Transport in London is shit

Overground closes not much later than the tube though. And is mostly only just outside the centre anyway

The new Shoreditch station is close enough to the City really, it's only a 5min walk to Liverpool street.

http://bnb.bpweb.net/londonoverground/

This will be amazing when it's finally functioning.

Would be very impressed if someone could now make a map with the Tube inside the concentric circles of the Overground, adhering to the 45deg angles of the Beck design.

also a map showing where the trains are updating realtime. i found a map for the Copenhagen metro which does this but it's almost certainly just based on the timetable rather than live.

Always loved the Brussels metro signs which have bulbs showing where each train is on each line serving your platform.

The trains' positions are already known and indicated on the "Arriving in (x) minutes" boards on the platforms, so I can't see how it would be hard to do.

Horrible new logo:

http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/cycle-hire-logo.png

Boris Johnson today announced he had sold the naming rights to his new London cycle hire scheme for £25 million.

Barclays Bank, which already sponsors the football Premier League, has agreed to pay the sum in a five-year deal that will see its branding used on the Mayor's 12 “cycle super highways” being created across the capital.

The bike scheme, which will be known as Barclays Cycle Hire, will launch on July 30 in central London. All 6,000 bikes will carry the Barclays logo.

the new east london line is fucked still

Yes, I'm hearing tales of unreliability, misannounced platforms, cancellations. But I think the novelty of getting to Brick Lane/Docklands/Hoxton in under 40min from Palace (and the fact that Oyster PAYG into Z1 from down here in SE19 is actually a quid cheaper via the ELL (changing at Canada Water or Whitechapel) than the old method of Southern into London Bridge) is outweighing the teething troubles at the mo'.

lol king's cross has a platform 0

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4031/4695003549_bd3547e3e3.jpg

Work at the station has recently uncovered these amazing advertising posters in non-public areas and that date from c1956 - 1959 when the station's lifts were removed and replaced by escalators. These are in an old lift passageway.

ELL train runs through its entire announcement vocabulary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct9COwWu69k

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"The beast and his armies will rise from the pit to make war with God"

Really is shit today...Getting from Queensway to south London was a nightmare.

Transport for London has announced that it's lifting all restrictions on the commercial use of its data. The move could fuel an explosion in mobile apps that need access to the datasets, making them more attractive to developers who want to charge for their apps.

ELL train runs through its entire announcement vocabulary:

I tip my hat to the female voice artist - flawlessly consistent for every one of her recorded takes!

Work at the station has recently uncovered these amazing advertising posters in non-public areas

They're wonderful. A couple of years ago I snapped some late-'80s/early-'90s posters that were uncovered during a refurb at Oxford Circus, but nothing as good as the stuff linked to above...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/149/370309428_88b1516794.jpg

still think they should have some MANnouncers on the trains (and buses) sometimes

Stations tend to have male voices don't they? Seem to recall somewhere between Holborn and Piccadilly Circus on the Picc Line having the station PA shouting all over the woman on the train. Would be good to go Barcelona-style and have them share sentences.

IIRC they use male for platform announcement and female for train so blind people can tell what is making the announcement. Similar in New York I think.

was there the other weekend, wasn't as sensible as that - train announcements were '(HIM) The next station is (HER) sagrada familia!'

in barcelona that is

I like that. Maybe one day he'll snap at her interruptions.

"Please move down inside the bus" drives me mad.

esp when the driver starts hammering on it 50 times in a row when the bus is already rammed and nobody can actually move

also, Croydon tram has a mannouncer

Really hate the "don't stand on the stairs one", 'cos people just ignore it, so the driver just carries on pressing it - why not just use the PA to tell them off? That used to work pretty well.

Yeah people might actually respond to a driver's instruction/request more than Robot Woman. But then you might have to pay them the same as tube drivers idk.

Nice, if effectively useless: http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/

I would actually pay money for 1x app to do that for the buses.

it's only a guess though - takes start times and journey times and linearly interpolates. doesn't allow any time for stopping at stations either.

Oh, in that case, boo.

Presumably a bus tracker which accesses the (admittedly dodgy) information you see on the dot matrices at some bus stops would be possible? I've no idea whether that would work, but I would adore something like this: http://www.ctabustracker.com/bustime/map/displaymap.jsp

I thought NYC had male recordings on the train.. In a big cheerful midwestern accent no less - "Stand clear of the closing doors, please!"

occasionally that map will show something zooming into euston and zooming immediately back out again, going about mach2.

tim, just wait for the future:
http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2009/10/transport-for-london-to-enable-bus-tracking-via-sms-mobile-web-in-2011/

Took the new overground from Hackney to Richmond this weekend -- lovely quick ride, but the windows are TINY. Shame, since the view's one of the best in London I got back ache trying to twist round and look out. </old man>

Boris Johnson today warned that his flagship bike hire scheme faces a rash of problems when it launches tomorrow.

A Standard investigation has found that cyclists faced a shortage of bikes and problems returning them to the “docking stations”.

Transport for London this morning admitted that more than around 1,300 of the 6,000 “Boris bikes” will not be ready for hire when the scheme starts at 6am.

Our research also suggests that around 3,000 of the 10,200 docking points will not be built in time.

Docking station right outside my office. Are they supposed to be working yet?

Tomorrow morning, if you have pre-registered for the smart card thing.

is there a thread for the cycling scheme?

Boris thread possibly?

bit of chat here: Cycling London

the Train Lady Voice told me which side of the train the doors were going to open at the next stop!

I got one of them at the weekend. It is THE FUTURE. Unfortunately I can't tell my left from my right, but still...

I walked onto some kind of crazy futuristic Victoria Line train the other day. The upholstery was electric blue.

On the TfL homepage, for some strange reason:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvfq_maaVig

3 hours 40 mins to get into work today, a new record

Walked to work. 45 mins. Had a race with the 271 bus on the way, beat the fucker by miles.

All the 38s started kicking everyone off at Angel "because the bus is running late - it's OK there are 3 more along in a minute" which are all full and don't stop, and now there are 4 bus loads of people waiting to get on one. WTF TFL.

Then it turned out the Victoria line had started running again so got a bus to Kings Cross and managed to get in, but really I should've just stayed in bed til 10am, I'd have got to work at the same time.

I saw the (still) traffic on the road outside my flat, and decided to walk to work instead (I've been doing this occasionally over the last few weeks anyway).

What amused me was the bunch of people waiting at the stop at the top of Rosebery avenue waiting for the 19/38, and then walking past all the 19&38 buses turning around a couple of minutes down the road. I wonder how long those people waited to get on a bus (when they would have a seat just by walking to the next stop).

Oh and seeing business men at the back of the Thames Clippers taking photos on their phones of the view along the river on their way to work.

Er, that's where I got kicked off the 38, you know when buses turn around they are going in the opposite direction?

Specific examples of ticket office reductions in opening hours here.

(ie what they're striking about, amongst other things).

I tend to just go through the open gates if I can't get a ticket and there's no one around and leave my 'honest face' (evasive and full of shifty cunning) to do the talking at the other end, but I guess there are those who don't have my brazen chutzpah, and will decide not to travel (tourists? OAPs?)