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25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

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Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#31

Post by danw1979 »

virtualritz wrote: post #23
switch007 wrote: post #6

It’s hard not to think Londoners are entitled and ungrateful. No other part of the country has ever had so much spent on mass transit nor will it ever. They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, and always will. I bet you can’t regularly do 1-40 mile journeys at the same speed and cost regularly anywhere else in the UK. The media recently tried to make out the Elizabeth line was one of the worst services…

> They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, [...] It's all relative. If you compared this with Japan's public transport system, 'fine' would not be a word you'd use to describe the one in London.

But you don’t have to go to Japan to make a comparison, you can, as the GP suggested, look at the rest of the country which has abysmal public transport - not fit for purpose - where at least it mostly works in London.

Before another penny in capital expenditure is spent on TFL, every other city in the country needs a metro and decent bus services.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#32

Post by hkt »

danw1979 wrote: post #31
virtualritz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, [...] It's all relative. If you compared this with Japan's public transport system, 'fine' would not be a word you'd use to describe the one in London.

But you don’t have to go to Japan to make a comparison, you can, as the GP suggested, look at the rest of the country which has abysmal public transport - not fit for purpose - where at least it mostly works in London. Before another penny in capital expenditure is spent on TFL, every other city in the country needs a metro and decent bus services.

Leeds remains one of the largest cities in Europe with no tram, trolleybus, or metro system. This having had the offer of such things rescinded multiple times.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#33

Post by pif »

switch007 wrote: post #19
djtango wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully appreciate where you're coming from and everything you've said is true. But I feel like your opinion may differ if you lived on the south end of the Northern line and had to commute during summer. Doubly so if you were slightly shorter and had to spend your daily commute with your face in someone else's sweaty armpit... The truth of many parts of London commuting is it's really quite unpleasant in many ways a…

I do get it. While I haven’t commuted, I’ve travelled many, many times around London including rush hour. Have smelled many armpits on the tube and even worn earplugs on the central line. (I have commuted in another European city however) But London is a victim of its own success. It will always be hot busy and crowded. This is just like almost every other major city in the world - hot, crowded public transport at ru…

> We really need to distribute the economic activity around the UK by properly investing in other towns and cities

I think your proposal is correct worldwide; it's not a UK-only problem. Unfortunately, it looks like humanity has not yet invented a successful economic model that doesn't require a cramped megacity (with a huge income inequality within) or stealing from other countries (see tax havens).

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#34

Post by switch007 »

benj111 wrote: post #14

Is this a continuation of 'first world problems'? 'London problems' Oh no, my train waits it the station for nearly a full minute. The fact that there actually is a train, the train isn't a converted bus that was supposed to be a temporary measure 30 years ago, that's it's deemed viable to actually make a 13 minute train journey, the fact that presumably the train isn't 13 minutes late and in fact turned up, and the…

I bet people downvoting don’t even know about Pacers or how bad they were lol.

Most Londoners are completely ignorant of the pain of public transport up North (hell, even outside of London)

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#35

Post by williamvds »

switch007 wrote: post #6

It’s hard not to think Londoners are entitled and ungrateful. No other part of the country has ever had so much spent on mass transit nor will it ever. They have the finest public transport in the entire UK, and always will. I bet you can’t regularly do 1-40 mile journeys at the same speed and cost regularly anywhere else in the UK. The media recently tried to make out the Elizabeth line was one of the worst services…

I'm aware of just how under invested the rest of UK infrastructure is outside of London, but that doesn't make complaints about its services invalid.

With the billions spent on the purple pine you'd reasonable expect a decent quality of service that doesn't involve so many cancellations, delays, and days of complete deadlock. Bet if you look at to comparable European countries this reliability would be a joke to them.

The train being every 5 minutes is only for central London, if you live further out you're only served by at most 1 in 3 trains. Missing one sucks much more, during rush hour you can bet you'll be crammed like sardines if you're not early.

I've only been commuting twice a week for about a year, and there have been several occurrences where I get to the station and all upcoming trains are delayed or cancelled due to some line failure. The alternative route takes about twice as long if I want it to cost the same. You bet your arse TFL won't give you a refund if your regular route is untenable.

London gets more investment, definitely. But even so the outcomes still lag behind what you'd expect from the capital of such a wealthy country.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#36

Post by eptcyka »

alexfoo wrote: post #22
eptcyka wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't you add another 10-15 minutes to your bike ride for having a mandatory shower at the end of the ride?

No (well not in my case) as if I wasn't cycle commuting I'd be having a shower at home before going in to work. All cycle commuting did was move my shower from home to work, it doesn't add an extra shower and so doesn't add any extra time. I did shower again after cycling home, but that often replaced the shower I'd have before going to bed (or after coming back from the gym) so, again, no increase in the number of s…

Sure, but I find office showers to be far more cumbersome, which takes more time. But I can totally see that being different for other people.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#37

Post by petercooper »

I wonder if maintaining the advantage of the Heathrow Express has an impact on Elizabeth Line dwell times. They take the same route but the Elizabeth Line (stopping at six stations along the way) takes 35 minutes versus the HE's 15.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#38

Post by danw1979 »

hkt wrote: post #32
danw1979 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don’t have to go to Japan to make a comparison, you can, as the GP suggested, look at the rest of the country which has abysmal public transport - not fit for purpose - where at least it mostly works in London. Before another penny in capital expenditure is spent on TFL, every other city in the country needs a metro and decent bus services.

Leeds remains one of the largest cities in Europe with no tram, trolleybus, or metro system. This having had the offer of such things rescinded multiple times.

Leeds was the specific example I had in mind when writing that comment. A city still entirely dominated by cars.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#39

Post by twic »

djtango wrote: post #2

The Elizabeth line (Lizzie line??) is a bit of a quandary for me... Was so excited about it opening and I still get excited about riding it. Although the tunnels are already notably less pristine, so I'm glad to have seen them when they almost sparkled. That all said, at least according to google maps and citymapper the Eline seems to be a little situational. For example, if you're on the Met line and want to go to C…

I think the main point of Crossrail was fast access to central London for people living in east London. It does that quite well, and in doing so relieves the Central line. Crossrail might not be very useful for short, interchangey trips, but the Central line is, so this is still a win.

Re: 25% of the 13 minute journey from Whitechapel to Paddington is spent not moving

#40

Post by hkt »

switch007 wrote: post #19
djtango wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully appreciate where you're coming from and everything you've said is true. But I feel like your opinion may differ if you lived on the south end of the Northern line and had to commute during summer. Doubly so if you were slightly shorter and had to spend your daily commute with your face in someone else's sweaty armpit... The truth of many parts of London commuting is it's really quite unpleasant in many ways a…

I do get it. While I haven’t commuted, I’ve travelled many, many times around London including rush hour. Have smelled many armpits on the tube and even worn earplugs on the central line. (I have commuted in another European city however) But London is a victim of its own success. It will always be hot busy and crowded. This is just like almost every other major city in the world - hot, crowded public transport at ru…

> We really need to distribute the economic activity around the UK by properly investing in other towns and cities

Ironically, this would be aided greatly by investing in public transport. Andy Haldane gave a great speech about this at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute in 2019 - the most salient bit is from page 37:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/201...

Excuse the snip, highlighting PDFs is hard, but here's a key-ish quote:

> ..a measure of the “effective” working population. At peak times, the effective working population of Birmingham is perhaps 50% smaller than its measured population due to poor transport infrastructure. This helps explain why Birmingham punches below its demographic weight

Virtually all UK cities suffer from this. The problem, as ever, is a lack of investment and too many cars.

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