Transport in London is shit

I don't know about the tube, but the rail companies apparently make over £100m profit a year in London, and the cost for providing staff is estimated to be between £2m to £4m a year.

I don't find them comfortable in the slightest. They seem much harder than the seats on most other buses * and, into the bargain, the poor suspension on those vehicles gives a very bumpy ride in my experience.

* the notable exceptions to this that I've found are a few of the buses used on the 341 route which have purple seats with ridiculously thin upholstery; but these are not to be confused with some others on the same route which also have purple seats but which are wonderfully comfortable.

Very true. Resolving as I did about 4 years ago not to travel on it any more was one of the best decisions I have ever made, in a number of ways.

Is this actually true? I'd always thought received wisdom said the exact opposite.

Public transport in London is good, but wasn't really designed to serve a city that's growing this fast - seems to be where all the problems stem from.

Oak - are you the person I think you are? Something rings familiar here.

*maybe not if you use the northern line

kings cross - south wimbledon, last thursday, circa midnight = 100 minutes

but yeah, mostly its good. 24 hour tubes would be nice.

outside london you can, you know, walk or cycle places.

you can do those things inside london too, you know.

Eh? How many people do you reckon they employ?

i cant see train travel getting much cheaper as a result of competition from air travel. maybe we should read my friends dissertation about rail/air competition for business travel between leeds and london. isnt the problem partly that franchising to an extent creates kinda flabby uncompetitive practice, where profits can be made in relative safety from predatory activity, if there isnt strong enough contractual arrnagements or tight enough regulation on the performance of the franchisee?

eg "we award you this contract but will continue to allow you to increase fares/reduce penalties for poor performance, and you can do this for the next 10 years" as opposed to "you have a guaranteed revenue stream for the next 10 years but oyu must ensure to do X Y Z and not do P Q and S"?

i dont really know anything about this anyways.

i guess in a sense i dont really compare london to other cities in europe so that gives me a warped sense of how good transport is in comparison to other UK CITIES (dear sirz, outside of london there are population sizes larger than Basildon, Letchworth, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy). but then again what other european cities are comparable? how does paris do? it might be hyperbole but what euro cities are comparable in terms of geograpohic spread, density of developemnt, population etc etc?

moscow was pretty awesome but they run everything on vodka there, or something. actually it was sort of shit outside the metro, but it depends what your criteria for "good public transport" are

When it comes to the 'after midnight' bit, in London that usually means walking through the rain then freezing at a bus stop for half an hour then sitting on a very slow nightbus full of nutters, or paying twenty-five quid to a random ex-convict with a 'taxi' who'll drive you home (eventually, after getting lost) while spouting reactionary nonsense at you the whole way. In New York there seem to be five yellow taxis waiting for you immediately at any time, they don't cost much, and with the grid system they don't get lost.

again, its hard not to laugh when you are subject to the whims of a properly deregulated market outside of london. First Groups bus fares went up 4 times in a year in s yorks, now its 1.50 a single on first buses. still 1.20/30 in london?

as for tube fares, what is expensive about a 2.50 tube fare? in comparison to previous prices? or are you assessing the cost of labour, infrastructure, distance travelled etc etc and concluding that it is overpriced?

-- ambrose (ambrosewhit...), February 14th, 2006.

what's expensive is, it's expensive! let someone else do the math. but yes 'distance travelled' being about 2-3 miles, it does seem out of proportion.

still 1.20/30 in london?

It's now £1.50. Considering that, what 4 years ago(?), local journeys were 70p, I'd say that is somewhat above the rate of inflation.

another factor to consider might be the *vast fucking profits* made by the operator too?

Bendy Bus 38 on diversion Saturday. Confused the hell out of me. KEN OUT! etc.

But 80p on Oyster or Carnet.

*or sitting down on the floor where they get kicked
** for many people, they won't know their train isn't coming until several minutes after the fact since all the video terminals are fucked

OAPs get freedom passes and their are concessionary fares for Jobseekers/New Deal

Not having an oyster of some sort is foolish

I never heard of this when I was signing on, but that was a couple of years ago.

Now I just get the X68 both ways (long walk at the Zone 1 end, but I probably need it) and tend to spend around £30-35/month. (Z1-3 Travelcard is £100/mo, Z1-2 is £85/mo [would allow me to use buses outside Z2 but not rail], All Zone Bus Pass is £52/mo).

The capping of Oyster Pre-Pay so that you never pay more than an equivalent daily Travelcard or Bus Pass if you find yrself bus- and Tube-hopping is a nice feature. Now, if they'd just install Oystercard readers at SE London surburban rail stations...

The full horror of British Rail prices will soon hit me as my Young Persons Rail Card runs out in March. A peak time return from Glasgow to Edinburgh costs about £18. That's a 40 minute journey. Peak time Glasgow to Stirling, however, costs £8.30. And that's a 35 minute journey. WTF?

That said, having travelled on the geriatric, freezing and slow trains south of London in order to get to ATP, we've at least got half decent rolling stock in Scotland. At least, in those parts of the country unaffected by the Beeching Cuts.

London transport is pretty decent, but then I don't live there so don't have to face all the problems commuters do. The big problem with transport systems in British cities is the lack of integration. The best public transport I've come across is in Berlin. As soon as you work out the difference between the s-bahn and the u-bahn etc you're sorted.

dude, you're not.

when you're looking to move somewhere - in london or elsewhere - you check out the transport links (tube, buses, nightbuses, overground, tram, dlr, whatever) and if the provision is incompatible with your lifestyle, don't move to that part of london/wherever. i'm sure there are far-flung places on london's edges that are not served by nightbuses, but i've never found any and wtf would you be living there for? it's not meant for you, obviously.

In my experience "flagging a bus down" involves standing purposefully at the edge of the stop and fixing the driver with a gimlet stare as the bus approaches. If still unsure as to whether it will stop, raise your hand in an apologetic half-wave until the driver activates their indicator. Then say "cheers" to them as you get on. Job done.

I've never heard of a request stop in my life, think this must have been phased out.

Still a bunch of those near me in Tottenham, on the W4 route for example. As far as I can see the dictinction is that request stops don't actually have physical bus-stops or even signs - the bus-driver knows where the stops are, and will stop there if you ping the bell.

I've lived in London all my life and have always pinged the bell if I've wanted to get off, and never assumed a bus will stop at the stop I'm waiting unless I wave my arms a bunch (although occasionally, when I've been out late, a nightbus has stopped to see if I wanted to get on and wasn't dosing and thus missing the bus).

The bus stopping for a bit because it's ahead of schedule was definitely a thing pre-pandemic.

Yeah the demise of the card bopper in the middle of buses is the single biggest downgrade in London buses, why yes I’d LOVE to join a group of people all trying to board a bus through the single point of entry while two others are exit-only 🙃

ok so request stops are like the TFL secret menu? learn something new every day.

xpost

And yeah I thought buses being held to even out service was a very widely known thing, is this a Mandela effect bit

is this a false memory or did the heatherwick (curse his name) routemasters originally have a card bopper at the rear 'third' exit too

and yeah, some of the more provincial routes do have secret request stops. the 380 has a run of stops in deepest Blackheath that are virtually unsignposted. often it coincides with a 'hail and ride' section, there's a fuzzy grey area where there are designated drop-off points but you can arguably (?) hail it from anywhere along the section, especially if visibly infirm, idk, anyway these tend to be in very well-to-do suburbs

Yeah they did. Incredible how they cut out their single best operational advantage to just be a double decker with an extra exit that bakes passengers at temperatures above 20C.

Went all in on a cycle-only commute eighteen months ago (45-55 mins one way) and don't regret it although do occasionally miss the 'people watching' aspect of bus travel and not feeling in constant mid-level threat mode on London's gnarly highways, as improved as the cycling infrastructure may be.

I have tried doing the London bit of my commute (Liverpool St to Bloomsbury) by bike but it was frankly terrifying.

Yeah those new routemasters have always ben underwhelming and also a bit NOISY (I have hearing damage but ymmv).

It's been a long time since I lived in London but my recollection is that if the stop wasn't a request stop (i.e. it said "bus stop" rather than "request stop") buses would automatically stop there even if no-one was waiting to get on and no-one had rung the bell to get off.

Yes this is what I thought - but apparently that's no longer the case (and may not have been the case for a long time!) So as a passenger you have to bing the bell like every stop is a request stop.

We live on a route (W3) where the bus is always late so there's often two (or three!) duelling buses behind each other. This morning I saw passengers at the stop in front of me and didn't ring the bell because I assumed the bus would stop for them. But because there was already a W3 parked there, it just overtook the bus instead.

Personally I don't think buses should skip stops if there's two buses at the stop, as there could be someone with a wheelchair/pram who can't get on the first bus.

I've always dinged the bell for every bus stop I've ever got off at, since 1998...

I'm remembering bus routes on the outskirts of London from 70s/80s and there were a load of stops that weren't mandatory but haven't lived in London for a few decades. So can see things may have changed and it only being those hopper buses it would be true of now. I thought there was some kind of a stop at the places around my mother's house but now wondering if the stop near the doctor's we used to use has one. Thought there would need to be some signifier and some way of keeping space cleared at kerb to allow bus to stop.

If the catch up with official schedule stopping predated the pandemic it wasn't by much here. But that may be just here and possibly other smaller town/cities around the country. As in not Dublin. I didn't hear the policy announced and did need to work out that it was unlikely that one would get lucky and catch up on lost time once it was instituted. Also noticing that one can get on a bus thinking it might catch up with how far behind schedule everybody at the stop is and the driver continue to act like he is on a later schedule which is annoying. Stopping and waiting for schedule when a couple of buses previous to them have not appeared. Must be some way around that since it can happen during morning rush hour. Only response at the time was a comment that they couldn't get the drivers. Doesn't help people avoid being late for work or alter a clock in timer.

often it coincides with a 'hail and ride' section

ah yeah, the W4 is totally a "hail and ride" section, though there are specific (albeit unmarked) spots where the bus will stop, like the top of our road - it won't just stop if you wave at it/ring the bell outside your house. We are definitely not a "well-to-do suburb", tho.

if a stop serves more than one bus route then surely you always have to flag it to get on, otherwise it would be assumed you're waiting for a different bus.

Dinging the bell is one of the pleasures of bus travel.

Which tells you all you need to know about bus travel.

dinging the bell, sitting on the top deck and looking out, saying cheers to the driver when you get off (front door exit only) (make sure to catch their eye in the rear view mirror), rating the people sitting across or next to you...

bus is the most fun way to travel (if you're not in a hurry) imo. You get to look out the window! You get to stay out late!!

It's certainly miles better than the tube! Unfortunately I am in a hurry when I'm on a bus and not knowing if it'll take any time between 12 minutes to an hour to get to my work in the morning is a bit stressful.

Old-style Routemaster rope bell-pulls were the best, shame about the non-existent pushchair/wheelchair access mind but you could always have fun timing your rise to the feet / bell-pull combo. Yes I am old btw.

last night's Secrets of The London Undergound about West Ashfield station was fascinating, especially the custom signage, route mas etc

(route maps)

( pics here https://www.londonreconnections.com/2010/west-ashfield-part-1-models-great-and-small/ )

London Overground: New names for its six lines revealed
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68296483

My line will now be there Weaver line. OK I guess. Maroon not my favourite colour. Lioness line" would have driven me nuts so glad I don't live in Watford.

New Overground line names: an exercise in turd-polishing from a Mayor seeking re-election.

Lioness line in honour of Women's World Cup losers.

I'm going to call it the Lionessless Lion

Gonna poll...

i'm pretty glad they've got names, "major delays on the overground" is of 0 use. The names themselves, eh. I'm on Windrush though, which is great.