On 2015-09-14 09:26:00 +0000, Roland Perry said:

Cabs are useful if you don't exactly know where your destination is,
especially late at night.

True, though Google Maps and the likes reduce the chance of not knowing
exactly where your destination is these days.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

Oh please. Don't fall for the old "my old man's a busman" routine. Yes
his dad drove route 44 in Tooting but even today the 44 is a different
route to the one he drove. None of that helps you understand what is
needed London wide, what the right contract approach is, what
passenger needs are today or in 10 years time, how to set a strategy,
what level to set bus fares at etc etc etc.

The 44 was one of the few examples of a tram route split by partial
conversion to trolleybuses being put back together again (the 12 tram and
the 612 trolleybus). The 44 started running from London Bridge to Mitcham.
The core of the present route still reflects that history.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at
19:23:42 on Sun, 13 Sep 2015, Arthur Figgis
remarked:
Being a
Londoner all his life (even when at University) I'm sure he's very well
aware of the transport options in London.

stereotype
Or just knows about the Underground line from where he has lived to
where he has worked, and is amazed that all the people who only arrived
after university have actually been to insert name of a place on a
different Underground line, have used National Rail services, still
think deep down that "night bus" is an oxymoron, and claim to have once
seen a tram.
/stereotype

I'd like to see some evidence of that, but although I disagree with
much of his politics the tweets I saw from him while a transport
minister paint a very different picture.

Who looked after his Twitter account though? I wasn't so impressed when I
saw him in the flesh at that time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sun, Sep 13, 2015 at 12:24:59PM +0000, Recliner wrote:

His father was a bus driver, do he does have some inside knowledge on the
subject.

My mother makes embroidery stuff for churches. That only gives me inside
knowledge on the gossip in a handful of churches' circles of old ladies.
Having a father who was a bus driver might give you a bit of inside
knowledge on a handful of routes and garages.

My "in" via my mother doesn't clue me in on how the church decides on
its theology, or how it manages its money. Likewise an "in" via a bus
driver tells you not very much at all about the hows and whys of running
an entire city's multi-modal transport network or how to fund it.

--
David Cantrell | Bourgeois reactionary pig

Nuke a disabled unborn gay baby whale for JESUS!

In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:

In message , at 09:45:04 on Mon, 14
Sep 2015, Neil Williams remarked:

I'm a pedestrian, a cyclist, a motorist, an air passenger, a ship
passenger, a rail passenger, a bus passenger and probably others I
haven't thought of. I choose the appropriate mode of transport for the
journey being made, IOW, though I'll admit motorcycling doesn't feature
I wouldn't rule it out for the future.

Why do we have to typecast ourselves?

Many of us don't (I'm multimodal like yourself - and add trams if you
like, and obviously minicabs and taxis).

But there quite a few militant cyclists and militant non-car-users,
and people who claim they wouldn't be seen dead on a bike/in a bus.
And then the people who famously would only use a taxi when
travelling around Z1/Z2. So there are many flavours of people around.

Far less than you appear to think from my experience of the Cambridge
Cycling Campaign.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2015-09-13 20:25:59 +0000, Paul Corfield said:

More likely he knows how to drive to them or hails a cab. How many
lawyers, who are any good, use public transport to visit clients? Time
is money and all that stuff.

In my experience the Tube is often a much faster way to travel around
London than a cab, though it can depend on where bus lanes are
provided. For some journeys, my recent observation is that the
bicycle can be by far the quickest.

That is also my experience of nearly 10 years working in Westminster. Even
when the bike wasn't actually quicker bike was so much more predictable than
the tube between Westminster and King's Cross.

When I stayed at my parents' in Putney I could cycle to Westminster in much
the same time as the tube took (quicker bearing in mind the walking at both
ends). The other advantage was that I got a seat which you almost never get
in the peak at East Putney on the District Line.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 2015-09-14 19:33:23 +0000, said:

That is also my experience of nearly 10 years working in Westminster. Even
when the bike wasn't actually quicker bike was so much more predictable than
the tube between Westminster and King's Cross.

I can reliably ride a Boris bike from Cannon St to Euston via Holborn
in about 21-22 minutes (I think). By the time you've faffed about with
the silly one way system on the Tube at Bank (they won't let you use
the lifts nor the spiral staircase in the evening peak, despite both
being available and working fine in the morning, so instead you get
crammed down into the Central Line or DLR platforms to get to the
Northern Line) I'm not convinced it isn't slower to go by Tube.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

On 9/14/2015 8:33 PM, wrote:
In article , (Roland Perry)
wrote:


But there quite a few militant cyclists and militant non-car-users,
and people who claim they wouldn't be seen dead on a bike/in a bus.
And then the people who famously would only use a taxi when
travelling around Z1/Z2. So there are many flavours of people around.

Far less than you appear to think from my experience of the Cambridge
Cycling Campaign.

And far more than you think from my experience living adjacent to CS3,
particularly with the works currently going on (where there are signs
that request "Cyclists Dismount" that none did as I was trying to
traverse that stretch, almost being hit by 5 or 6 overly-entitled
lycra-clad idiots). That's ignoring the average one accident a week I
see (on the same stretch) where pedestrians interact with cyclists who
are oblivious to anything apart from themselves and their mission to get
wherever they are going.

The problem is, they can seemingly organise - I loved reading the
results of the consultation on the changes on Cable Street where, of
those who provided their postcode, only a quarter were within the local
postal area or even one adjacent (E1, E1W, E14, E2, EC) :

https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roa...ion-report.pdf

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2015-09-14 19:33:23 +0000, said:

That is also my experience of nearly 10 years working in Westminster.
Even when the bike wasn't actually quicker bike was so much more
predictable than the tube between Westminster and King's Cross.

I can reliably ride a Boris bike from Cannon St to Euston via Holborn
in about 21-22 minutes (I think). By the time you've faffed about
with the silly one way system on the Tube at Bank (they won't let you
use the lifts nor the spiral staircase in the evening peak, despite
both being available and working fine in the morning, so instead you
get crammed down into the Central Line or DLR platforms to get to the
Northern Line) I'm not convinced it isn't slower to go by Tube.

I agree it depends on the precise journey. East Putney to Westminster
involves no more changing than cross-platform at Earl's Court and not even
that more than half the time.

Westminster to King's Cross includes a not entirely short interchange at
Green Park and a descent to the bottom of the deep hole that is Westminster
tube station. The bike ride is also about 20 minutes but with my own bike so
none of the overheads of obtaining and docking a Boris bike. Only available
off-peak, obviously.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Oh, please! By declaring that I'm a motorist I am not stating that I never use
other modes of transport. I've used LU this afternoon to reach Thames
Magistrates Court and yesterday I travelled between Colney Hatch Lane and
Leyton Midland by bus and LO.

Incidentally, walking is one of my hobbies.