"Peter Beale" wrote in message
o.uk...

Nonetheless as far as buses are concerned the
red ones of London Transport penetrated as far as
Dartford (trolleybuses before them) and Farningham,
and the green ones of London Transport
country area a lot further into Kent than that.

Why did LT use red for the red-bricked streets and green for the country
lanes? Were they hoping their buses would be camouflaged?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

Nick wrote:

Arguably, I think the freedom pass is overkill anyway; I would support free
use of local buses to moderately distant locations, trains to central
London, and maybe tube travel in Z1 off-peak.

I take it that you don't qualify for a Freedom Pass?

--
John Ray (over 60).

John Rowland wrote:

Metropolis means *capital* city...

At least that's one of the definitions of the word.
--
Michael Hoffman

In article , John Rowland
wrote:
"Stephen Osborn" wrote in message
...

De facto a continuous built up area is a single
_something_, the only question is what. The
phrase Metropolitan Area is used because these
somethings are relatively new and contain a
number of things already called cities.

Metropolis means *capital* city...

Does it?

In an act of great smallness Mrs Thatcher abolished the GLC, just to unseat
Ken Livingstone, and all the other "metropolitan" counties of England too,
to make it seem less obvious. The London metropolitan county was restored but
not the others. Tyne and Wear, Mersey, etc ... these are just strings of
villages in the eyes of London, they can't be given the status of
"metropolitan" and so the two meanings of "metropolitan" were used
to the advantage of London and the disadvantage of the rest of the
country. Not for the first time!


Michael Bell

--

In article , (Dave Arquati) wrote:

Watford seems to be a case in point; an urban centre linked closely
to other Greater London urban centres with train, Tube and bus links,
requiring TfL to provide services quite a far way outside of their
area (both bus and Tube), and making it more difficult to provide the
Croxley Link. I know TfL provide other services outside their area,
but Watford seems particularly odd since it is served by TfL bus
*and* Tube services (and will be served by TfL Rail services if they
take on management of Silverlink Metro).

pedant Watford has not been served by Tube services since the Bakerloo
was cut back.

--
Peter Beale

Peter Beale ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

pedant Watford has not been served by Tube services since the
Bakerloo was cut back.

I wonder where all those Met tubes are going, then? Not the Uxbridges, not
the Amershams, but the ones with "Watford" on the front...

In article ,
(Adrian) wrote:

pedant Watford has not been served by Tube services since the
Bakerloo was cut back.

I wonder where all those Met tubes are going, then? Not the
Uxbridges, not the Amershams, but the ones with "Watford" on the
front...

They're not tubes - they are cut-and-cover ("tube" traditionally describes
the trains using the deep-level bored tube lines, not those like the Met and
District built by scooping out a trough and subsequently covering it up).

--
Peter Beale

"Tony Wilson" a@a wrote in message
...

"Nick" wrote in message
...


London heritage??? We have been part of Kent for generations, and only
sucked into the Greater London experiment so the Tories could take
control
of London government (well, mostly). I am sure the overwhelming
majority
of
residents in Bexley describe, and want to describe themselves as living
in
Kent (me included). Maybe those of us in metropolitan Kent will one day
escape from the clutches of central London and determine our own affairs
without inteference.

I loathe Bexley being described as "south London", it really is NOT. We
are
part of the Greater London administrative area, that's all, for all
other
purposes we are people of Kent. I know "Londoners" find this hard to
believe, but many of us don't wanty to be part of your high-density
overpopulated sprawling urban gloom.

Nick


What I loathe is people within the GLA boundary denying they are part of
London. Places like Bexley, Bromley etc only exist in their present form
because of London, not the neighbouring county of Kent.


Blimey, got home form work and found that I never got my original question
answered, but am glad to have kicked off such a lively debate!

I am afraid that I have to wade in and take issue with my fellow Bexley
person. The heritage in question is London's world-famous red buses. Their
expansion into Bexley did not occur with the creation of the GLC but has
existed as long as London's transport has been co-ordinated, whether by
LPTB, LT, TfL etc. Indeed, it predates centralisation and nationalisation
of
bus services, as the private London General Omnibus Company opened Sidcup
garage with red buses in 1924.

So, Bexley was a part of London's transport network generations before the
GLC was created. Hence, taking our red buses away went against our local
heritage as a part of the London transport network.

(Note the Bexley was always going to be a part of the Greater London
county
due to its location within the metropolitan built-up area, which was on
the
cards from the 1930s as the LCC couldn't do a proper job when they only
collected rates from the poorer inner city and was unwinnable for the
Tories; the Tories did however try to elbow more of Surrey inside the GLC
boundary such as Epsom and Banstead to make it safer Tory ground, but
those
areas resisted and hence the GLC became marginal.)

In terms of your general criticism that Bexley is not in London, can I put
the following forward (and much of this goes for other parts of outer
London):

1) The suburban sprawl across Bexley did not arise out of thin air, but
occurred solely as a result of the accessibility of cheap housing close to
the railways into London. The population of Bexley did not materialise out
of thin air, but people moved out from other parts of London where
conditions were poorer and more crowded. Thus demograpically in the 1920s
and 1930s the borough changed from a rural area where most people were
brought up locally to one with a population massively imported from
outside
the area.

This distinguishes the population enormously from 'other' parts of Kent
outside the metropolis, where growth was slower and more organic, based
more
upon the growing populaiton generally and drift towards the nearest
town/industry. Already you have a situation where not only is Bexley
physically joined to London (which should be sufficient in anyone's book
to
make it a part of the metropolis) but there was by WW2 a cultural
difference
between metropolitan Kent (Bexley, Bromley etc) which largely grew as a
result of an influx of polulation from the inner London and the rest of
Kent
(i.e. outside Greater London today).

2) The 20 years up to WW2 both physically and culturally changed Bexley,
so
much so that when the country's civil defences were being organised,
Bexley
and Bromley were under the control of the London Civil Defence Region, not
the South Eastern Region which was responsible for the rest of Kent. One
reason for this was that Bexley and Bromley have always been a part of the
Metropolitan Police District, another generations-old distinction between
the heritage of the metropolitan and rural Kents which predates not only
the
GLC but also the LCC.




You say that Bexley is a part of Kent for "all other purposes". What are
these purposes? As far as I can tell Bexley is in Kent for:

a- Postal address. Although as another poster pointed out, the county can
be
omitted, or indeed London can be used provided the postcode is correct-
this
precedent was established by the Royal Mail due to the number of county
changes that followed a decade after London in 1974 when a great many
people
demanded the right to choose to use either the traditional or new county

b- Cricket. No county of (Greater) London exists, hence (broadly) SE
London
is covered by Kent (who have had grounds in Blackheath, Catford and
Beckenham) , SW London by Surrey (The Oval), W and N London by Middlesex
(Lords, Southgate, Uxbridge) and E London by Essex (Ilford, Leyton).


Wheras I can count these for London:

a- Administration. London Borough of Bexley, Greater London Authority,
London Mayor, London Region European Constituency.

b- Civil organisations. Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade, London
Ambulance Service, NHS.

c- Transport (already waffled on about that above!).

d- Culturally. Yes, I'm sure some will raise eyebrows at that (!), but
while
Bexley residents may not have much in common with the average resident of
inner city London, they certainly have more in common with fellow
commuterland residents of Bromley, or Sutton, or Finchley etc. than they
do
with the countryfolk in the county of Kent across the M25. Indeed, as many
of the people who populated the thousands of new houses in the 1920s or
1930s as commuters came from inner London, many more have historic family
roots in inner London than in Kent whether they realise it or not, whereas
most residents of Kent itself can probably go back many generations in the
county.

e- Economically. Suburban Bexley is entirely dependent on the economy of
London, whereas Kent itself has a stronger relationship with agriculture
in
the centre/south, tourism in the 'Garden of Kent', some traditional
industry
(incl shipping) along the Thames and Channel coast and towns are
self-sufficient to a much larger extent. Bexley is a suburb, which has
little industry and sugnificantly fewer jobs than its population requires,
hence the dominance of commuting to the centre of London, which makes it a
suburb and not a distinct self-sufficient urban settlement.

f- Telecoms. Don't know about anyone else, but I think our FOOts Cray
phone
number was replaced with an 01- code at the same point in the 1960s as
everyone else in London's. (I realise that due to the nature of the
telecom
lines, this is not a very precise measure, with bits of Greater London
still
outside 020 (Erith, Uxbridge etc) and bits outside within (Ewell,
Loughton);
but clearly there's a very good match with the Greater London boundary.)

g- Geographically. Well, just look at a map- Bexley is a part of the
built-up area of London, which should really settle the issue regardless
of
the above.


Well said, absolutely right.

All these people in outer London suburbs who like to deny they are part of
the metropolis and think they live in rural Kent, Surrey, Essex, Herts or
'Middlesex' should take their heads out of the sand. The only reason they
can still cling to outdated county identities was due to the Post
Office/Royal Mail insisting after 1965 (wrongly) that large chunks of London
were actually in Kent, Surrey, Essex, Herts or 'Middlesex' when they
weren't. Even this requirement has been dropped by Royal Mail, as always it
will takes generations to catch up...

Andy

Peter Beale wrote:
In article ,
(Adrian) wrote:

pedant Watford has not been served by Tube services since the
Bakerloo was cut back.

I wonder where all those Met tubes are going, then? Not the
Uxbridges, not the Amershams, but the ones with "Watford" on the
front...

They're not tubes - they are cut-and-cover ("tube" traditionally describes
the trains using the deep-level bored tube lines, not those like the Met and
District built by scooping out a trough and subsequently covering it up).

I think this pedantic argument has been done to death on this newsgroup.
If you're going to split hairs over the type of stock, first recognise
the difference between "tube" and "Tube". The former may be taken to
mean just trains using the bored deep tube lines (if you wish to be so
pedantic about it). The latter refers to the London Underground system.

Of course, any reasonable person knows what someone means when they talk
about "tube services". Or even "Tube services". And I think pretty much
everyone on this newsgroup understands the difference between deep tube
and subsurface lines.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Peter Beale wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 12 Jan 2005:

In article ,
(Adrian) wrote:

pedant Watford has not been served by Tube services since the
Bakerloo was cut back.

I wonder where all those Met tubes are going, then? Not the
Uxbridges, not the Amershams, but the ones with "Watford" on the
front...

They're not tubes - they are cut-and-cover ("tube" traditionally describes
the trains using the deep-level bored tube lines, not those like the Met and
District built by scooping out a trough and subsequently covering it up).

Hmmm - TfL now describes all of them as "The Tube"..... (something about
when you're in a hole, stop digging?)
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005