Dave Hillam wrote:

IME more visitors to London appear to have a mortal fear of getting on
a London bus. The main reasons I've been able to establish are a)
perceived as being far too slow and b) a fear of getting irretrievably
lost.

Mainly the latter, I'd think, and partly due to lousy passenger
information. The GPS-based RTPI project will certainly help here if it
is promoted enough.

Neil

In message . com, Neil
Williams writes
Ian Jelf wrote:

Non-Londoners will often go to extreme lengths to avoid the Tube. In
my experience, most prefer taxis, even where a simple bus transfer (or
sometimes even a walk, depending on luggage, would suffice.

Interesting - and I guess you probably know best by your job - but my
experience is that people will use the Tube as it's relatively easy to
understand -
Oh, absolutely.

The main reason that people have for not using the Tube in my experience
is fear of actually being in enclosed spaces underground.
(Interestingly, I've never had anyone cite fear of terrorism as a reason
for avoiding it.)

indeed, the geographical knowledge of London by a lot of
people I know is largely based (inaccurately, of course) on the Tube
map.
Yes and when they *do* use it, they usually comment on how easy it is to
understand for that reason.

During one of the anti-war demonstrations last year, my coach was unable
to get back to a pickup near Parliament Square and I took a group of
about 15 back to the Tower Thistle hotel on the District Line [1].
They were an elderly group who wouldn't have dreamed of doing so "on
their own". They actually loved it and to my amusement later told
other people in the group that it was one of the highlights of their
weekend in London!


[1] I was going to say "Tube" but someone would have come along
to.......well, you know!

Neil


--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 08:45:18AM -0800, Jon wrote:

A few years ago there was a circulat bus route linking all the main
London stations, using low-floor vehicles with loading ramps. It was
indeed slow. The idea was to serve travellers who needed ro-ro loading
for wheelchairs, prams, etc and so could not use the Underground at
all, although the service was open to all users. I think (someone here
may know better) that it disappeared for lack of customers. Perhaps few
wheelchair users make cross-London journeys or maybe most doing so
prefered a taxi transfer.

Of course, another issue is that few wheelchair users *exist*, and those
who do exist might very well like to use the bus to get from one station
to another if only they could get on the trains in the first place.
Given that they can't get on the trains (either because of steps in and
out of the train or steps in and out of the stations at either end of
their journey) they have to start off using a car and it would really be
a bit silly to join two car journeys together with a bus in the middle!

It would be interesting to see just how much money TfL has spent on
making buses etc wheelchair-friendly, and whether it would have just
been cheaper to give them free taxi rides.

And remember, most (all?) buses now have low floors, so a dedicated
low-floor route wending its way around all the stations is no longer
needed.

--
David Cantrell | Nth greatest programmer in the world

There is no one true indentation style,
But if there were K&R would be Its Prophets.
Peace be upon Their Holy Beards.

Harry G wrote:

I'm a Londoner and have no problem using buses here - but if I'm in a
strange city I'll take the metro or a tram by preference. Something
psychlogical to do with the fact that metro or tram services can't
deviate from their tracks and (usually!) come back exactly the same way
they went, point (b) in Dave's post.

Guess you've never been to New York!

Just yesterday we had:

Southbound 1 trains operated express from 137th Street to 96th Street
and again express from 34th Street to 14th Street, where they terminated
(running back north from the southbound express track). But 2 and 3
trains, which normally run express between 96th Street and Chambers
Street, ran local instead. Shuttle buses ran between Chambers Street
and South Ferry on the 1.

The 5 ran local in both directions in Manhattan, terminating at Brooklyn
Bridge instead of Bowling Green.

No C service at all. Instead, the A ran local. Except northbound from
Canal Street to 59th Street, where both the A and E ran express.
(Except that E train stopped at 50th Street itself.)

The southbound F train ran via the A line between West 4th Street and
Jay Street.

There was no G service south of Bedford-Nassau Avenues. Instead, there
was shuttle bus service to Jay Street.

There was no 6 service north of Parkchester. Instead, there was shuttle
bus service to Pelham Bay Park.

L trains ran in two segments, split at Broadway Junction. Also, the
brand new PA/CIS system on the L (essentially equivalent to the
next-train indicators that you've had for, oh, a century or so) was
undergoing testing, with sometimes humorous results.
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:56:04 +0000, Ian Jelf
wrote:

In message . com, Neil
Williams writes

Interesting - and I guess you probably know best by your job - but my
experience is that people will use the Tube as it's relatively easy to
understand -
Oh, absolutely.

The main reason that people have for not using the Tube in my experience
is fear of actually being in enclosed spaces underground.
(Interestingly, I've never had anyone cite fear of terrorism as a reason
for avoiding it.)

indeed, the geographical knowledge of London by a lot of
people I know is largely based (inaccurately, of course) on the Tube
map.
Yes and when they *do* use it, they usually comment on how easy it is to
understand for that reason.

During one of the anti-war demonstrations last year, my coach was unable
to get back to a pickup near Parliament Square and I took a group of
about 15 back to the Tower Thistle hotel on the District Line [1].
They were an elderly group who wouldn't have dreamed of doing so "on
their own". They actually loved it and to my amusement later told
other people in the group that it was one of the highlights of their
weekend in London!

Not all surprised to hear this.

"You know what we did? - we climbed Mount Everest. Well not really but
we did go for a ride on the Tube and survived."

I've had almost the same reaction on telling people I went on the Subway
in New York to Brooklyn. "You did what? Do you know how dangerous that
is?"
"Err, I am standing here and am still alive to tell the tale. It wasn't
that bad."

Still I don't believe in "doing a city" by going round in an air
conditioned tourist coach. I think it adds to the experience to travel
about how the residents do - the Tokyo rail system is certainly an
experience ;-)

--
Paul C

Paul Corfield wrote:

I've had almost the same reaction on telling people I went on the Subway
in New York to Brooklyn. "You did what? Do you know how dangerous that
is?"
"Err, I am standing here and am still alive to tell the tale. It wasn't
that bad."

It's dangerous? That's news to me, and I do it four days a week.
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 10:13:30 -0500, David of Broadway
wrote:

Harry G wrote:

I'm a Londoner and have no problem using buses here - but if I'm in a
strange city I'll take the metro or a tram by preference. Something
psychlogical to do with the fact that metro or tram services can't
deviate from their tracks and (usually!) come back exactly the same way
they went, point (b) in Dave's post.

Guess you've never been to New York!

Just yesterday we had:

Southbound 1 trains operated express from 137th Street to 96th Street
and again express from 34th Street to 14th Street, where they terminated
(running back north from the southbound express track). But 2 and 3
trains, which normally run express between 96th Street and Chambers
Street, ran local instead. Shuttle buses ran between Chambers Street
and South Ferry on the 1.

[snip other examples]

this temporary "chopping and changing" of routes and then the wholesale
re-ordering of the Subway service patterns every so often is something
that I struggle to comprehend.

How on earth do New Yorkers cope with this scale of change -
particularly to stopping patterns? Does it cause real problems or is it
just one of those things that people now accept?
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007, Paul Corfield wrote:

the Tokyo rail system is certainly an experience ;-)

Ah yes. I understand that the Japanese have some novel ideas about the
relationship between rolling stock and permanent way:

http://urchin.earth.li/photopub/disp...&thumb=640x640

tom

--
Yulava? Niob Yam!

David Cantrell wrote:

On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 08:45:18AM -0800, Jon wrote:

A few years ago there was a circulat bus route linking all the main
London stations, using low-floor vehicles with loading ramps. It was
indeed slow. The idea was to serve travellers who needed ro-ro loading
for wheelchairs, prams, etc and so could not use the Underground at
all, although the service was open to all users. I think (someone here
may know better) that it disappeared for lack of customers. Perhaps few
wheelchair users make cross-London journeys or maybe most doing so
prefered a taxi transfer.

Of course, another issue is that few wheelchair users *exist*, and those
who do exist might very well like to use the bus to get from one station
to another if only they could get on the trains in the first place.
Given that they can't get on the trains (either because of steps in and
out of the train or steps in and out of the stations at either end of
their journey) they have to start off using a car and it would really be
a bit silly to join two car journeys together with a bus in the middle!

It would be interesting to see just how much money TfL has spent on
making buses etc wheelchair-friendly, and whether it would have just
been cheaper to give them free taxi rides.

And remember, most (all?) buses now have low floors, so a dedicated
low-floor route wending its way around all the stations is no longer
needed.


Anecdotally I find it's not such a rare sight to see a wheelchair user
on a bus at off-peak times, and even on teh finges of the peak.

Additionally low floor buses are more accessible to those passengers
who are less able bodied.

Paul Corfield wrote:

this temporary "chopping and changing" of routes and then the wholesale
re-ordering of the Subway service patterns every so often is something
that I struggle to comprehend.

Join the club!

How on earth do New Yorkers cope with this scale of change -
particularly to stopping patterns? Does it cause real problems or is it
just one of those things that people now accept?

When regular service is operating, stopping patterns stay relatively
constant during daytime hours. There are a few exceptions on weekdays
(mostly revolving around the use of three-track lines), and the N makes
four local stops on weekends that it bypasses on weekdays. There are
also some routes that only run on weekdays. Late nights are a different
ballgame, with quite a few routes either not running or reduced to
shuttle service and most express service curtailed.

Regular riders generally figure things out. One problem is that on
weekends, even regular riders tend to take different routes than they do
on an everyday basis, so they can get quite confused. As can, of
course, tourists. One big problem, in my experience, is that the
American Museum of Natural History, a major tourist attraction, is
adjacent to the 81st Street station on the B and C trains -- the B
serves 6th Avenue and the C serves 8th Avenue. However, the B only runs
on weekdays! So tourists bound for 6th Avenue who don't read the signs
carefully (and realize that they have to take the C and transfer to the
D) end up waiting and waiting and waiting for a train that won't come
until Monday morning. For this reason among others, I think that the D
should run local whenever the B isn't scheduled to run.

The bottom of the subway map
(http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/subwaymap.pdf) has a detailed service
guide that answers most questions for those who can be bothered to read
it. It still leaves some questions open -- for instance, regarding the
precise transition times for each service change (which, of course, vary
from line to line and even from station to station along the line).

But what I listed in my previous post wasn't the standard weekend
service pattern. It was modifications to the standard pattern for this
past weekend. You have similar changes in London, too (such as the one
I encountered in August going to the airport), but since our tracks
provide greater flexibility, our changes tend to be more confusing. And
they indeed generate a /lot/ of confusion. Although conductors
generally make announcements, they don't always know the best
alternative routes, and the stations themselves are severely
understaffed to handle all of the people with questions. Signage of
service changes also tends to be very poor.

I'm not sure what the alternative is, though. Even if the system were
shut down at night, as in London, it's a lot easier (i.e., cheaper) to
do some sorts of work over a 55-hour weekend shutdown period. And most
of the work really needs to be done, although some items are arguable
(for instance, replacing the South Ferry loop with a stub terminal that
will have substantially lower turning capacity).
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY, USA