Thomas Covenant wrote:
In article , Redonda
wrote:

And what's the alternative? I had to go by bus to pick up my car
from being serviced a couple of weeks ago and waited an hour and a
quarter for a D7 - scheduled to run every 10-12 minutes between
rush
hours.

That would indicate only one bus out of six was in service (6 x 12
=
72 = 1hr 12 min).

That would be about right. At the Mile End turn-around you can often
see 3 D7s parked up with the drivers having a fag and a cup of tea
while you wait half an hour or more - then all 3 come out together.
There always used to be an inspector checking out the busses there
but I haven't seen one in years now.

The journey from Westferry Road to Burdett Road, which takes
about 4 or 5 minutes driving door to door, took 1 hour 40
minutes!!


Does beg the question as to why you didn't walk it, or (depending
exactly where on Westferry Road you were waiting) catch a 277?
Were the D3s running as they should have been?

If I had 2 good legs I would have walked, as it is I've been waiting
10 months for an operation on both legs - just getting to the bus
stop (by McDougal Gardens, if you know it) takes me 10 minutes
:-( The garage is north of Bow Common Lane near Mile End and the D3
turns left at Limehouse along Commercial Road so no good. The walk
to Canary Wharf for the 277 is well beyond my physical capabilities.

Yes, I could have caught a D3 and changed to a 277 at Canary Wharf
but hope springs eternal and I kept thinking that a D7 must come any
minute. Poor deluded soul that I am :-/

This wasn't an isolated incident - my wife often waits up to an
hour
for this bus when visiting relatives (she doesn't drive and is too
scared of London drivers to learn). The amazing thing is that the
D7
must be one of the shortest routes in London, running from Poplar
to
Mile End round the Isle of Dogs where we live. It seems
impossible
that such a short route should have such long delays.


I assume you've complained to the TfL/First with all the relevant
details/dates?

What's the point? Several local groups and councillors have met with
TFL representatives who promise improvements and then sit on their
hands while the service collapses around them!

--

Phil ,,,^.".^,,,




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"John Rowland" wrote in message
...
"Robin May" wrote in message
...
"Dave Arquati" wrote the following in:


Ken wanted to extend it into Kensington & Chelsea and Tower
Hamlets - I'm not sure exactly how far into either. The limited
map on the BBC News site showed just the Kensington & Chelsea
extension since 52% of residents were in favour. It didn't seem to
extend as far as the logical boundary (the West Cross Route) but
instead seemed to run up Gloucester Road or some parallel route in
the south (Queens Gate, or maybe Exhibition Road/Sydney St etc?).

Only 33% of residents in Tower Hamlets were in favour of the
extension so the map didn't show the eastwards extension.

I think it's ridiculous to extend it into Tower Hamlets, the poorest
borough in London. There would be bound to be people who were outside
the congestion charging zone but whose local supermarket or school or
similar important service was inside it, and who'd be left with no
adequate substitute method of transport. And for people who really
don't have a lot of money, that would be very unfair.

Everyone seems to think that congestion charging has to be done the way
the
Central area was done, even though that was done very poorly (CC cameras
in
cul-de-sacs off the Inner Ring Road, etc ). I don't know what the
objectives
with Tower Hamlets are, but a single north-south cordon could bring all
the
benefits of CC charging with few of the oft-quoted disadvantages.

For instance, put CC cameras on every bridge over the Grand Union Canal
from
Victoria Park to the Thames, OR on every bridge over or under the DLR
between Bow and Limehouse. You would only need a fraction of the cameras
you
would need to surround the area, and you would stop all peak flow through
the borough to the City, while inconveniencing few of the journeys to or
from Tower Hamlets itself.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped

I would say that people are cheapskates and for medium-distance journeys
(i.e. from inside the M25) there would be much misuse of the East Cross
Route to avoid the cordon, with people from further out using a different
approach route altogether - like the A12.

The problem IMO with extending the zone to part of Tower Hamlets is that it
doesn't really give any congestion relief benefit. If people are travelling
through the zone extension to Central London, they already pay the charge so
it makes no difference to them. If they travel through the extension on
their way elsewhere (e.g. via the Rotherhithe tunnel) - then there's no
alternative road route, although the East London Line extensions may help.
If they are travelling to or from the zone, they're probably either
travelling to a deprived area which would be very hard hit by charging, or
to Canary Wharf, which probably isn't even in the zone extension anyway!
(And I always have the impression that not that many people drive to Canary
Wharf BICBW).

There would be a small benefit for residents and businesses of the zone
extension, in seeing travel costs to the central charging zone reduced.

I don't think extending to Kensington & Chelsea has as many of these
problems because it's a much more affluent area less likely to be
economically hit by charging, and IMHO transport in the area is much better
than in Tower Hamlets (except for the DLR). I also hate seeing buses speed
down Piccadilly only to come to a grinding halt at Scotch House.
However, depending on where they extend the zone to, it might or might not
upset some of my lecturers...


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7

"Dave Arquati" wrote the following in:


The problem IMO with extending the zone to part of Tower Hamlets
is that it doesn't really give any congestion relief benefit. If
people are travelling through the zone extension to Central
London, they already pay the charge so it makes no difference to
them. If they travel through the extension on their way elsewhere
(e.g. via the Rotherhithe tunnel) - then there's no alternative
road route, although the East London Line extensions may help. If
they are travelling to or from the zone, they're probably either
travelling to a deprived area which would be very hard hit by
charging, or to Canary Wharf, which probably isn't even in the
zone extension anyway! (And I always have the impression that not
that many people drive to Canary Wharf BICBW).

Ah, here is one of my (no longer) secret reasons for not wanting a
Tower Hamlets congestion charge: if they implement one then I won't be
able to go shopping in the Watrose in Canary Wharf. And this does
extend to being a real concern: the only real reason I can think of for
people drive to Canary Wharf is to do shopping in the shopping centre
there. If you prevent them from doing that then it'll kill off a lot of
business for them while at the same time not really solving a
congestion problem because Canary Wharf has no congestion problem.

Canary Wharf has such good transport links and such little provision
for cars (apart from the shopping centre car park) that people don't
need or want to drive there, and really the only vehicles I see there
in large numbers are taxis and buses.

--
message by Robin May, founder of International Boyism
"Would Inspector Sands please go to the Operations Room immediately."

Unofficially immune to hangovers.

Dave Arquati wrote:
I don't think extending to Kensington & Chelsea has as many of these
problems because it's a much more affluent area less likely to be
economically hit by charging, and IMHO transport in the area is much
better than in Tower Hamlets (except for the DLR). I also hate seeing
buses speed down Piccadilly only to come to a grinding halt at Scotch
House.
However, depending on where they extend the zone to, it might or
might not upset some of my lecturers...

Well I live on the Hammersmith Road just opposite Olympia, and was
"consulted" by TfL for about half an hour about two months ago regarding the
possible extension of the zone, and I got the idea that the Shepherds Bush
Road and Warwick Road were both being considered as possible Western
borders. I imagine that if either of those were eventually chosen then lots
of the Imperial College staff would get upset!