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DEcongestion zone map
Motorists who feel aggrieved by the extension of the London charging
zone have some positive assistance this week with the launch of a new easy-to-read bus map for London. Really it's a DEcongestion zone, freeing up the city for walking, faster buses, and just better breathing all round. Quickmap's new London by Bus map makes sense of decongestion, helps Londoners survive tube closures and could prove a lifeline to Chelsea tractor owners. The new map is available at Waterstone's in the CZ extension area (Kings Road, South Ken, High Street Ken and Notting Hill Gate), Foyles, Stamfords, The Stationery Office shop in Holborn, selected retailers and online at www.quickmap.com Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf |
DEcongestion zone map
Andrew wrote:
http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf While I appreciate the problems inherent in cramming so many buses onto a single sheet of paper, it's hard to say that the map is "super simple." ;) I like the use of square brackets to indicate the terminus of a bus route. Don't know what the wavy lines and underlines under a route number means. Is it really necessary to have the gradient effect at every bus stop? I find it visually distracting. -- Michael Hoffman |
DEcongestion zone map
On Feb 18, 10:34 am, "Andrew" wrote:
Really it's a DEcongestion zone, freeing up the city for walking, faster buses, and just better breathing all round. Not really, take look at Oxford Circus to see what happens when buses are set free. Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. Private cars on the whole are fine, the trouble makers are typically the ones in unregistered, unlicensed, untaxed, uninsured cars that the cameras will no doubt help. If you want to free the city up for walking and cycling, get rid of buses. |
DEcongestion zone map
On 18 Feb 2007 12:40:41 -0800, "Paul Weaver"
wrote: On Feb 18, 10:34 am, "Andrew" wrote: Really it's a DEcongestion zone, freeing up the city for walking, faster buses, and just better breathing all round. Not really, take look at Oxford Circus to see what happens when buses are set free. Buses are not set free in London - thankfully. If you think it is bad now just try doubling or trebling the number of buses in Central London which is what the feeding frenzy of deregulation would let lose. Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. Private cars on the whole are fine, the trouble makers are typically the ones in unregistered, unlicensed, untaxed, uninsured cars that the cameras will no doubt help. If you want to free the city up for walking and cycling, get rid of buses. and how would people make all the journeys they currently make if all the buses were got rid of? I don't see how London would function without its bus system. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
DEcongestion zone map
On 18 Feb, 22:13, Paul Corfield wrote:
On 18 Feb 2007 12:40:41 -0800, "Paul Weaver" wrote: On Feb 18, 10:34 am, "Andrew" wrote: Really it's a DEcongestion zone, freeing up the city for walking, faster buses, and just better breathing all round. Not really, take look at Oxford Circus to see what happens when buses are set free. Buses are not set free in London - thankfully. If you think it is bad now just try doubling or trebling the number of buses in Central London which is what the feeding frenzy of deregulation would let lose. Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. Private cars on the whole are fine, the trouble makers are typically the ones in unregistered, unlicensed, untaxed, uninsured cars that the cameras will no doubt help. If you want to free the city up for walking and cycling, get rid of buses. and how would people make all the journeys they currently make if all the buses were got rid of? I don't see how London would function without its bus system. Maybe not all roads, but many should have motor traffic banned, with priority to non-motor traffic. I reckon a trip from Liverpool Street to Notting Hill on a bike would take about half an hour to even someone not used to riding if you didn't have to wait for buses to knock you off. Say make the following roads motor-free (and get rid of speed bumps, traffic lights etc): Embankment from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge, Oxford Street/ BayswaterRoad from Notting Hill to Liverpool Street, The Strand, The Mall, Portland Street/Regent Street, Woburn Place/Kingway/Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Road/Bridge Farringdon Road, and Bishopscade/ London Bridge/Borough Road/Westminster Bridge Road/Birdcage Road Of course ideally we'd be doubling the number of tube lines, at least in central London, but that would cost painful amounts of money nowadays, and take decades. |
DEcongestion zone map
On Sun, 18 Feb 2007, Paul Weaver wrote:
On Feb 18, 10:34 am, "Andrew" wrote: Really it's a DEcongestion zone, freeing up the city for walking, faster buses, and just better breathing all round. Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Agreed. TfL should insist on the provision of showers at all depots. :) You're right about the menace, though - the classic overtake-just-before-a-stop maneuver must be on the training course, they're that consistent about it. Still, i'd rather have one bus than dozens of taxis - in fact i'd rather have one bus than one taxi; those guys are real psychotics. Except Mr Hughes of course! tom -- Don't anthropomorphize computers: they don't like that. |
DEcongestion zone map
Andrew wrote:
Motorists who feel aggrieved by the extension of the London charging zone have some positive assistance this week with the launch of a new easy-to-read bus map for London. Easy-to-read? It gives me a headache. Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf Super-simple? Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. And anything is better than what NJTransit provides: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0001.pdf -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
DEcongestion zone map
On 19 Feb 2007 02:30:32 -0800, "Paul Weaver"
wrote: Say make the following roads motor-free (and get rid of speed bumps, traffic lights etc): Embankment from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge, Oxford Street/ BayswaterRoad from Notting Hill to Liverpool Street, The Strand, The Mall, Portland Street/Regent Street, Woburn Place/Kingway/Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Road/Bridge Farringdon Road, and Bishopscade/ London Bridge/Borough Road/Westminster Bridge Road/Birdcage Road The office I work at is on one of those, and relies almost entirely on motor vehicles for a significant part of its business, so I hope your plan is going to cover the relocation costs! |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway
wrote: Andrew wrote: Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf Super-simple? Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! |
DEcongestion zone map
James Farrar wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! You want disorganized? Maybe I should have linked to Brooklyn instead of Manhattan: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/busbkln.pdf It seems like there's a basic difference in how bus routes are planned in the two cities. In New York, they're largely planned to run along a series of streets, and in the process they happen to run past a series of origins and destinations. In London, it appears as though they're largely planned to run past a series of origins and destinations, and in the process they happen to run along a series of streets. I'm sure there are numerous exceptions in both cities, but the basic approach may set the tone for the style of map. -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, James Farrar wrote:
On 19 Feb 2007 02:30:32 -0800, "Paul Weaver" wrote: Say make the following roads motor-free (and get rid of speed bumps, traffic lights etc): Embankment from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge, Oxford Street/ BayswaterRoad from Notting Hill to Liverpool Street, The Strand, The Mall, Portland Street/Regent Street, Woburn Place/Kingway/Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Road/Bridge Farringdon Road, and Bishopscade/ London Bridge/Borough Road/Westminster Bridge Road/Birdcage Road The office I work at is on one of those, and relies almost entirely on motor vehicles for a significant part of its business, so I hope your plan is going to cover the relocation costs! If i may ask, what's the business, and what does it use motor vehicles for? tom -- When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. -- H. G. Wells |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, James Farrar wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Andrew wrote: Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf Super-simple? Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! Indeed - i didn't even know we *had* a 14th Street! tom -- When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. -- H. G. Wells |
DEcongestion zone map
"Paul Weaver" wrote [snip] Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. [snip] Cyclists who have that problem have usually created it for themselves by riding too close to the kerb. As everyone will tell you, read John Franklin's "Cyclecraft", the stuff about primary and secondary positions. Jeremy Parker |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, David of Broadway wrote:
James Farrar wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? The closest we have are the quadrant maps: http://cache.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/centlond.pdf http://cache.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/n_east.pdf etc Which are, er, not very close. And there is the central London tourist bus map: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf Which is very limited in scope, and only shows a subset of the routes in the area it covers anyway. I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! You want disorganized? Maybe I should have linked to Brooklyn instead of Manhattan: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/busbkln.pdf My dear fellow, you really should look at a map of London some time. Even Brooklyn is a paragon of geometrical order compared to this place. It seems like there's a basic difference in how bus routes are planned in the two cities. In New York, they're largely planned to run along a series of streets, and in the process they happen to run past a series of origins and destinations. In London, it appears as though they're largely planned to run past a series of origins and destinations, and in the process they happen to run along a series of streets. I'm sure there are numerous exceptions in both cities, but the basic approach may set the tone for the style of map. Possibly. There are also a lot more areas of parallel streets in New York, even in the outer boroughs, than in London. Also, your Manhattan map shows a measly 42 routes; a quick, semi-automatic, examination of the list on londonbusroutes.net indicates that we have 612 bus routes in London, not including night routes but including school relief and non-TfL routes. Not all of those go through zone 1/2, which i'd say is our equivalent of Manhattan, but i would imagine more than 42 do. tom -- When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. -- H. G. Wells |
DEcongestion zone map
On Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:42:46 +0000, Michael Hoffman
wrote: Andrew wrote: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf While I appreciate the problems inherent in cramming so many buses onto a single sheet of paper, it's hard to say that the map is "super simple." ;) I think it's horrible - a bubblemap on steroids. I like the use of square brackets to indicate the terminus of a bus route. Don't know what the wavy lines and underlines under a route number means. Wavy lines seem to indicate part time service over a given section of route. This is correct for the 283 which does have differing termini depending on whether it runs to the Wetland Centre or not. However it is patently wrong for the 23 as all journeys run to Liverpool St and Westbourne Park now. It is correct for the 271 which has variable termini in the City. The underlining would seem to show a M-F only service - this is only shown on the Red Arrows which I think are the only services in Zone 1 with this service level. Is it really necessary to have the gradient effect at every bus stop? I find it visually distracting. The whole thing is distracting. It also deals with tube and railway stations in a strange and inconsistent manner. Give me a proper map any day. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway
wrote: Andrew wrote: Motorists who feel aggrieved by the extension of the London charging zone have some positive assistance this week with the launch of a new easy-to-read bus map for London. Easy-to-read? It gives me a headache. I don't like it. Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf Super-simple? Not really. Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? The real issue is that New York's bus system is a fair bit simpler than London's. I have used it and "studied" it from bus maps. Your use of and familiarity with your grid street pattern must also assist in comprehending the bus network. The use of "uptown", "midtown" and "downtown" as commonly understood descriptions of areas of Manhatten is also a further help. IIRC many services are described in this way as they run N-S or E-W (Crosstown?) - this must also help people know which way a bus is going. We really only have West End and City plus some district names which are very familiar like "Victoria". I know the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn are more involved in terms of service provision but your overall number of regular NYCTA routes is still relatively small. I know there are commuter express services as well but I believe they are advertised separately. You tend to have only one route on many main corridors which assists with map clarity hugely - in Central London that is pretty rare. We often have 3 as a minimum and up to 10 or so on the very busiest streets. I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. They are fine if there is a direct bus from the stop you are standing at. They are hopeless if your journey requires interchange to another service at some point. There is no sense of there being a network with spider maps which I believe is counterproductive when you have a network which is as dense as London's and where the move to shorter routes over the last 4 decades means changing services is much more of a necessity. There is little to guide people as to how to accomplish such journeys if they are relatively unfamiliar with the bus network. The one advantage they do have is that they make an attempt to show you exactly (for the immediate area) and approximately (wider radius from origin) where bus stops are. That is a help. And anything is better than what NJTransit provides: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0001.pdf Actually as a pocket guide I think that is not too bad. It should be in 24 hour clock format but at least it is an attempt to show every trip with journey time. Oh how I wish we could have that in London - it is only courtesy of a non TfL website that I have something approximating to the real timetable for my local route. I consider that to be a huge failing on the part of TfL - it's not as if we didn't used to have such info. The half hearted local transport guides have been scrapped. Even our quadrant bus maps are threatened which is another insane piece of nonsense. The guide also has an approximate geographic representation of the route the bus takes, transfer points, services to transfer to and some fare / zone information. It even tells you when there is a holiday schedule operating. Try finding any of that in London in a leaflet! I think you don't know when you are well off ! -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
DEcongestion zone map
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, David of Broadway wrote: James Farrar wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? The closest we have are the quadrant maps: http://cache.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/centlond.pdf http://cache.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/n_east.pdf etc Which are, er, not very close. Not close at all! At a junction, I can't tell which bus routes go which ways without matching a number over here to a number over there. I can't simply follow a colored line. And there is the central London tourist bus map: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf Which is very limited in scope, and only shows a subset of the routes in the area it covers anyway. That's more along the lines of what I'm looking for, although I'd like to see a proper map, superimposed on a street map. (I have nothing against diagrams per se, and I think they work wonderfully for, e.g., the Underground, but I think a basic bus map works better in reference to the surrounding street network.) I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! You want disorganized? Maybe I should have linked to Brooklyn instead of Manhattan: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/busbkln.pdf My dear fellow, you really should look at a map of London some time. Even Brooklyn is a paragon of geometrical order compared to this place. Oh, certainly, Brooklyn vs. London themselves. (I've been to London several times and I have A-Z's dating back to the black-and-white days.) I thought Mr(.) Farrar was referring to the bus route networks, not the street networks. It seems like there's a basic difference in how bus routes are planned in the two cities. In New York, they're largely planned to run along a series of streets, and in the process they happen to run past a series of origins and destinations. In London, it appears as though they're largely planned to run past a series of origins and destinations, and in the process they happen to run along a series of streets. I'm sure there are numerous exceptions in both cities, but the basic approach may set the tone for the style of map. Possibly. There are also a lot more areas of parallel streets in New York, even in the outer boroughs, than in London. Unquestionably. So street-oriented route design might not make much sense in London. Also, your Manhattan map shows a measly 42 routes; a quick, semi-automatic, examination of the list on londonbusroutes.net indicates that we have 612 bus routes in London, not including night routes but including school relief and non-TfL routes. Not all of those go through zone 1/2, which i'd say is our equivalent of Manhattan, but i would imagine more than 42 do. Good point -- the bus route network is much denser in London than in NYC. I wonder why that is. We have a total of 207 local and 36 express routes in the MTA New York City Transit bus network, plus 46 local routes and 35 express routes in the MTA Bus network (recently established to take over the private bus operations mostly in Queens and the Bronx). -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
DEcongestion zone map
On 19 Feb, 17:17, "Jeremy Parker" wrote:
"Paul Weaver" wrote [snip] Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. [snip] Cyclists who have that problem have usually created it for themselves by riding too close to the kerb. As everyone will tell you, read John Franklin's "Cyclecraft", the stuff about primary and secondary positions. How does it help on a two lane road like Bayeswater Road? I typically ride about within 6" the centre of lane 1. The bus then doesn't bother pulling completely into lane 2, but even if it did, it has traffic tailing it. It then pulls straight in front of you and slams its breaks on. If you're luck it indicates. Practically every bus in rush hour stops at every stop along that road, so it shouldn't be a surprise to them. So, this bus is now 2 foot infront of you, you have to slam your brakes on to avoid plowing into the bus. You could move to lane 2 to re-overtake, however there is traffic behind you, and in the time it takes you to check over your shoulder, you could plow into the back of the bus. So there's no choice except to slow and stop. You then fidn that lane 2 is full. You can't normally ride in lane two, as you should stay in the left- hand lane when not overtaking. Simple answer is to prevent buses, taxis, and any other vehicle that is likely to stop in a few yards from overtaking bikes at all times. I wouldn't mind as much, but when going down bayswater road towards holland park cyclists are almsot universally faster than buses. It's as bas as when buses pointlessly overtake each other. Still, what you going to do. Ken likes buses, they do no wrong. Perhaps a small camera with wide angle lens mounted on the handlebars taking a picture every half a second would provide enough evidence? |
DEcongestion zone map
In message , David of Broadway
writes http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf That's more along the lines of what I'm looking for, although I'd like to see a proper map, superimposed on a street map. While I agree in principle, it would simply not be possible in central London where there can be as many 15 routes (plus night buses) passing along one street. Either the map would have to be enormous, or there would have to be considerable topographical distortion to fit in the number of differently coloured lines. The alternative is the style of the quadrant maps which you say (and I agree) are not all that clear. Good point -- the bus route network is much denser in London than in NYC. I wonder why that is. Partly historic reasons - London's early adoption of railways and tubes resulted in an infrastructure that is difficult and expensive to adapt to modern needs, so buses were an important adjunct to the transport system from the late 19th-century onwards (in fact, many of the more tortuous routes still follow the lines of 19th-century horse-bus routes). Partly demographic reasons - In 1880 NYC's population was only just over 1.2m whereas London's was already three times that size. With little room for new roads or new railways, buses and trams were the only solution. Partly social reasons - traditionally, buses provided a cheap form of transport and the network was taken under state control at an early stage. Today, it is still a highly regulated network and (as Paul C rightly states in this group) benefits from a "virtuous circle" in which high frequencies make it popular, and so generate more and more traffic. Partly environmental reasons - only today the London Congestion Zone has been expanded, making it prohibitively expensive (when combined with car parking charges) for most of us to drive into Central London. Thus there is a strong demand for public transport, of which buses form an important part. (I'm a car owner, living 8 miles from the centre of London - but I would almost always go into that centre by railway or bus + tube: taking the car usually makes no economic sense.) -- Paul Terry |
DEcongestion zone map
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, David of Broadway wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, David of Broadway wrote: James Farrar wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? I'm not convinced it would work; London is a somewhat less organised city than NYC (especially north of 14th Street)! You want disorganized? Maybe I should have linked to Brooklyn instead of Manhattan: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/busbkln.pdf My dear fellow, you really should look at a map of London some time. Even Brooklyn is a paragon of geometrical order compared to this place. Oh, certainly, Brooklyn vs. London themselves. (I've been to London several times and I have A-Z's dating back to the black-and-white days.) I thought Mr(.) Farrar was referring to the bus route networks, not the street networks. He was, but since the bus routes run along the streets, there is a certain degree of relation between their level of order! In particular, New York has a lot of griddy areas, where you can just fire a bus route down each avenue, with a few going across, and you cover the whole area without the routes crossing or converging. There aren't many places in London where you can do that, so you end up with a lot more routes crisscrossing and getting tangled up. tom -- the themes of time-travel, dreams, madness, and destiny are inextricably confused |
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On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, Paul Weaver wrote:
On 19 Feb, 17:17, "Jeremy Parker" wrote: "Paul Weaver" wrote [snip] Bus drivers in London are a menace to cyclists, often overtaking with inches to spare, then pulling in and slamming the brakes on. They are loud and stink. Taxi's aren't much better when it comes to running you off the road. [snip] Cyclists who have that problem have usually created it for themselves by riding too close to the kerb. As everyone will tell you, read John Franklin's "Cyclecraft", the stuff about primary and secondary positions. How does it help on a two lane road like Bayeswater Road? The same happens on Caledonian Road. There's a stop just before the NLL (?) bridge where this happens most of the times i go up there. Simple answer is to prevent buses, taxis, and any other vehicle that is likely to stop in a few yards from overtaking bikes Or anything else. at all times. I thought this was even in the highway code, but apparently not. Rule 158 is similar in spirit, though. Still, what you going to do. Flip out, buy a rifle, and start killing people. tom -- the themes of time-travel, dreams, madness, and destiny are inextricably confused |
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Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: Andrew wrote: Motorists who feel aggrieved by the extension of the London charging zone have some positive assistance this week with the launch of a new easy-to-read bus map for London. Easy-to-read? It gives me a headache. I don't like it. Or, download a super-simple version from: http://www.quickmap.com/downloads/q20supersimple.pdf Super-simple? Not really. Then again, London's bus maps aren't designed to make it easy to trace a route, which is the style I'm used to: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/manbus.pdf I'm not sure if that style is genuinely easier to read or if I just find it easier to read because I'm accustomed to it. Has it ever been attempted for London? The real issue is that New York's bus system is a fair bit simpler than London's. I have used it and "studied" it from bus maps. Your use of and familiarity with your grid street pattern must also assist in comprehending the bus network. The use of "uptown", "midtown" and "downtown" as commonly understood descriptions of areas of Manhatten is also a further help. IIRC many services are described in this way as they run N-S or E-W (Crosstown?) - this must also help people know which way a bus is going. We really only have West End and City plus some district names which are very familiar like "Victoria". I know the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn are more involved in terms of service provision but your overall number of regular NYCTA routes is still relatively small. I know there are commuter express services as well but I believe they are advertised separately. You tend to have only one route on many main corridors which assists with map clarity hugely - in Central London that is pretty rare. We often have 3 as a minimum and up to 10 or so on the very busiest streets. I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. They are fine if there is a direct bus from the stop you are standing at. They are hopeless if your journey requires interchange to another service at some point. There is no sense of there being a network with spider maps which I believe is counterproductive when you have a network which is as dense as London's and where the move to shorter routes over the last 4 decades means changing services is much more of a necessity. There is little to guide people as to how to accomplish such journeys if they are relatively unfamiliar with the bus network. The one advantage they do have is that they make an attempt to show you exactly (for the immediate area) and approximately (wider radius from origin) where bus stops are. That is a help. (snip) My impression of bus use in London is that it is broadly confined to the use of single routes from origin to destination - ISTR a statistic that only 4% of journeys involving buses, involved changing from one bus to another. However, I have no source for that, so don't quote me! Maybe I'll see if I can dig it out somewhere. I think buses become particularly attractive when they are direct - whereas with the Tube, people aren't anywhere near as put off changing lines (because it's relatively easy to find your way around a Tube station). Putting information on making onward connections by bus could make the diagrams overly complicated, just to serve a fairly small proportion of passengers. The only way I can think of to make a clear diagram like this is to combine the spider and the traditional bus map - by using the traditional map as a base, and overlaying buses from the current location as individual coloured lines. The problem with that is that where there are long routes that can be shrunk in a spider diagram but will not fit into a traditional map - this is the case for many routes on the central London traditional map. The most useful connections will be those outside central London, which wouldn't be represented by the map I describe. -- Dave Arquati www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London |
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On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, Dave A wrote:
Paul Corfield wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. They are fine if there is a direct bus from the stop you are standing at. They are hopeless if your journey requires interchange to another service at some point. There is no sense of there being a network with spider maps which I believe is counterproductive when you have a network which is as dense as London's and where the move to shorter routes over the last 4 decades means changing services is much more of a necessity. There is little to guide people as to how to accomplish such journeys if they are relatively unfamiliar with the bus network. My impression of bus use in London is that it is broadly confined to the use of single routes from origin to destination - ISTR a statistic that only 4% of journeys involving buses, involved changing from one bus to another. Any idea if that includes night buses? I can almost never get home in the wee small hours without changing. Putting information on making onward connections by bus could make the diagrams overly complicated, just to serve a fairly small proportion of passengers. The only way I can think of to make a clear diagram like this is to combine the spider and the traditional bus map - by using the traditional map as a base, and overlaying buses from the current location as individual coloured lines. How about annotating the spiders to show interchange points, as on the tube strip maps? So, for instance, on the Finsbury Park spider, the Holloway Nag's Head stop on the 29/253/etc bundle would have a little box saying "4 17 43 271 393", maybe with arrows pointing away on either side labelled "Archway" and "Highbury & Islington" (or something, since not all those routes go those ways). It wouldn't completely solve the problem, but if you were at A, wanted to go to B, and knew what the routes serving B were, you could look for a suitable C on the spider map at A. Even if you didn't know the routes at B, you could perhaps make a reasonable guess based on the destination hints. The key problem would probably be the sheer number of boxes and arrows - there are a *lot* of routes in London! tom -- THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD'S ONLY GOT ONE ARM! |
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In message . com, Paul
Weaver writes So, this bus is now 2 foot infront of you, you have to slam your brakes on to avoid plowing into the bus. You could move to lane 2 to re-overtake, however there is traffic behind you, and in the time it takes you to check over your shoulder, you could plow into the back of the bus. So there's no choice except to slow and stop. You then fidn that lane 2 is full. I think you're beginning to get a taste of what it's like to be a pedestrian on a foot path and cyclists are coming towards you, they're a menace to me and their selves. -- Clive. |
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Paul Terry wrote:
In message , David of Broadway writes http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf That's more along the lines of what I'm looking for, although I'd like to see a proper map, superimposed on a street map. While I agree in principle, it would simply not be possible in central London where there can be as many 15 routes (plus night buses) passing along one street. Either the map would have to be enormous, or there would have to be considerable topographical distortion to fit in the number of differently coloured lines. The alternative is the style of the quadrant maps which you say (and I agree) are not all that clear. True. I was neglecting what might be termed the Oxford Street factor. We don't have anything close to that in NYC. I'd still be interested in seeing a London bus map in NYC style, but as a practical matter it would probably be a dismal failure for this reason. Oh well. Good point -- the bus route network is much denser in London than in NYC. I wonder why that is. Partly historic reasons - London's early adoption of railways and tubes resulted in an infrastructure that is difficult and expensive to adapt to modern needs, so buses were an important adjunct to the transport system from the late 19th-century onwards (in fact, many of the more tortuous routes still follow the lines of 19th-century horse-bus routes). Partly demographic reasons - In 1880 NYC's population was only just over 1.2m whereas London's was already three times that size. With little room for new roads or new railways, buses and trams were the only solution. Partly social reasons - traditionally, buses provided a cheap form of transport and the network was taken under state control at an early stage. Today, it is still a highly regulated network and (as Paul C rightly states in this group) benefits from a "virtuous circle" in which high frequencies make it popular, and so generate more and more traffic. Partly environmental reasons - only today the London Congestion Zone has been expanded, making it prohibitively expensive (when combined with car parking charges) for most of us to drive into Central London. Thus there is a strong demand for public transport, of which buses form an important part. Interesting points. If I might suggest some additional (though related) reasons: Although London's rail network has pretty wide coverage, it has limited capacity in comparison to NYC's. Our trains are wider and longer and most of our major trunk lines (and some of the minor ones, too) have four tracks. Given how crowded our trains get, if we had to give up our express tracks and shorten and narrow the trains, the buses would become a lot more popular, by necessity. Also, most NYC neighborhoods not near the subway developed in the automotive age. Most people in those neighborhoods use their cars for all of their trips except into Manhattan. In those neighborhoods, the only major demand for bus service is to the nearest subway station. (And to nearby schools.) From what I've read here, London has a lot of local travel by bus outside the central area. (I'm a car owner, living 8 miles from the centre of London - but I would almost always go into that centre by railway or bus + tube: taking the car usually makes no economic sense.) I'm a reverse commuter, living in Manhattan but working at the south end of Brooklyn. I'm also a car owner, but I generally leave mine at work, since it's simply not worth the hassle or expense of driving on a regular basis. Besides, it's difficult to get work done while behind the wheel of a car, while I'm generally quite productive during my 45 minutes on the B train. Of course, we don't have a congestion charge here. Yet. -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
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Paul Corfield wrote:
The real issue is that New York's bus system is a fair bit simpler than London's. I have used it and "studied" it from bus maps. Your use of and familiarity with your grid street pattern must also assist in comprehending the bus network. The use of "uptown", "midtown" and "downtown" as commonly understood descriptions of areas of Manhatten is also a further help. IIRC many services are described in this way as they run N-S or E-W (Crosstown?) - this must also help people know which way a bus is going. We really only have West End and City plus some district names which are very familiar like "Victoria". True. It seems like London is very much organized around specific points of interest, while New York is organized around streets and overall directions. I know the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn are more involved in terms of service provision but your overall number of regular NYCTA routes is still relatively small. I know there are commuter express services as well but I believe they are advertised separately. I'm impressed with your knowledge of our bus system! You tend to have only one route on many main corridors which assists with map clarity hugely - in Central London that is pretty rare. We often have 3 as a minimum and up to 10 or so on the very busiest streets. Especially in Manhattan, we often have more than one -- three isn't terribly uncommon. But I don't think we ever have more than six, not counting the express routes that, as you point out, are advertised separately (so they don't clutter the main Manhattan map). I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. They are fine if there is a direct bus from the stop you are standing at. They are hopeless if your journey requires interchange to another service at some point. There is no sense of there being a network with spider maps which I believe is counterproductive when you have a network which is as dense as London's and where the move to shorter routes over the last 4 decades means changing services is much more of a necessity. There is little to guide people as to how to accomplish such journeys if they are relatively unfamiliar with the bus network. But the same goes for our bus stop maps. We don't have systemwide (or borough) maps at the bus stops; we just have individual route maps. Except that yours are easier to read. (Yours are also customized for the bus stop, while ours cover the entire route.) Each bus stop in the city has a four-sided Guide-a-Ride box. If only one route stops there, one panel has the map, one panel has the timetable, one panel covers general information, and one panel has a NO STANDING sign. If two routes stop there, both maps and both timetables are posted. If three routes stop there, typically only one timetable is posted -- invariably /not/ the timetable for the least frequent route (i.e., the one whose timetable would be most useful). If four routes stop there, forget about timetables. I can't think of any single bus stops shared by five or more routes (typically they'd have staggered stops in such a situation). And anything is better than what NJTransit provides: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0001.pdf Actually as a pocket guide I think that is not too bad. It should be in 24 hour clock format but at least it is an attempt to show every trip with journey time. Oh how I wish we could have that in London - it is only courtesy of a non TfL website that I have something approximating to the real timetable for my local route. I consider that to be a huge failing on the part of TfL - it's not as if we didn't used to have such info. The half hearted local transport guides have been scrapped. Even our quadrant bus maps are threatened which is another insane piece of nonsense. Sorry if I wasn't clear. The schedules themselves are fine (although Americans, for some reason, seem to be allergic to the 24-hour clock, or at least the schedule designers think we are). It's the route map that I object to. Strenuously. The guide also has an approximate geographic representation of the route the bus takes, transfer points, services to transfer to and some fare / zone information. It even tells you when there is a holiday schedule operating. Try finding any of that in London in a leaflet! Keep in mind that NJT does not publish an overall bus map. For most routes, the "approximate geographic representation" is all there is. And, in my experience, it's completely useless. For instance, look at the map for the 319: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0319.pdf It certainly looks to me like there is a simple transfer between the train and the bus in Atlantic City. Nope! The train station and the bus station are several blocks apart, not signposted. Although the bus passes closer to the train station, the only stop it makes in Atlantic City is at the bus station itself. I will say, most transit agencies in the U.S. do post detailed timetables. If anything, New York City Transit is the exception; on many of the more frequent routes, notations like "Then every 6-8 minutes until" are common. If you like highly detailed timetables, please send me an email. -- David of Broadway New York, NY, USA |
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On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:59:26 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, James Farrar wrote: On 19 Feb 2007 02:30:32 -0800, "Paul Weaver" wrote: Say make the following roads motor-free (and get rid of speed bumps, traffic lights etc): Embankment from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge, Oxford Street/ BayswaterRoad from Notting Hill to Liverpool Street, The Strand, The Mall, Portland Street/Regent Street, Woburn Place/Kingway/Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Road/Bridge Farringdon Road, and Bishopscade/ London Bridge/Borough Road/Westminster Bridge Road/Birdcage Road The office I work at is on one of those, and relies almost entirely on motor vehicles for a significant part of its business, so I hope your plan is going to cover the relocation costs! If i may ask, what's the business, and what does it use motor vehicles for? A printing firm. Getting jobs to and from customers. We *do* have foot messengers for small jobs to local addresses, but that's a small minority of the work we do. Not to mention large scale deliveries. As I was leaving work this morning we had 50+ reams of paper turn up. How are they supposed to deliver that without a lorry? |
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On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, Clive Coleman. wrote:
In message . com, Paul Weaver writes So, this bus is now 2 foot infront of you, you have to slam your brakes on to avoid plowing into the bus. You could move to lane 2 to re-overtake, however there is traffic behind you, and in the time it takes you to check over your shoulder, you could plow into the back of the bus. So there's no choice except to slow and stop. You then fidn that lane 2 is full. I think you're beginning to get a taste of what it's like to be a pedestrian on a foot path and cyclists are coming towards you, they're a menace to me and their selves. True. People who ride bikes on footways (that have pedestrians on them) should be strung up. tom -- Yulava? Niob Yam! |
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On Tue, 20 Feb 2007, James Farrar wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 16:59:26 +0000, Tom Anderson wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, James Farrar wrote: On 19 Feb 2007 02:30:32 -0800, "Paul Weaver" wrote: Say make the following roads motor-free (and get rid of speed bumps, traffic lights etc): Embankment from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge, Oxford Street/ BayswaterRoad from Notting Hill to Liverpool Street, The Strand, The Mall, Portland Street/Regent Street, Woburn Place/Kingway/Waterloo Bridge, Blackfriars Road/Bridge Farringdon Road, and Bishopscade/ London Bridge/Borough Road/Westminster Bridge Road/Birdcage Road The office I work at is on one of those, and relies almost entirely on motor vehicles for a significant part of its business, so I hope your plan is going to cover the relocation costs! If i may ask, what's the business, and what does it use motor vehicles for? A printing firm. Getting jobs to and from customers. We *do* have foot messengers for small jobs to local addresses, but that's a small minority of the work we do. What's the typical deliver size? Or rather, what weight would you say 80% of deliveries are smaller than or equal to? Would it be small enough to do by bike (using a freight bike of some sort, rather than a courier's panniers)? Not to mention large scale deliveries. As I was leaving work this morning we had 50+ reams of paper turn up. How are they supposed to deliver that without a lorry? I assume you get your paper in quite big sheets - 50 reams of A4 at 80 gsm is 125 kg, doable on a trike or 8-freight or something. If it's A0, though, that's two tonnes, which i would certainly agree requires motor power! tom -- Yulava? Niob Yam! |
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On Feb 20, 2:00 am, "Clive Coleman." wrote:
I think you're beginning to get a taste of what it's like to be a pedestrian on a foot path and cyclists are coming towards you, they're a menace to me and their selves. Indeed, often happens outside work, I "accidently" bump into them sideways sometimes when I walk in, it's awful. |
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"James Farrar" wrote in message ... We *do* have foot messengers for small jobs to local addresses, but that's a small minority of the work we do. Not to mention large scale deliveries. As I was leaving work this morning we had 50+ reams of paper turn up. How are they supposed to deliver that without a lorry? Get them to email it - 'paperless office' anyone... Paul |
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In article ,
Paul Scott wrote: "James Farrar" wrote in message .. . We *do* have foot messengers for small jobs to local addresses, but that's a small minority of the work we do. Not to mention large scale deliveries. As I was leaving work this morning we had 50+ reams of paper turn up. How are they supposed to deliver that without a lorry? Get them to email it - 'paperless office' anyone... Just feed 50 reams of blank paper into the scanner, email it, and it comes out the other end ! Nick -- http://www.leverton.org/ ... So express yourself |
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Dave A wrote:
The problem with that is that where there are long routes that can be shrunk in a spider diagram but will not fit into a traditional map - this is the case for many routes on the central London traditional map. The most useful connections will be those outside central London, which wouldn't be represented by the map I describe. I (still) hate the spider maps. I'd like bus shelters to bear accurate mathematically distorted geographical maps, where, for instance, distance from the centre of the map is proportional to the square root of the actual distance on the ground, and any super-long routes have an arrow at the edge of the map listing further destinations. Each group of routes which serve the same local stops would be shown as a single coloured line, which then branches into the different routes towards the edge of the map.... this would be similar to the way that the tube map on the wall at Holborn shows you instantly that there are four platforms for four types of journey, and only by examining the edges of the map do you realise that there are multiple destanations from three of the four platforms. Routes which zigzag around crossing and recrossing other routes from the same stop would have to be given their own coloured line to prevent confusion. |
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On Feb 20, 2:40 pm, "John Rowland"
wrote: I'd like bus shelters to bear accurate mathematically distorted geographical maps, where, for instance, distance from the centre of the map is proportional to the square root of the actual distance on the ground, and any super-long routes have an arrow at the edge of the map listing further destinations. How do you handle the case where two bus routes share the same stretch of road, diverge, and then rejoin at another point? These need to intersect on the map, but both the mileage on the ground, and the time taken to get there will differ. -- Abi |
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In message , Nick Leverton
writes Just feed 50 reams of blank paper into the scanner, email it, and it comes out the other end ! The problem here is that Doug might take you seriously, I know he picks up on snippets he know nothing about, I've made up one or two myself and he's bitten and "quoted me" pretending it was a thought of his own. -- Clive. |
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Clive Coleman. wrote:
In message , Nick Leverton writes Just feed 50 reams of blank paper into the scanner, email it, and it comes out the other end ! The problem here is that Doug might take you seriously, I know he picks up on snippets he know nothing about, I've made up one or two myself and he's bitten and "quoted me" pretending it was a thought of his own. No Doug in this group AFAIK... I would rather this little paradise were not infested by the news:uk.transport custom of ensuring that every thread is either started by Doug or has his name in the subject line. |
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In article ,
Clive Coleman. wrote: In message , Nick Leverton writes Just feed 50 reams of blank paper into the scanner, email it, and it comes out the other end ! The problem here is that Doug might take you seriously, I know he picks up on snippets he know nothing about, I've made up one or two myself and he's bitten and "quoted me" pretending it was a thought of his own. I'm not actually sure why this is a problem ;-) Nick -- http://www.leverton.org/ ... So express yourself |
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On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 23:57:05 -0500, David of Broadway
wrote: Paul Terry wrote: In message , David of Broadway writes http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/pdfdocs/cen_bus.pdf That's more along the lines of what I'm looking for, although I'd like to see a proper map, superimposed on a street map. While I agree in principle, it would simply not be possible in central London where there can be as many 15 routes (plus night buses) passing along one street. Either the map would have to be enormous, or there would have to be considerable topographical distortion to fit in the number of differently coloured lines. The alternative is the style of the quadrant maps which you say (and I agree) are not all that clear. True. I was neglecting what might be termed the Oxford Street factor. We don't have anything close to that in NYC. I'd still be interested in seeing a London bus map in NYC style, but as a practical matter it would probably be a dismal failure for this reason. Oh well. I think Oxford Street, Regent St and Park Lane would obliterate the rest of Zone 1 on the map! Interesting points. If I might suggest some additional (though related) reasons: Although London's rail network has pretty wide coverage, it has limited capacity in comparison to NYC's. Our trains are wider and longer and most of our major trunk lines (and some of the minor ones, too) have four tracks. Given how crowded our trains get, if we had to give up our express tracks and shorten and narrow the trains, the buses would become a lot more popular, by necessity. I'm a tad taken aback by your comments on the relative capacities of London's rail network vs NYC's. Now I'm certainly not an expert on your subway or rail network but surely your rail network (not subway) is but a mere shadow of London's? From memory PATH is only twin bore into both WTC (as was) and 33rd Street. Metro North is twin bore into Grand Central or is that 4 tracks? I think that LIRR and NJT into Penn Station is 4 tracks under the river. Now OK some of your trains are pretty long but overall frequencies and distances covered are nothing like the density of service that we have on networks like Southern, South West Trains or One from Liverpool Street. I've observed Grand Central and Penn Stations in the rush hour and certainly large volumes of people are shifted but it didn't feel on the same scale as London's main line networks. I confess I don't know how many people are carried on LIRR lines that terminate in Queens and Brooklyn. On the subway you do have much longer and bigger profile (than our tube stock) trains and the benefit of express lines. In my (albeit limited) experience of the NYC rush hour you get pretty high frequencies on common sections of route served by multiple services but if you want a particular letter / number then frequency drops noticeably compared to almost all of London's tube service pattern. I'm interested to get your feedback on what I've not noticed about NYC's trains compared to ours here in London. Fully accept the point that if the subways weren't there then people would need to use the bus system. Also, most NYC neighborhoods not near the subway developed in the automotive age. Most people in those neighborhoods use their cars for all of their trips except into Manhattan. In those neighborhoods, the only major demand for bus service is to the nearest subway station. (And to nearby schools.) From what I've read here, London has a lot of local travel by bus outside the central area. I think we're sort of back with history here in that the rail and subway networks are typically strongly radial links with little local traffic (relative to flows into the centre) and virtually nothing offered for orbital flows. Buses have always had a strong purpose given those gaps in the rail network. In older times when we had less congestion many bus routes were very much longer than today and lengthy radial journeys were also possible into the suburbs or across the central area. Sadly this is now relatively rare with few radial routes stretching from Zone 1 to beyond Zone 2. There are more longer radial routes in South London that North of the river - probably reflecting the influence of the tube network north of the Thames. -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:17:18 -0500, David of Broadway
wrote: Paul Corfield wrote: The real issue is that New York's bus system is a fair bit simpler than London's. I have used it and "studied" it from bus maps. Your use of and familiarity with your grid street pattern must also assist in comprehending the bus network. The use of "uptown", "midtown" and "downtown" as commonly understood descriptions of areas of Manhatten is also a further help. IIRC many services are described in this way as they run N-S or E-W (Crosstown?) - this must also help people know which way a bus is going. We really only have West End and City plus some district names which are very familiar like "Victoria". True. It seems like London is very much organized around specific points of interest, while New York is organized around streets and overall directions. I'm not sure London is particularly "organised" - it just "is"! I think far more thought was given to the layout and development of New York. Don't know which I like best though. I know the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn are more involved in terms of service provision but your overall number of regular NYCTA routes is still relatively small. I know there are commuter express services as well but I believe they are advertised separately. I'm impressed with your knowledge of our bus system! Well I do like to use the public transport network in a city - especially when it is both similar and yet radically different to the one I use everyday. I also like to study maps which is partly why I have some understanding of the bus system in the 5 boroughs and the limited links between them - another interesting factor which is not really noticeable in London. But the same goes for our bus stop maps. We don't have systemwide (or borough) maps at the bus stops; we just have individual route maps. Except that yours are easier to read. (Yours are also customized for the bus stop, while ours cover the entire route.) I hate our stop specific info panels - they are next to useless and in some cases utterly untruthful. The one at my local stop is most certainly incorrect for early mornings - one time when you need it to be right if you are not to stand waiting for a very long time. We no longer have area maps at our stops. We have bloody stupid and unhelpful spider maps that tell you very little. Each bus stop in the city has a four-sided Guide-a-Ride box. If only one route stops there, one panel has the map, one panel has the timetable, one panel covers general information, and one panel has a NO STANDING sign. If two routes stop there, both maps and both timetables are posted. If three routes stop there, typically only one timetable is posted -- invariably /not/ the timetable for the least frequent route (i.e., the one whose timetable would be most useful). If four routes stop there, forget about timetables. I can't think of any single bus stops shared by five or more routes (typically they'd have staggered stops in such a situation). Something tells me people have not really thought your bus stop information provision through correctly. TfL's can be variable but you'll usually have all the route information available at the stop. Keep in mind that NJT does not publish an overall bus map. For most routes, the "approximate geographic representation" is all there is. And, in my experience, it's completely useless. I was unaware that there was not a system bus map. I consider such things to be essential. For instance, look at the map for the 319: http://www.njtransit.com/pdf/bus/T0319.pdf It certainly looks to me like there is a simple transfer between the train and the bus in Atlantic City. Nope! The train station and the bus station are several blocks apart, not signposted. Although the bus passes closer to the train station, the only stop it makes in Atlantic City is at the bus station itself. Which is somewhat crazy. I will say, most transit agencies in the U.S. do post detailed timetables. If anything, New York City Transit is the exception; on many of the more frequent routes, notations like "Then every 6-8 minutes until" are common. Well we get marvellous things like that. Even when buses are every 12 minutes we get "buses every 12 minutes" - have a look at this for unhelpful. http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/use...__00001fda.pdf Now tell me what time a 34 leaves at about 10.00 on a Sunday morning or in fact what time it leaves at any time other than 0541, 0556, 0009, 0021, 0033, 0045 or 0057! -- Paul C Admits to working for London Underground! |
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On 20 Feb, 01:05, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, Dave A wrote: Paul Corfield wrote: On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500, David of Broadway wrote: I will say that your spider maps are much easier to read and much more useful than the maps we have posted at bus stops. They are fine if there is a direct bus from the stop you are standing at. They are hopeless if your journey requires interchange to another service at some point. There is no sense of there being a network with spider maps which I believe is counterproductive when you have a network which is as dense as London's and where the move to shorter routes over the last 4 decades means changing services is much more of a necessity. There is little to guide people as to how to accomplish such journeys if they are relatively unfamiliar with the bus network. My impression of bus use in London is that it is broadly confined to the use of single routes from origin to destination - ISTR a statistic that only 4% of journeys involving buses, involved changing from one bus to another. Any idea if that includes night buses? I can almost never get home in the wee small hours without changing. Putting information on making onward connections by bus could make the diagrams overly complicated, just to serve a fairly small proportion of passengers. The only way I can think of to make a clear diagram like this is to combine the spider and the traditional bus map - by using the traditional map as a base, and overlaying buses from the current location as individual coloured lines. How about annotating the spiders to show interchange points, as on the tube strip maps? So, for instance, on the Finsbury Park spider, the Holloway Nag's Head stop on the 29/253/etc bundle would have a little box saying "4 17 43 271 393", maybe with arrows pointing away on either side labelled "Archway" and "Highbury & Islington" (or something, since not all those routes go those ways). It wouldn't completely solve the problem, but if you were at A, wanted to go to B, and knew what the routes serving B were, you could look for a suitable C on the spider map at A. Even if you didn't know the routes at B, you could perhaps make a reasonable guess based on the destination hints. The key problem would probably be the sheer number of boxes and arrows - there are a *lot* of routes in London! tom -- THE DRUMMER FROM DEF LEPPARD'S ONLY GOT ONE ARM!- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Tom writes ...... The key problem would probably be the sheer number of boxes and arrows - there are a *lot* of routes in London! Absolutely, but not only are there buses, but also tubes and trains and streets too. You can't easily mix tube style diagrams (as seen in NYC or with spider maps from TfL in London) with tubes or trains which also use this type of diagram. theres only so many colours so spider diags are local before all the colours are used. Thats why the bus map (Quickmap) being discussed here is so useful/different. Getting all london on one sheet is mega difficult but if you've got one in your pocket it allows you to always get off the tube (when its not working) and immediately onto a bus going in the right sort of direction. Steve |
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