Transport in London is shit

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?

I'm lucky enough to be able to separate commuter trains into London from TfL-run transport - though when I do have to use them they are reliably beset by cancellations, delays and outright lies (boards telling you your train is on time even though it's already five minutes overdue). I looked at the stats last year for one of them, I can't remember which one, and three things jumped out:

1) A very high percentage (something between 5% and in some months 15%) of trains fell into the categories of 'delayed' (ie severely delayed) or 'cancelled'. That's a staggering number. At best one in twenty trains not running properly.
2) The worst delays - and these are 'unplanned' delays - were during summer. That suggests to me understaffing, or poor organisation.
3) The rail companies were clearly treating this as risk management - it made financial sense to run insufficient rolling stock, to understaff and to rely on regular cancellation.

That said, a particularly bad run last week on the tubes. Wasn't cycling, and got caught for 40 minutes between stations on the Bakerloo Line, and the next day for an hour on the Central Line.

Excellent London Reconnections blog here by the way. Might explain some of the Bakerloo Line woes, which were caused by a broken-down train.

A year and change later and it's the same shit. This time the rail union is complaining that the night tube threatens the "work-life balance" of drivers. Are they striking to "keep Sunday special" too?

TFL has managed to unite all four unions against them on this one — last time that happened was 1926. Impressive, that.

Their offers on night tube have been so derisory you'd almost think they didn't want it to happen after all.

Not sure of the point of night tube, nothing is open anyway. I guess tube workers can use it to get home after working on the night tube.

Their offers on night tube have been so derisory you'd almost think they didn't want it to happen after all.

this. they're being expected to work Friday and Saturday nights for a 2% raise.

personally I am outraged at being slightly inconvenienced

TFL took over the train I get to work so it's part of the Overground now. An exercise in be careful what you wish for, service has actually got worse than when Abellio Greater Anglia ran it.

The Chingford line? Yeah I use that too. It has been a disappointment thus far, though the stations are at least being better managed.

One person's luxurious 'slightly inconvenienced' is another person's 'threatens my livelihood and in some cases, health regimen.' But I'm happy for you that you personally can just be chill about it.

How is this sort of thing not moderated by an independent agency?

is your health regimen that of tube users or tube workers I cannot tell

^^^ me too!

dreading the rush hour surge as everyone tries to get as much tube in as possible

But I'm happy for you that you personally can just be chill about it.

cheers bro means a lot

There was someone way upthread iirc who had a medical condition that required them to make a tube journey every day (eg to get to hospital)

Kinda feel the NHS should have alternative arrangements for situations like that, though.

maybe try tipping the tube drivers to see if you better service

How is this sort of thing not moderated by an independent agency?

Do you mean the negotiations between the unions and the govt?

Given the plans this government have for union activity in this country, I doubt you'll have to worry about strike disruptions for much longer

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/seb-michnowicz/tube-strike-is-entirely-justified_b_7751262.html

If you're single, as Amy Roberts - the Northern Line's youngest driver - explains, it's difficult enough trying to date around working the tube's normal hours. In the WiFi-less depths of the network, you can't even check Tinder.

Ready for the robots now.

maybe it's the marxist extremist in me speaking but i'm generally p cool with people fighting to have acceptable working conditions that allow for acceptable living conditions

https://twitter.com/petefrasermusic/status/618710130088087552

maybe it's the marxist extremist in me speaking but i'm generally p cool with people fighting to have acceptable working conditions that allow for acceptable living conditions

This.

Walked two hours from Tottenham to Marylebone High St, through Finsbury Park and Camden and Regent's Park, listening to great music and taking in how beautiful London can be. P knacked now, but part of me wishes I could walk in every day.

myself and my coworkers all went to the pub - like a sudden decision prompted by nobody wanting to face westminster tube at 1730. it was a great impromptu night out.

[I meant I walked in this morning, above. Last night I walked 90 mins to Shoreditch to play a particularly knackering game of 5-a-side - luckily my route home was on the overground.]

ah i am working from home today

possibly my most banal post ever

actually i doubt it

i've made some worse than these for sure

hahahaha

working from home today too, the drilling of my road has just begun.

Also working from home but the VPN isn't working of course.

My road has been a construction site for about 18 months now but they're pretty quiet today, no drilling yet.

http://cl.ly/image/2O0k2x36193h/Screen%20Shot%202015-07-09%20at%2009.32.41.png

just as a disclaimer i only used these dudes once, to get back from a wedding reception in vauxhall, with two tired kids at 11pm

this sort of email just confirms what utter dickheads they are

I can categorically state right now that I have not and will never be troubled with an Uber rating.

Only one Thatcherbaby whinger on my FB feed, phew. A well-paid hairdresser who I've always suspected of being some kind of Tory.

Tube workers all the way, fuck Boris and the TFL... A.

What the fuck is up with cunts who, in spite of the fact that 5000 people are trying to get on an already overcrowded bus, won't use all the space at the back of the bus? And what the fuck is the problem with someone, anyone, having the gumption to say, "Listen, do you mind moving to the back of the bus there's 5000 people trying to get on here?" Anyway there was one such cunt on the bus I eventually managed to get on today, a couple of stops after theatrically barging my way past him to stand at the very back of the bus an empty seat became available, I sat down on it then got up and said to the guy, "I think you should have this seat as you don't seem prepared to move further up the bus to let more people on". He preferred to stand.

https://twitter.com/RMTLondon/status/618889268434317312

boom

Zingin' it