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.

"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.

And tough titties on anyone in the UK who isn't supporting Team GB (I do
hate that name!), other counties' media don't make concessions to
foreigners, why should we?

tim

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 06:24:08 +0100, Robin9
wrote:


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.

As an arch sceptic I am relieved and slightly surprised. I thought
the transport system would not be able to cope. There seems
little doubt that fewer people came than expected and this must
have helped matters. The downside which no-one is mentioning
is that as fewer people came, the financial loss will be even bigger
than feared.

Actually, I think that the 'empty streets' complaints really relate
only to the beginning of the Olympics. Once it became clear that the
warnings had been exaggerated, more normal Londoners returned. But, in
any case, the return from the Games won't be measured by retail
footfall over 17 days.

Also, the majority of the costs were spent in the UK. For example, the
construction industry was probably rather glad to have all the extra
work in an otherwise very lean period. And the British architects of
the rather splendid venues can confidently expect more foreign
commissions (including designing the Rio Olympic park).

Also, the majority of the costs were spent in the UK. For example, the
construction industry was probably rather glad to have all the extra
work in an otherwise very lean period.

While I believe 98% of contracts in the Park were let to UK firms, that
does not mean the money stayed in the UK. First, many international use
UK subsidiaries, especially when bidding for public sector work.
Second, I live, and have lived, near the Olympic Park since well before
London's winning lie in 2005 and can assure you very many workers were
not from the UK and were taking or sending money abroad.

And the British architects of
the rather splendid venues can confidently expect more foreign
commissions (including designing the Rio Olympic park).

Possibly yes - for the few buyers who want a vanity project and don't
mind about budget and over-runs. But I suggest the much greater volumes
of bread-and-butter buyers will not be interested in, for example,
copying the aquatics cent see eg the comments from Sir Robin Wales.
I suspect the velodrome might do better - if they can sort out cheaply
the leaking roof.
--
Robin
reply to address is (meant to be) valid

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:13:21 +0100, "Robin" wrote:

Also, the majority of the costs were spent in the UK. For example, the
construction industry was probably rather glad to have all the extra
work in an otherwise very lean period.

While I believe 98% of contracts in the Park were let to UK firms, that
does not mean the money stayed in the UK. First, many international use
UK subsidiaries, especially when bidding for public sector work.
Second, I live, and have lived, near the Olympic Park since well before
London's winning lie in 2005 and can assure you very many workers were
not from the UK and were taking or sending money abroad.

Well, I suppose that's going to be true of any building project, but
the fact remains that it's our most depressed industry and needs the
work (perhaps the Olympics work helped keep some companies afloat). It
might have been Polish builders this time round, but it would have
been Irish in the past.


And the British architects of
the rather splendid venues can confidently expect more foreign
commissions (including designing the Rio Olympic park).

Possibly yes - for the few buyers who want a vanity project and don't
mind about budget and over-runs. But I suggest the much greater volumes
of bread-and-butter buyers will not be interested in, for example,
copying the aquatics cent see eg the comments from Sir Robin Wales.
I suspect the velodrome might do better - if they can sort out cheaply
the leaking roof.

Ah, a leaking roof: the guarantee of an architectural award! And the
projects were actually ahead of schedule and within the (realistic)
budget (as opposed to the original finger-in-the-air guess).

As for the swimming pool, Zaha Hadid's firm already gets plenty of
foreign commissions, but had hitherto lacked a flagship UK project, so
this project should boost the foreign work. Well done the Welsh steel
firm that was able to construct that amazing tripod of a roof! It's
just a pity that the building had to be disfigured by the ugly winged
extensions during the Games themselves; it'll look a lot better when
reduced to its final form.

I'd also suspect that Heatherwick Studio will win rather a lot more
work after that amazing multi-petal cauldron. I'd highly recommend the
V&A exhibition of his work (which, to get back in context, includes
the NB4L):
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/exhibit...erwick-studio/

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:53:17 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:25:52 -0700 (PDT)
D7666 wrote:
So my experiences then, apart from just one morning, were not of empty
trains but full trains where part empty ones are the norm, crowded
trains where part full trains were the norm, and all 4 interchanges
used normally crowded slow and extending overall journey time.

And thats ignoring 2 major failures of the central line during the fortnight
and that constant huge tailbacks on the A12 and A13 during the morning rush
thanks to the utterly pointless rephasing of the lights on those routes.
Which no doubt won't be changed back until after the paralympics me-too farce
is over.

Ah, Boltar, here's a sign just for you: http://yfrog.com/mg9ybnj

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 Aug 13, 10:43*am, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:26:41 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 18:32:48 on Sun, 12 Aug
2012, tim..... remarked:

The one blot was the awful "empty seats".

There were lots of empty seats visible towards the end of the Closing
Ceremony. Was that people leaving to catch the last train home, or was
it like that all the way through?

Given the BBC were assuming it would be finished by 2315 and it
actually finished about midnight I am not entirely surprised some
people were nervous about last trains given ti was Sunday service.
There was a TfL Travel Alert to advise Tube, DLR and Overground
services would run later with times of last departures. I didn't see
an equivalent notice from National Rail.
--
Paul C

I caught the last 45 minutes or so on the BBC website; it was just
about 00:20 when coverage closed but I think events in the stadium may
have finished a minute or two earlier.

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