Tag Archives: Commuting

London Transport

Posted on by
Reply

Rachel starts a Level 1 BSL Course with Deafworks in a few weeks, and today she made me take her to Old Street on the 43 bus so that she can see for herself where she needs to go, as I won’t be able to take her.

This got me thinking – why do some people take to London Transport like water, and some people need to be taught? I certainly don’t remember anyone ever having to teach me how to get around London on public transport. I remember when I moved to London in June 2003, I was far more reliant on the Tube to get around, and was more than willing to change as necessary.

Now, I find I prefer the bus so much more; you get to see so much more of London (one of my favourite routes is the 43 bus between Monument and London Bridge because you get to go over London Bridge itself and see the Tower Bridge on your right. Given that I’m a historian, this is rather understandable.

People like Rachel though, they just find themselves so intimidated by the whole London Transport network. Nothing could be easier in my opinion. The Tube is really easy to work out; and you can work out how to get to places via bus even without having to check the Transport for London’s Journey Planner just by looking at the front of buses or on bus stands. I think people just need to take the plunge and be let loose!

Traffic

Posted on by
Reply

I just wanted to rant about traffic both in and around Muswell Hill, and in general.

Already running late this morning, I got the 134 bus to Highgate. Without traffic, it ordinarily takes about 10-15 minutes. Today, it took 30 minutes. Why? Traffic. The annoying thing was, the traffic couldn’t be explained. First of all, there was traffic going up Colney Hatch Lane to Muswell Hill Broadway. From what I could tell, this was due to badly placed traffic lights and a too high volume of traffic, but the traffic still existed from after the traffic lights into Muswell Hill proper. I was baffled. There was also a high volume of traffic from Muswell Hill Broadway to Highgate. No apparent explanation at all.

What really, really annoys me, is the fact that most of the cars that go past when I’m standing at the bus stop waiting ages for a bus to come along but held up by traffic, is the number of cars that have just ONE passenger in it, the driver. All those big machines are causing so much chaos and misery for public transport users, and they just have one person in the fucking things?! Why don’t these people get public transport and help the buses run on bloody time instead of causing loads of bloody traffic.

Can you tell this is something that pisses me off?

Interesting observations

Posted on by
Reply

Coming home on the 134 bus from Tottenham Court Road to Muswell Hill today, I had a little think about some quirks that people have. They may be exclusive to British people, but on the other hand, maybe not. Let’s have a look.

- in the men’s toilets, if a guy is going to use an urinal, he goes to the one furthest away from any other urinals being used;
- on buses, have you noticed that people who are forced to sit in the aisle seat due to lack of room always move to a window seat as soon as one becomes available, usually because they’d rather sit alone; and
- on the tube, if there are seats available with no one either side, people automatically aim for them.

I can’t think of any more. Can you?