In message , at 12:41:14 on
Tue, 3 Jan 2012, Paul Corfield remarked:
quite how everyone will get up to speed about their side
roads being blocked or parking being suspended or even daft things
like people having their groceries home delivered if their street is
blocked off.

It shouldn't be that difficult to give the supermarkets a list of
postcodes and dates "off limits", and people will simply have to shop
the old fashioned way. What's more problematic are things like
postal/parcel deliveries and refuse collection, where we may find
"before noon" type services suspended for the former and a reduced
service for the latter.

I'm thinking more about how the public understand all this. I am sure
the big companies will know about the arrangements but whose job is it
to make sure the public know? Is it TfL, the ODA, local councils or
private companies that have to tell the puiblic about the level of
potential disruption? I'm not having a go here at any organisation
but I rather suspect it hasn't dawned on people that basic aspects of
their regular routine may well be affected in ways they have not yet
understood.

If I lived near an Olympic venue or somewhere that's reasonably
predictable to be transport corridor I'd be expecting Olympic fortnight
to be a bit like Cup Final day in Wembley, the Millennium and a 14-day
London marathon street closure all rolled into one, and large areas
becoming essentially no-go areas.

There's been lots of "doom and gloom" transport headlines in order to
try to "adjust" expectations and routines but nothing on mundane
issues like "can I do the shopping?", "can I go down the pub", "will
the kids get to the sports centre?", "when will the bins be emptied?".

I'd expect suppliers of delivery/collection services to start warming up
their customers about two months in advance. For example, by emailing
out to affected existing regular customers, and putting warnings on
ordering websites. Although maybe they won't, after all we've just had a
virtual standstill for ecommerce for ten days and I don't recall anyone
other than the Post Office (with their regular Eeyore act over last
posting dates) saying anything at all.
--
Roland Perry