Basil Jet wrote:

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

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

Tim (tm)

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

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

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

Tim (tm)

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

In message , at 21:50:31 on
Mon, 13 Aug 2012, Recliner remarked:
The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats
empty. Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving
early to catch a train, rather than never having turned up at all.

One of the aerial shots before the end showed crowds moving outside the
stadium, tending to confirm that.

It also looked to me like many of the athletes had departed as well.
Although they were 'kettled' in their respective flag segments by the
lightbulb bowler volunteers, I assume they were allowed to slip out
when there wasn't any traffic on the 'road'.

Was the "road" a pastiche of the M25, or just a co-incidence?
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote

The TV pictures towards the end showed about a quarter of the seats empty.
Which is why I'm more inclined to think it's people leaving early to catch
a train, rather than never having turned up at all.

We watched more or less the whole thing, and the empty seats weren't
noticeable until the Olympic flame went out. Couldn't quite see people
checking their watches, but I bet some were. Either that or they didn't
like The Who.

On Aug 12, 6:32*pm, "tim....." wrote:
"Chris Read" *wrote in message

...

The transport arrangements specifically (more below) but generally it
was superb, wasn't it?

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

I agree.

We did get exceptionally lucky with the weather though.

Or... the weather went back to normal for the two weeks of the
Olympics (and better than normal the week before) rather than the
exceptionally poor conditions that dominated the first half of the
summer.

Nick

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

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

"allantracy" wrote in message
...


The main reason for the empty seats is that a large percentage are given
away free to sponsors and national (as in "other nations") Olympic and
sports organisations.

The various sporting associations are allocated seats so their
officials (mostly volunteers) and competitors can get to see some of
the Olympics as well.

Obviously, at the start of the games, many of those are still busy
with their own events but, as the games progress and many of the early
events are concluded, they can find time to take in the rest of the
games and the problem of empty seats is then lessened.

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

Yeah,

what part of the above stops them saying to LOCOG,

"We can't use these seats, you can sell them to normal punters"?

tim

Yeah,

what part of the above stops them saying to LOCOG,

"We can't use these seats, you can sell them to normal punters"?


I do believe that's what actually happened but as the games progressed
the amount of unused seats reduced in number.

The allocation of such tickets was a contractual requirement of the
IOC but it was in no one's interest to have all those empty seats so,
once the problem was recognised, all involved quickly agreed to make
them available.

On Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:46:53 -0700 (PDT)
allantracy wrote:

Yeah,

what part of the above stops them saying to LOCOG,

"We can't use these seats, you can sell them to normal punters"?


I do believe that's what actually happened but as the games progressed
the amount of unused seats reduced in number.

The allocation of such tickets was a contractual requirement of the
IOC but it was in no one's interest to have all those empty seats so,
once the problem was recognised, all involved quickly agreed to make
them available.

Except that its happened at every recent olympics. Lets not pretent the
olympics are run for the general public - they're mainly run for the olympic
committee with the athletes as an aside. The public are irrelevant.

It was bad enough that Bliar thought it would be a good idea to waste billions
of our tax money on this tedious entertainment event but just to rub our noses
in it you had to pay twice if you wanted to attend - once via tax , once via
the ticket. Which is a bloody insult.

B2003