London Public Transport
Specific information on public transportation in London
Time to take a walk
A group of students at Central St Martins College of Art and Design have used a section of London Underground’s famous Tube map as part of a course work project to encourage more people to give up using the Underground for short one or two stop journeys. At Shortwalk.blog.co.uk they’ve taken the Zone 1 section which covers the area from Liverpool Street west to Paddington and from Kings Cross south to Southwark and put the walking time between each of the stations on the map.
Even though its part of their college work they’re keen to promote the long term benefits of skipping the short train rides and working little walks into the lives of Londoners especially those who work in central London.
Date: February 26th, 2007 |
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British Airways getting greedy
It sounds like British Airways executives have been at the in-flight drinks trolley after reading their new baggage policy for the airline. Starting next Tuesday 13 February, they’re going to charge extra if passengers check in more than one bag irrespective of whether the two bags weigh less than the baggage allowance.
They’ve also gone nuts with the pricing of these charges, £240 for an extra bag on a long haul flight, £120 for one on a short international flight and £60 on domestic flights.
Date: February 8th, 2007 |
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Free Flights from the UK
Ryanair are advertising a whole load of free flights from the UK, exclusive of air taxes, on their website.They’re good for travel up to 30 June 07 but the sale ends at midnight tonight.
That’s the good news but Ryanair are also in the news for the amount of money they make charging people for anything over 10kg of luggage on their flights. They’re making record profits, up to £660,000 per day and they justify the baggage charges by saying passengers have been pre-warned and have a choice to make. Their deputy CEO Michael Cawley says ‘this is an optional charge as part of our campaign to persuade people that they do not need to take the kitchen sink with them’.
Date: February 5th, 2007 |
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St Pancras Station
St Pancras Station in central London is hoping to reach agreement to be twinned with Grand Central Station in New York. St Pancras has been undergoing a massive redevelopment in the run up to taking over this November from Waterloo Station as the London Terminus for the Eurostar and Channel Tunnel Rail Link, and wants to learn from Grand Central how they made the whole station into a financial success.
It seems like they’ve been building down there forever and the project is costing over £800million. They’re expecting more than 45million people a year to be using the new terminal and are trying to make it more than just a train station. St Pancras originally opened in 1868 and the trainshed roof was the world’s largest single span structure up to that point.
On the Euston Road side is the red bricked Victorian gothic building that used to be the Midland Grand Hotel, but that closed for good in 1935 and the building was used as offices as well as for scenes in Batman Begins and a Spice Girls video.
Date: January 31st, 2007 |
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Oyster card problems on the trains
The Mayor of London and TfL(Transport for London) are at loggerheads with the surface train operating companies because of their refusal to accept pre-pay Oyster cards as payment on their systems.
The Oyster card was introduced three years ago and the Mayor has been hailing its success, saying 10million cards have been issued and that 75% of bus and Tube journeys are now paid by Oyster as opposed to only 5% by cash. Not surprising if you make paying by cash three times more expensive for the same journey.
Date: January 10th, 2007 |
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Keeping an eye on London’s public transport
A website that you might find useful if you’ve travelled on public transport in and around London and haven’t found the service to be up to scratch is London Travel Watch, which is the official watchdog organisation tasked with looking after the interests of public transport users in London. It was set up in 2000 and is funded by the London Assembly which also appoints its members, and it says its independent of all the transport operating companies in the capital.
Date: February 15th, 2007 |
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Thick snow in the capital
This was North London at 8.15am today, the forecast had been for most of southern England to get a good few inches of snow over night and this time the predictions were right. At the moment Stansted, Luton, Bristol and Birmingham airports have closed for the time being, its only meant to last today although the rest of the week will still be cold.
Date: February 8th, 2007 |
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Train operators except Oyster
Good news for users of public transport in London, the overground train operating companies have finally excepted an offer of £20million to install Oyster Card readers at their stations allowing people who regularly commute to use just the single card and not have to buy an extra ticket.
The Oyster Card, which stores credit that can be bought at stations and shops and which can be used as pay as you go or have travelcards or annual bus passes put on them, allows users to get the lowest available fare when they touch in and touch out getting on and off buses, Tubes, trams or the Docklands Light Railway.
Date: January 31st, 2007 |
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Only short people wanted on London bus
If you’re coming to London and happen to be a tall, beautiful woman be carfeful about trying to catch the No 9 bus along Kensington High Street, because there’s a driver on that route that doesn’t want your type on his bus.
The girl on the left is Josephine Kime, who was on her way home when she was kicked off the No 9 because the driver said she was too tall, she’s 5′11″. After she scanned her Oyster card he refused to move the bus until she got off claiming she would be blocking his view. What a muppet, you would think he’d like that pretty face in his mirror for the whole of his shift and besides how many men getting on his bus are going to be 5′11″ or more, probably the majority.
Date: January 16th, 2007 |
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A possible answer to London’s crowded roads?
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has been assuring Londoners that the cost of the Olympics will stay at the 38p per week that he promised it would. In his free newspaper The Londoner he says ‘Last year, we set the Olympics council tax precept at 38p. It will remain at 38p next year, the year after that and the year after that. When people see that it has not risen past 38p, they will accept my firm guarantee that Londoners will not be asked to pay any more to fund the 2012 Games.’
The council tax may stay the same but they’ll easily find other things to squeeze some cash out of. I wonder if there’s any money in his plan for a MonoMetro system in London like the one in this clever video below. It would certainly free up some road space.
Date: January 8th, 2007 |
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