Transport in London is 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.

http://walkit.com/cities/london/

seriously - I walk everywhere now unless it's raining very heavily.

google map the directions and choose public transport

xpost

walking in london is awesome, especially if you head off down the little streets and away from the main roads - you stumble on so much awesomeness

In my nearly two weeks here I've never used transit (except to get here from Heathrow). The city is made for walking.

I think I'm gonna walk to the Freud Museum, and then maybe down to Regent's park. Can anyone recommend anything otherwise notable in that area?

Keats' House at Hampstead Heath possibly worth a visit. London zoo, of course.

camden arts centre's v close to the freud museum but annoyingly between-exhibitions.

there are iirc a couple of nice japanese and korean delis off the finchley road where you could pick up something to have for lunch later.

Primrose Hill

yeah before i came here i walked everywhere and i don't want to give that up, but sometimes the practicality of getting places from hackney weighs down. also i am useless with directions and maps and such, so until i get smartphone and so lose the possibility of getting irredeemably lost, walking can be a bit scary.

(the google maps directions do indeed look a lot better, thanks!)

i still habitually carry an a-z around with me, seven years after moving to london (and regularly use it) (can't get maps to work on smartphones)

The first week for me consisted mostly of just a desire for a smartphone, then I learned the joy of getting lost. Now my feet just hurt, so the walks from paddington to shoreditch and back are going to have to wait (actually, it wasn't too fun overshooting my destination by 25 minutes yesterday).

I ordered an Oyster pass, so once I realize the weather isn't supposed to be like it is now, and once the weight of grad school work condenses my schedule, I'll have to learn to work around tfl.

Merdeyeux - re: TfL journey planner - have you played around with the options? The default setting is 'average' walk speed and a limit of 20 minutes walking - I always up this to half an hour and say that I walk quickly, otherwise it tends to make the journeys more complicated than they really need to be.

fiddling does make it a bit better, but still not entirely - the big one that really made me notice its faults is that it refused to point out to me the very easy overground route from my house in hackney to harringay.

while i'm talking about london i need to express this: holy shit what a bunch of cunts the old blue last has for clientele.

I have an 18+ Student Oyster Card, but when I try to put a travelcard on it on the Oyster website it tries to charge me at the regular rate. I'd call but I don't have a phone yet...

Anyone know what the deal with this is?

still never been to the old blue last

i love the palm tree

EDB - I have no idea, but if you find out can you post it here? (I'm trying to help a load of foreign students apply online for 18+ student cards)

So, when about to head out tonight I realised my oyster card had disappeared off the face of the planet, presumably dropped on a bus 2 or 3 weeks ago when I last used it. I set off moodily to the station expecting to have to fill in numerous forms, show various proofs of ID and address, and get a load of photos done. Apparently not. I got a replacement I about a minute without even giving my name.

Xpost: got a reply from tfl essentially saying "just pay at the machine, dude"
Also, I am writing this on a tfl bus. Appropriately meta.