Transport in London is shit

i keep reading this as "Transport in London is.... THE shit" and i keep being like yes, it is!

afaik industrial tribunals are basically for shit? You get to fight for months to get an amount of comp money that looks impressive, then vanishes after a few months, by which time you haven't found a new job because you've been successfully tarred as a "troublemaker". The chances of getting successfully reinstated after dismissal are pretty minute.

On the other hand this strike could personally inconvenience me so it's a fucking outrage

transport in london really is shit. first rush-hour commuting for 3 years today and...jesus what is WRONG with this thing? why can the tube never work properly? such a simple journey, on the way in i got within one stop in good time, and then i had to change line and somehow that last stop took me HALF AN HOUR thanks to a) one tube inexplicably not turning up b) another tube inexplicably resting at a platform for an aeon c) a third tube crawling at approximately 2mph for its entire journey.

on the way back, with the tube as sardine-like and overheating as you expect, we were held at hyde park corner for 20 minutes to "even out the service" or some bullshit.

i don't think this is really very acceptable!

itt personal hard luck stories masquerading as symptoms of massive system failure

what line was that? i get the central every day and i find it largely excellent. apart from werewolf-like transformation into a total bastard as soon as i set foot underground, which is the price we pay the tfl ferryman.

itt personal hard luck stories masquerading as symptoms of massive system failure

it's at least 75% of the time i ever try to travel outside of my postcode!

it was the piccadilly line. well the fuckery on the way back was, on the way in the fuckery was the circle line's fault.

i don't thin that image worked

like the tube!!

we were held at hyde park corner for 20 minutes to "even out the service" or some bullshit.

That is the only way to avoid the "waiting for 30 minutes and then three turning up at once" problem. Annoying for those on the actual train, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. And it probably wasn't for 20 minutes.

so much piccadilly line fuckery today

in the 10 tube journeys i took last week, when i was commuting, precisely THREE went smoothly. and one of those was because i left the office at 9pm. otherwise, delays and stoppages and random terminations and evacuations = par for the fucking course, not me being "unlucky" at all. don't want to hear a word in this piece of shit service's defence, it's useless and inadequate.

Last week the Victoria line was a total nightmare. I think I was on similar stats to you - Monday and Tuesday there were signal failures AND passenger alarms on every journey.

This week has been alright so far dammit now I've jinxed tomorrow.

Got the Victoria line down to Kings Cross last night heading for a pub on Pentonville Road - got on the last carriage perfectly lined up with the exit for Pentonville Rd, but when I got up there I found they'd closed the exit 20 minutes before. I then had to go on an odyssey to get out - a seemingly never-ending underground walk eventually surfacing somewhere between Kings Cross and St Pancras, then mysteriously weaving through various platforms, finally to the concourse and then to the street and back to the outside of my initial exit more than ten minutes later.

Haha yes I know that well. Pentonville Rd exit shuts at 8pm - the solution is to walk all the way down the Victoria line platform to where the Euston Road exit is - of course they don't tell you that on the signs.

BUS TRACKER! it seems on the face of it to work. I've been waiting for this for so long.

http://m.countdown.tfl.gov.uk/

:O

This is the best thing that's ever happened

It won't give me any information on the 48 route for some reason. And it seems to struggle a bit when you're searching for a stop by name and there are multiple stops with that name. Or maybe it's me that struggles. But yes! Makes sliced bread look shit.

Just used this on my way back from the vet! 212 in 2 mins it said, which was close enough. This is great, although yeah it only seems to be for certain routes at the moment.

Pushchair tracker needed for the 29 route too

Anyone sampled the delights of the non-bendy 73 route today?

It goes on Roman roads only?

That's the 8 iirc.

Anyone sampled the delights of the non-bendy 73 route today?

One crossed my path at Newington Green yesterday while I was riding the 141. I note the route has been shortened and the northern terminus is now Stoke Newington.

The big one, for me, will be the 29. I think that is due for conversion in November.

Following my Kings X exits hell (see post two weeks ago) can Colonel Poo or anyone else advise me: if I head south to Kings Cross on the Victoria line and want to exit so that I can walk down Grays Inn Road, what's the best way to go once I get off the train?

that's always seemed fairly easy to me - can't remember directions from platform, but make as if you're heading to the circle line platform, and then go out of that exit - go under the subway when you're out of the gates

Yeah, as lex said. Head towards the front of the train (going southbound), go up to the main ticket office, then go through the underpass before you get to the Circle&c platforms. I think that's quicker than leaving through the main station and having to cross Euston Road. Or weekdays before 8pm you can just go up the Pentonville Rd exit and walk around the Scala onto Grays Inn

Thanks.

Also:Bus tracker is amazing. Very quick and easy to navigate on an un-smartphone too.

http://vimeo.com/28341276

the new non-bendy 73s all seem to be hybrids - it freaks me out when the engine cuts out at every stop. i'm usually late and i need the psychological crutch of perceived forward motion that a ticking-over engine provides.

Yes - when the engine cuts at a stop I always assume either (a) we'll be stopped for ages because a passenger has incurred the wrath of the driver, or (b) we'll be stopped for ages due to driver changeover.

bus drivers in london are bastards.

given the shit they must have to put up with, they seem okay to me.

i think they're ok too

tbh they are either really kind or completes sons of bitches ime. of course i've seen the shit some or these poor sods are subjected to, but many of them do themselves no favours whatsoever, either assuming an unruly passenger where no evidence of one exists, or just failing to communicate at all.

Bus once shot past my outstretched hand at a bus stop, as the driver looked nonchalantly at me. Next bus stopped and the driver told me to hop on and we'll catch the bastard up because 'he shouldn't have done that'. We did indeed catch up and I was able to both thank the second driver and give the first driver a piece of mind. To which he responded with the the sullen-faced rhetorical parry of 'Do you want to get on this bus or not?'

Also once got a lift to a company bus station (ie not a public one) to collect my wallet, by one of the nicest bus drivers I ever met (she was a regular on that route), who instructed me to hide at the back so no one could see me. Drivers gave me a lift back to town in their transit vehicle.

I'm with Neil S on this. Dreadful amount of shit they get, although some of them are right sods as well.

The detailed fares package shows that the price of a single bus journey using an Oyster smart card will rise to £1.40 from 2 January, compared with £1.30 now and 90p when Johnson came to power.

Underground fares using the Oyster card will go up by between 10p and 30p, depending on the travel zones passed through and time of day.

all imma say is that i've been commuting for a fortnight, for once, and i don't think i've had a single journey where i haven't thought "what is fucking WRONG with the tube" at least once.

Bus once shot past my outstretched hand at a bus stop, as the driver looked nonchalantly at me. Next bus stopped and the driver told me to hop on and we'll catch the bastard up because 'he shouldn't have done that'. We did indeed catch up and I was able to both thank the second driver and give the first driver a piece of mind. To which he responded with the the sullen-faced rhetorical parry of 'Do you want to get on this bus or not?'

this story makes me happy though. if i ever catch the night bus driver who blithely sailed past me & a few others at 6am last saturday morning i'll give him more than a piece of my mind. what a cunt.

Compared to Glasgow, London's transport is a quasi-mystical wonderland of cheap, frequent services that go where you want, btw.

I will kill these disgusting savages standing on the left before long, mind.

tourists, you mean, you want to kill the tourists

i cycle everywhere but when i had to get the tube/bus for a few months i think i had one or two problems/delays? you must be very unlucky lex to have 20 odd journeys where the tube let you down. and indeed, what a cunty bus driver, at 6am on a saturday morning, no less! i bet that shift is a joy!

my least favourite thing bus drivers do is beep you to get you out of the way (!) especially when they're only going to go round you force you to slow down then stop right in front of you, eugh

last week a driver was being particularly twattish, beeped me, so i turned round to see if there was actually a reason i was being beeped, car pulled out from the left hand side of the road while i had momentarily turned round, bus driver hadn't seen car, i hadn't seen car, car stops in the middle of the bus lane, bus moves out into the car lane, i have to speed up to get ahead of bus to avoid nasty collision with the car in the bus lane, bus driver continues to beep! argh it was your fault you twat!

oh cyclist btw

It's not just tourists -- the commuters do an even more savage thing of walking on the left then *stopping* for the last few steps as it shallows out, holding up the entire escalator.

If just once they'd look back they'd see the stairs of rage glowering at them and surely never do it again.

i don't think i've had a single journey where i haven't thought "what is fucking WRONG with the tube" at least once.

bring a book

ha, that would drive me crazy, speeding up the left hand side of the escalator is great fun, also races w friends or gf when there are two escalators available. angel is esp good for that iirc

angel escalators are dope

Compared to Glasgow, London's transport is a quasi-mystical wonderland of cheap, frequent services that go where you want, btw.

don't try it stet! it just riles them up

"I had to wait NINETEEN SECONDS for a train the other day, it normally comes in seventeen, what the ACTUAL FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY'RE PLAYING AT"

Compared to Glasgow, London's transport is a quasi-mystical wonderland of cheap, frequent services that go where you want, btw.

Bus drivers are bigger wankers in Glasgow too, in my experience. London ones aren't that bad generally.

depends massively on the route ime

is there a journey planner that works better than the tfl one? it seems to enjoy adding 30 minutes and three legs to every actually-quite-simple journey.