On 2012\08\13 09:58, tim..... wrote:

The main reason for the empty seats is that a large percentage are given
away free to sponsors and national (as in "other nations") Olympic and
sports organisations. Of course, if you are offered a free seat you
don't think too hard about how you might use it, so you say yes even if
you do have no real use for it.

Like I said in my first post. These people should be told "once having
taken it, you use it or you done get offered it again" (for all future
games).

I met one of the "Olympic Family" who had use of the free BMW "taxis"...
his reason for being one of the lucky few was that he used to work for
the IOC until 12 years ago. Nice enough guy, but it's appalling that the
road network of an entire city was completely buggered up just to let
people who used to work for the IOC in the last millennium whizz about.

In particular, all four routes south from the Trafalgar Square area have
been shut to cars and taxis from 6am to midnight every day, meaning
anyone trying to get from the west end to most of south London faces an
impenetrable two-mile east-west scar in London's road network from Hyde
Park Corner to the eastern end of Aldwych. To help visualise this, you
can't cross the blue line in this map in a southward direction (apart
from a few unimportant culs-de-sac) that don't help you get to south
London).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=...via=1&t=m&z=14

I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks as he looks down from his column at
what is being wreaked upon the British by our own government just to
help foreigners whizz about our capital.

On 2012\08\13 10:51, Basil Jet wrote:

I met one of the "Olympic Family" who had use of the free BMW "taxis"...
his reason for being one of the lucky few was that he used to work for
the IOC until 12 years ago. Nice enough guy, but it's appalling that the
road network of an entire city was completely buggered up just to let
people who used to work for the IOC in the last millennium whizz about.

In particular, all four routes south from the Trafalgar Square area have
been shut to cars and taxis from 6am to midnight every day, meaning
anyone trying to get from the west end to most of south London faces an
impenetrable two-mile east-west scar in London's road network from Hyde
Park Corner to the eastern end of Aldwych. To help visualise this, you
can't cross the blue line in this map in a southward direction (apart
from a few unimportant culs-de-sac) that don't help you get to south
London).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=...via=1&t=m&z=14


I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks as he looks down from his column at
what is being wreaked upon the British by our own government just to
help foreigners whizz about our capital.

I forgot to add that every right turn out of Wapping has been banned and
all U-turn locations in The Highway have been blocked, meaning a car or
taxi journey from Glamis Road to Limehouse Station has to go via Tower
Gateway, so a 0.6 mile journey has become 3 miles. These bans went in
nearly a week before the Olympics started.

On Aug 13, 11:00*am, Basil Jet wrote:
On 2012\08\13 10:51, Basil Jet wrote:







I met one of the "Olympic Family" who had use of the free BMW "taxis"....
his reason for being one of the lucky few was that he used to work for
the IOC until 12 years ago. Nice enough guy, but it's appalling that the
road network of an entire city was completely buggered up just to let
people who used to work for the IOC in the last millennium whizz about.

In particular, all four routes south from the Trafalgar Square area have
been shut to cars and taxis from 6am to midnight every day, meaning
anyone trying to get from the west end to most of south London faces an
impenetrable two-mile east-west scar in London's road network from Hyde
Park Corner to the eastern end of Aldwych. To help visualise this, you
can't cross the blue line in this map in a southward direction (apart
from a few unimportant culs-de-sac) that don't help you get to south
London).

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=...54108,-0.13827...

I wonder what Lord Nelson thinks as he looks down from his column at
what is being wreaked upon the British by our own government just to
help foreigners whizz about our capital.

I forgot to add that every right turn out of Wapping has been banned and
all U-turn locations in The Highway have been blocked, meaning a car or
taxi journey from Glamis Road to Limehouse Station has to go via Tower
Gateway, so a 0.6 mile journey has become 3 miles. These bans went in
nearly a week before the Olympics started.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Does anybody know why it was necessary to close the car parks at the
Stratford Centre and Westfield Stratford City for so long? They were
closed for several weeks before the Games started, and Stratford City
bus station is closed for about three months, ancluding the period
between the two sets of games.

I agree that transport generall seemed to go very well, with few
problems. Gongratulations to those involved. I have to admit that I
was expecting chaos, but I was wrong.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:55:05 -0700 (PDT), Stephen Furley
wrote:

Does anybody know why it was necessary to close the car parks at the
Stratford Centre and Westfield Stratford City for so long? They were
closed for several weeks before the Games started, and Stratford City
bus station is closed for about three months, ancluding the period
between the two sets of games.

I agree that transport generall seemed to go very well, with few
problems. Gongratulations to those involved. I have to admit that I
was expecting chaos, but I was wrong.

I'm guessing that the car parks are being used by the workers and
builders at the Olympics site? Maybe there's stuff stored there, too?

I was more optimistic than you about the transport, having heard
something about the amount of work that had gone into planning for
them (well done, TfL!). But, nevertheless, it went better than anyone
had expected, and I think that includes Heathrow as well as the trains
and buses. The temporary departure terminal was described on the radio
this morning, and sounds rather fun (decked out as a London park),
rather than the grim temporary structure on a staff car park I'd
expected. When even Heathrow over-performs, that's quite something!

One permanent improvement to the Tube might be that they've learned
how to be a lot slicker at fixing things that break down.

In message
, at
05:55:05 on Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Stephen Furley
remarked:
Does anybody know why it was necessary to close the car parks at the
Stratford Centre and Westfield Stratford City for so long?

Car bombs I expect.
--
Roland Perry

Basil Jet wrote:

I forgot to add that every right turn out of Wapping has been banned and
all U-turn locations in The Highway have been blocked, meaning a car or
taxi journey from Glamis Road to Limehouse Station has to go via Tower
Gateway, so a 0.6 mile journey has become 3 miles. These bans went in
nearly a week before the Olympics started.

I turned right out of Glamis Road (heading North) on last Saturday.

Tim (tm)

On 2012\08\13 22:21, Tim Miller wrote:
Basil Jet wrote:

I forgot to add that every right turn out of Wapping has been banned and
all U-turn locations in The Highway have been blocked, meaning a car or
taxi journey from Glamis Road to Limehouse Station has to go via Tower
Gateway, so a 0.6 mile journey has become 3 miles. These bans went in
nearly a week before the Olympics started.

I turned right out of Glamis Road (heading North) on last Saturday.

Tim (tm)

Okay, I was just relating what I read in a local newspaper I picked up
in Prestons Road McDonalds.

In particular, all four routes south from the Trafalgar Square area have
been shut to cars and taxis from 6am to midnight every day, meaning
anyone trying to get from the west end to most of south London faces an
impenetrable two-mile east-west scar in London's road network from Hyde
Park Corner to the eastern end of Aldwych.

Quite a lot of this kind of stuff, to great detail, is laid down in
the T+Cs set by the IOC.

The only opportunity to argue the toss is when bidding, which is a bit
risky and not to be recommended when you are still trying to win the
bid.

Once the successful bid has been announced everything becomes
contractual and you're stuck with it.

That's not what Ken Livingstone has been saying these past few weeks on LBC
(Saturday mornings). He has re-iterated that TfL should have insisted to the IOC
that London knows more about running London than they do and that the Mayor's
office should decide the details of the Olympic lanes and who may use them.
In particular he has been adamant that buses should be/have been allowed to use
the Olympic Lanes.

"Robin9" wrote in message ...


tim.....;132229 Wrote:
"Robin9" wrote in message ...


Seemingly it did go well. I avoided the whole thing like the plague
and so I am going by what being declared on the radio by various
commentators who have forgotten the difference between a journalist
and a cheer leader.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And why shouldn't they? It's only for UK consumption, other counties
send
their own commentators to report the games to their country.

tim

To quote several Hollywood Westerns of the 1950s: "If you don't know, I
can't tell you."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh yeah, and that wins the argument - not!

This issue is a matter of option, not of fact and simply refusing to state
the basis of your opinion IMHO means "you lose"

tim






--
Robin9