Transport in London is shit

The cinema advert is horrid, and lasts about four hours.

I got a £20 fine last night because the station I was going to didn't have a fucking Oyster reader

Can you get it back? That's really their fault surely.

They nabbed about 4 other people saying the same thing as me, and basically said tough shit it was your responsibility to check before you travelled, so probably not. I'm going to appeal though, cos it's bollocks really.

Which station, out of interest? I didn't think there were many without these days.

Wood Street. Apparently the Oyster readers stop at Walthamstow Central, where I usually get off, but I had to go to the doctors, so I went on 1 more stop. Honestly didn't know it was in zone 4, but I have prepay on my Oyster anyway so tend not to worry about such things normally.

Yeah that is absolute bullshit.

I think you're all cynical bastards and that the adverts are quite cute. I don't have to stare at them every day though, so I guess the annoyingness doesn't quite seep into me.

they remind me of Love Is... urgh

Useless revenue protection staff - it's not that there isn't an Oyster reader at that station, it's that Pre-pay on NR is far from prefect, and is only valid as far as Walthamstow Central.

It's a complete mess, I found this map the other day which is useful in seeing where Pre-Pay is and isn't valid on National Rail (almost used overground there, which leads to more confusion, ie the 'overground train' in colloquial use, and the London Overground which is the North London Line and other ex-Silverlink Metro services - this has its own set of Pre-Pay anomalies too!). They should either introduce total Z1-6 Pre-pay fares on NR, or none at all. Having bits of lines here and there is just stupid.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/tickets/oyster-PAYG-08-01-02.pdf

That's lousy, Colonel. Surely the point of penalty fares is to nab people who were trying to dodge the fare. What is wrong with just getting you to pay the extra station? (rhetorical question)

Thanks for the map, Bocken. I'm baffled as to why I'm not allowed to use PAYG at my station, Hornsey, on the line north of Finsbury Park, but can use it for stations south of FP on precisely the same line...

In truth CP probably ought to have swotted up on his zones beforehand but then we have to remember that the point of penalty fares is to raise revenue for the Olympics Transport for London.

Those fascists that march through the carriages in gangs of four with their big bastard coats on are worse than fucking muggers, bouncers and traffic wardens put together. They contribute nothing good to the world.

There were about 10 cops standing around at Walthamstow Central when I finally got home just doing fuck all, why weren't they out catching real criminals, eh, eh?

Everytime I go through there now I expect to be stop & searched.

Choob STRIKE

because of what madonna said?

"This dispute boils down to properly trained Tube staff wanting to post lolcats instead of working."

I blame Mackenzie Crook

"This dispute boils down to properly trained Tube staff wanting to post lolcats instead of working."

LOL this is me RIGHT NOW.

Okay this is way cool:

http://onabus.com/

That is cool. Acknowledges a big gap on the TfL site.

It'd be cooler if:

a)they had a cross-referenced index of all the buses and all the stops, so if I want to get to, say holloway road, I don't need to go to journey planner first.

b)I had an iphone or whatever; it's obviously aimed at mobile internet users "on a bus".

Or if you could compare more than one route at the same time.

what's it meant to do? nothing's happening...

One or two people at work have had the same problem. It displays a Google map plotting the bus route in question in a useful kind of way.

Except it doesn't work on two mobile phones I just tried it on. I'm calling useless.

wow that is awesome. i bet it definitely works on an iPhone..

hmm, it thought a 73 went from Upminster to Tilbury

it's obviously aimed at mobile internet users "on a bus".

i.e. "onabus.com"

Doesn't work on a Blackberry either, you just get a list of bus stops which can surely be of no real use to anyone.

I was hoping the photos would be view from the top deck

Yeah I checked the 73 route, that's a funny one! x-post

next step from that being videos of journeys end to end xp

It thought a C11 was some sort of coach service from Kent too, but there's a list of other routes below the stops list. Not ideal.

I was hoping the photos would be view from the top deck

I noticed google maps now has a thing where it shows locations of photos (presumably in picasa?) and wikipedia pages on the maps now.

No photos/Google maps coming up on my view either EPIC FAIL

Hmm obviously very Beta at the moment.

doesn't work on my PC either

ok works on firefox

should tell you where you can change to other buses

Basically onthebus.com reveals exactly why they invented spider maps.

and asks the question why they invented the W7 bus route
http://onabus.com/?route=w7

Yes, I never quite worked out the rationale behind that one.

The really inexplicable one is the bus which goes from the top of Barnet to the bottom of Barnet and back again but I can't remember its number.

W7 useful for getting to tube black hole Muswell Hill from that other tube black hole Stoke Newington.

Every time I'm in Stoke Newington every bus seems to go nowhere except Edmonton. What's the attraction?

http://www.onroutebus.com/wp-content/themes/onroute-theme/images/fp91.jpg

http://www.onroutebus.co.uk

transport in London the UK is shit

For example, in Britain long-distance turn-up-and-go fully flexible day-return fares to the principal city (London) were 87% more expensive than in the next most expensive country surveyed - Germany.

This type of British fare was also more than three times as expensive than in the cheapest country surveyed - the Netherlands.

British annual season tickets for journeys of no more than 25 miles were 88% more expensive than the next most expensive country - France - and more than four times pricier than the cheapest country - Italy.

We should be rioting in the street or burning mainline stations to a cinder in protest.

train fares in my part of the world have gone up by about 80% in the last, ooh, six, seven years. Dunno how that's justifiable in terms that aren't nonsense. Also, why is cross-country train travel so amazingly expensive when not purchased months in advance? For example, when Southern Rail (or someone) made me miss a bus from London to Glasgow with their 50 minute late train, they agreed to pay for us to get a train from London to Glasgow instead. Three single tickets: £318. Who actually buys tickets at that price?

OK, can I just complain about this a moment?

I had to go to a job interview this morning, so I hopped on a 159 expecting to get to Central London in about an hour. There was a road diversion so that it took over HALF AN HOUR to get to Brixton (normally a 15 minute busride) - so I hopped off at Brixton and decided to take the tube because I needed to be there by 11am.

It was FOUR POUNDS for a single. FOUR POUNDS to travel from zone 2 to zone 1.

That is just COMPLETELY out of order. And don't go on about Oyster cards because I STILL live in an area where they STILL don't take Oyster cards on my local train.

FOUR POUNDS. FOUR EARTH POUNDS. FOR A SINGLE. FROM ZONE 2 TO ZONE 1.

I can remember when I moved back to the UK, a bloody travelcard for the DAY was not quite four pounds. How can inflation have gone up that much?

And don't go on about Oyster cards

hey how about you get an oyster card for, like, the bus and the tube?

Can I please proffer the opinion that London transport is actually quite good.