feel the same way. They are often better than nothing but so many are indirect and they'll never inspire a good level of commute-cycling. I also find a lot of them to be pretty poorly signposted and last time I checked there was next to no information online about Quietway routes. Unless you have a paper TfL cycle map the Quietways can be difficult to find and interchange between.

(and by quietways I also mean London Cycling Network)

and on the matter of LTDA, here is an ad that supposedly appeared in their magazine

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8gnWjnIcAAD0jo.png

siiighhh

Cabanagh QC

I wonder if this has happened to anyone else, it happened to me on the way to work on Monday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sCBrW2l-jY

Bus driver didn't know what to do, turned the engine off, turned it back on again and it was still going. Everyone just got off the bus and walked off. By that time, the ninjas, Nazi Stormtroopers, Apache braves had stopped attacking the bus.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/23/london-transport-chief-tfl-sir-peter-hendy-capital-trains-shit

Does this make it official?