Transport in London is shit

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.

OTM

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

Oh good - not this again...How much research does there need to be to prove it?

To repeat something upthread: It's people not complaining, and not comparing it to more modern transport systems, that's partly responsible for London's transport remaining shit.

International competitiveness studies always highlight the expense of transport, crumbling infrastructure, and historic lack of investment as a negative factor in London's economic position.

There's such a wide range of factors which differ between cities: climate, sprawl, population density, geography, layout, that I don't see how I can one can ever conduct meaningful research. Maybe other cities have better transport, but I'm still amazed *every single day* that this jumbled sprawling metropolis, the largest in Europe, is held together by a transport system which has got me from A to B every day since I've lived here somehow or other.

[I can feel myself going a bit Marcello about this - probably the long-term built up frustration of all those poor journeys - so please adjust following for any hyperbole]

For that matter, there's such diversity between countries that you might as well say we can never compare economies fully, so can never carry out meaningful research and know that the Zimbabwean economic system is worse than - for example - Denmark... We might as well pack up all attempts at comparison....

Please raise your expectations over what a city transport system can provide - if not for yourself, for everyone else because (I suspect) a lot of improvements are demand-led.

If we just continue accept the clapped out inefficient expensive 'system' we've got in a well-intended but misguided, mustn't grumble/had worse/blitz spirit/forelock tugging manner, it'll never improve.

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

Tourist tax, innit.

Also, the fact that you've just discovered this (it's been £4 for a non-oyster single for at least 2-3 years now) is actually a good thing!

clapped out inefficient expensive

Are there two different Londons? Ok the only other major city transport network I can really remember using is Paris. A single there: eur1.60. A single here: ukp1.60 (with oyster card). That's parity at the current exchange rate! And I would say London easily wins in terms of train frequency, and definitely in station coverage.

And the coverage and frequency of buses in central london is pretty fucking amazing imo. Single: £1 (with oyster). Seems cheap enough to me.

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

― aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Saturday, February 21, 2009 8:07 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otfm, and anyone who's tried to deal with one of these cunts or one of these cunts would have something real to complain about.

Last time I checked (and granted, it's been a long time since I checked) there was a £5 deposit to get an Oyster card. So I should pay £5 to lug around this extra piece of plastic that I can use once every 2 years?

But I know it's a losing battle trying to persuade people who live on Oyster lines that they're not god's gift to transport.

I just remember being in NYC earlier this year and being astonished by how much better the NYC subway was than the tube.

i.e. if you get to work without 12 of your actual services being cancelled EVERY WEEK you are doing well xp

obvs xp

how much better the NYC subway was than the tube.

in terms of what? (n.b. i don't tend to use transport at rush hour, i know the tube can get jammed. any other time i really don't know what people complain about.)

reliability mostly

Rush hour is rush hour (though it is true that LDN transport is more crowded), but it's delays and line closings that seem the real problem with the tube.

Closures, delays, trains actually turning up when they're supposed to... oh yeah, and if you compare cost - NYC is way cheaper, especially considering it's a one fare ride as far as you like system. Oh, and runs all night.

I mean, perhaps I'm just bitter because of my experience this morning - and also my experience yesterday of waiting 20 minutes for a connection to finally turn up, combined with the experience the previous day of being stranded for over an hour at East Croydon... this frustration just adds up. Especially considering that when I was commuting every day, 3 out of every 4 mornings I would experience some kind of delay.

Them's the breaks... I don't wanna downplay the experience of getting majorly delayed, or suggest that there isn't a problem at all, but called it 'clapped out' and 'inefficient' is wayyy over stating the case. Plus, they are working on this, right? What else are all the planned closures for.

Hang on, in what universe is three significant delays in THREE DAYS just "them's the breaks"?

That's a failure rate of 100%. I think that comes pretty clearly under the category of "shit".

Weren't two of them trains though? Not tfl. Trains are shit, well that's whole other story.

Also, failure rate of 100% for very small sample.

For various reasons, I've travelled in Europe a lot a while back - and I really resent denial over problems with London transport.

The first stage to recovery is acknowledging a problem.

The historical lack of investment is obvious and the problems it causes are obvious. Coverage is poor - e.g. large parts of South London aren't on the tube network.

Structural improvements/solutions such as Cross-Rail, and mooted tram schemes, are in an on/off stage for decades.

It shuts down early, it breaks down frequently, and it is expensive (try comparing monthly/yearly ticket costs with other world cities).

Plus have tried travelling at weekend recently?

It'd be such a relief if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that it's shit.

Coverage is excellent in the middle of town - i.e. all the bits that most visitors think of as London. Cross rail is under development. Paris is cheaper for season tickets, yes, but not single journeys. Yes it would be nice if the tube opened later. I would argue that while there are problems, 'it' does not 'break down' 'frequently'. And yes there have been line closures at weekends, those are planned engineering works precisely to try and fix the problems with reliability.