London grinds to a halt as Night Tube fails to launch
There was chaos across the capital last night as London's long awaited Night Tube failed to materialise.
Thousands of clubbers and late night partygoers were left stranded on the streets, while London's army of cleaners failed to turn up for work. In Soho queues for taxis stretched round the block, while millions of pounds are estimated to have been lost from the night time economy.
The Night Tube was supposed to be a boost to London's global reputation as a party capital, and a necessary lifeline to hundreds of ailing businesses. Instead the scenes of mass panic and gridlock shared around the world on social media have been an embarrassment that has shamed us all.
When the Mayor announced the launch date for the Night Tube last September, many of us circled September 12th 2015 on our calendars in red pen. Social plans were made, hotel rooms quickly sold out, and several wedding venues were fully booked. But last night on the war-torn streets of London, Boris's firm pledge proved nothing but a hollow sham.
"It was ghastly," said mother-of-two Olivia Declerque, 31, from Clapham. "My husband and I were all ready to stay out for an extra half hour after martinis in town, we'd even rung the au pair to warn her, but with the Northern line running down after midnight we didn't dare risk it."
The blame for the Night Tube's collapse is being laid firmly at the feet of greedy tube drivers. Unions insisted that their members be paid extra for more holidays and a weekend lie-in, while hard working Londoners stood flailing in despair at the gates of locked stations.
"It's just another nail in the coffin for London's night time economy," said Simon Pusey, boss of new start-up delivery app Nightbanquet. "London's inability to provide services past midnight is massively holding back the capital, and its reputation for being cosmopolitan, diverse and vibrant is being challenged. Also, we might now go bust."
Some of the ugliest scenes were in Piccadilly Circus where hordes of revellers gathered after failing to find any means of escape. Cycle hire docking stations were quickly emptied, and 4G coverage collapsed across large parts of the West End as thousands of people attempted to dowload the Uber app in sheer desperation.
"We took on extra staff to help us prepare for the Night Tube boost," said Martin Hamilton, manager of a nightclub in Neasden. "But nobody came. Now I fear that when the Night Tube does finally start up, whenever that might be, we may not still be in business to see it."
The leader of Redbridge council, whose residents stood to gain most from the new services, urged Tube bosses to pull their fingers out. "They had a full year to sort this," she said, "but TfL's inability to organise a few rosters in advance has given drivers the upper hand. We need firm decisive negotiations and we need them now."
In Hounslow there were reports of office cleaners wandering the streets unable to make their way into central London. In Tooting bars and restaurants closed early to prevent punters from having to fight for taxis home. And at Paddington there were riots when travellers discovered that none of the four underground lines through the station were ever planned to be part of the Night Tube operation anyway.
Passengers in Bexley expressed sympathy for all those caught up in the pandemonium. "I don't see what all the fuss is about," said hospital porter Azmol Khan, 27, stepping out of his Ford Focus. "We don't have the Underground out here, and what trains we do have always close down early. But even so, this sort of transport deprivation must be terrible if you've not grown up with it."
"We've had to scrap our entire marketing programme," said Ayesha Moran, PR manager for superfood berry drink Juiceboost. "We'd scheduled a major advertising campaign in September themed around overnight hydration on the go, it was so creative, but we've had to cancel the lot and pump all the money into alternative digital media instead."
In an official statement last month the Mayor announced that the Night Tube will now begin later in the autumn, although his last timed pledge didn't work out that well, so who's to say? Meanwhile sources close to the Mayor have suggested that the actual start date might in fact be next Easter, which is months away, once inoffensive fully-funded crew rosters have been painstakingly assembled.
As an emergency stopgap, hundreds of emergency vehicles have been requisitioned to provide what TfL are calling a Night Bus service. These red double deckers will ferry overnight travellers along prescribed routes around the capital at regular intervals, and will be much cheaper than trains, although they may run relatively slowly and are likely to stink of kebabs.
Similarly chaotic scenes are anticipated across London tonight, as the Underground's most essential upgrade again fails to materialise. It seems that Londoners will simply have to cope as best they can until Night Tube services can be introduced, or alternatively go to sleep between the hours of 1am and 5am and therefore suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.
Something very exciting happened in Bow yesterday. We got a supermarket.
It's not like there was nowhere to buy food before. The E3 postcode has a few minor supermarkets, plus a big Tesco over in the corner in Bromley-by-Bow. But the area around Roman Road has been appallingly served by decent sized food stores ever since Safeway (beside the library) closed about 10 years ago. The chain had been bought up by Morrisons, who promptly decided this store was surplus to their portfolio and shut it down. The building was demolished and the large adjacent car park lost, leaving local residents to make do with only small independent stores (or a long walk). What should have happened is that the site was promptly redeveloped and a new supermarket opened, but progress stalled due to planning issues and council shenanigans (morehere), and bugger all happened for years. Eventually a new grocery company stepped in, intent on delivering a newbuild store with stacks of apartments on top, and opening was definitely pencilled in for 2013, no 2014, no April 2015. And whereas residents moved into their flats some time back, only yesterday did the sliding doors on the ground floor finally swish open to the public. Shame it's a Tesco.
For reasons I've never fully understood, E3 has always felt like Tesco territory. The only big superstore in E3 (at Three Mills) is one of theirs, and when Bow Road got a crappy minimart under a hideous block of flats in 2009, that was a Tesco too. Venture up to Hackney and they have a big Tesco, while two small ones recently opened on the roads to Poplar and Stratford. I once dreamed of a Sainsbury to provide a bit of competition and variety, but when they did finally arrive it was a miserably-stocked 'Local' beside Bromley-by-Bow station. Asda? Isle of Dogs. Morrisons? Wrong side of Stratford. Lidl? More sort of Limehouse. Waitrose? Opposite ends of the DLR. And yes, I know those places I've mentioned aren't ridiculously far away by national standards, but when you want to go food shopping and don't have a car, you need somewhere within convenient toddling distance. [my E3 local supermarket map]
Tens of thousands of people between Bow Road and Victoria Park now have a large supermarket within convenient toddling distance. It lies just off Roman Road, which you might think was bad news for local traders who already have a tough enough time spinning out a living. Certainly the two pharmacies closest to the new Tesco may not be delighted to have cheaper toothpaste and lotions for sale across the road, and the Iceland in the former Woolworths may be concerned by a relatively upmarket bank of chiller cabinets moving into the area. But it's generally accepted that Roman Road has been suffering these past ten years without an anchor supermarket, as local residents have taken their credit cards elsewhere for lack of any major reason to visit. Fingers crossed that a proper Tesco encourages more to shop locally, especially the gentrified incomers, and that their spending money necessarily dribbles into cafes, bakeries, clothes shops, market stalls and everything nearby.
But blimey, don't the days of low-rise supermarkets seem a very long time ago. In common with almost every other supermarket shoehorned into inner London of late, this one sits at the bottom of a tall block of flats, this rising up to ten storeys. In fact this is more an apartment cluster, additionally covering the previous car park, and with ground floor flats along one edge of the site. Whilst not excessively tall - there's a much higher council block close by - the area definitely now feels more congestedly overlooked than before. Modern retail development clearly understands the simple rule 'floor space multiplied by height equals profit'. Development money has paid for a small linear playground in one corner, and also a rather enjoyable series of plinths wiggling along the alleyway depicting starmaps throughout the year. I tried to make sense of the indentations for the autumn equinox but failed, because a) it wasn't dark b) it never gets dark in inner London c) even if it did get dark the flats above Tesco block out most of the sky.
I popped round on Day One to enjoy the Bow Has An Actual Supermarket experience for myself. I don't know if I was expecting anything special, and maybe there was around opening time, but by early evening the only sign of novelty was an arch of balloons in the window and a positively beaming security guard by the front door. Not much was happening at the kiosk, but the aisles were fairly busy from the fruit and vegetables onwards. And so many aisles! Not a lot by superstore standards, probably only about ten, but for downsized Bow a revelation. From frozen foods to baby and bath, with dairy and World Foods inbetween, there was actually a decent choice for once. Mini versions of major supermarkets tend to serve up very limited options, usually aimed at snacking and reheating rather than cooking, but this Metro could fill up your larder and fridge rather more creatively. All those kinds of mince, and fresh bread, and all the ingredients you need for baking... a tipping point had been crossed.
It being Day One a number of senior staff were wandering around pointing at things. The chiller cabinets looked the part, apparently, but the light bulbs weren't as neat as they should have been (which is what happens when you allow customers into a pristine store). They also nodded favourably at presentation along the racks of compact discs, which must be the first time popular music has been sold legitimately on Roman Road since Woolworths closed. I spotted one junior member of staff wearing an "I'm new on this team" badge, which was odd, because by rights I'd have thought everyone should have been wearing one. Customers didn't quite know where to find things, for obvious reasons, and one resident spent ages hunting for fillet steak. He'd hunted in vain, as a nearby member of staff confirmed, but she went on to offer to order some in for him, which is not generally what happens in my local Co-Op.
Good news, even in 2015 new supermarkets still have proper tills. Even better, while the drones shuffled through self service I walked straight up to a queueless staffed checkout where I was served and packed in one pleasant minute. Polite and smiley while half your stuff goes into bags before you've even finished loading the conveyor, that's my kind of service. The store does do click and collect for those of you modern types who insist on shopping online, and there's even a free car park in a gloomy concrete cavern out back, which is novel on Roman Road of late. The store feels rather sterile, and I'd still rather it wasn't another Tesco, and not everyone is pleased to see it here. But I spotted a Tower Hamlets market official wandering out with four packed plastic bags, no doubt equally pleased by the sudden explosion of choice, so I think Bow's got a winner.
At the request of a couple of readers, and in an attempt to help people with small screens view this blog, I've added a single line of code to my template.
Please add your voice to the appropriate comments thread. (and, if there's a change, tell us what kind of device/browser/whatever you're viewing on)
If it's mostly a's and b's I'll leave the code in.
If it's mostly a's and c's I'll take it out.
I can't see any difference, apart from a slight jolt on my mobile as the text settles in size.
Friday update: EXPERIMENT ENDS.
With the results showing 50% unchanged, 20% better and 30% worse, I conclude that more people have been disadvantaged than advantaged. And that means the extra code is coming out. My apologies if this means an end to 24 hours of temporary layout bliss. Please do not continue to vote, because your vote is now meaningless, because my template is back to normal. Still, it was worth a try.
As Queen Elizabeth overtakes her great-great grandmother to become the UK's longest reigning monarch, I thought I'd head to the other end of the scale and investigate her uncle instead. EdwardVIII was king for only 326 days, the shortest reign of any monarch since Lady Jane Grey, not even long enough to make it onto our coinage. But he did get to appear on our pillar boxes, 161 of them all told, scattered the length and breadth of the country. And a fair proportion of that total are in London, which means you might well be able to track one down.
My research suggests that there are about two dozen Edward VIII pillar boxes in the capital. I've based this information in part on an excellent (but out-of-date) webpage listing reputed locations nationwide, but more importantly on a Flickr group which contains hundreds of photos of individual boxes. Many appear more than once, and all have geotags which might or might not be accurate, and therefore all require some verification. So this map I've put together comes with a huge pinch of salt, and will not be pinpoint accurate, and might include boxes that have been removed or perhaps never even existed. Indeed the only central London location I thought I'd discovered, which was in Lincoln's Inn Fields, turned out to have a EIIR box and nothing more (unless I was looking in the wrong place, that is).
I considered attempting to track all the boxes down, and make a proper feature of it, but there are too many of them too well spread in too unexciting corners of the capital. Visiting five took long enough, so I really don't fancy ticking off the complete list from Hadley Wood to Woodmansterne and Twickenham to Foots Cray. Some apparent clusters exist in northwest and southeast London, notably around Beckenham, Bellingham and Bromley, which were presumably growing fast in 1936 and in need of a new local box. But instead I headed east to locate one box each in Tower Hamlets, Newham and Redbridge, and two in Barking and Dagenham.
The Highway, Wapping E1[map][2 photos] The closest Edward VIII pillar box to central London is in Wapping on The Highway, the main road east from the Tower of London (which eventually becomes the Limehouse Link). It's a historic road, as signalled by the glories of St George-in-the-East (one of the capital's six Hawksmoor churches), but more typically characterised by modern development. The site we're looking for is opposite the Texaco garage, close to the top of Artichoke Hill, a brief steep descent to the edge of Tobacco Dock. Several former brick warehouses hereabouts have been transformed into desirable apartments, while others have been knocked down and replaced by more basic flats... a fate about to befall News International's former Wapping HQ. Eddie's postbox is up on the main road, outside a building that looks like it might once have been a sub post office, but is now a Domino's Pizza. Attempting to take photos of the pillar box results in querulous stares from staff inside the building, particularly if you hang around, perhaps wondering when you're coming inside for your £4.99 Lunchtime Special. As well as a rare kingly logo, the box also supports a fully labelled 50p Book of Stamps dispenser, which I'm sorry to report is Out of Use.
The Grove, Stratford E15[map][2 photos] Two things make this box stand out. First it's somewhere busy, located in a busy shopping street just off the Stratford one-way system. None of the shops up The Grove are big names, this is more a Chinese takeaway, nailbar and recruitment office type of street, but many people browse and stroll this way on their way towards Maryland station. And secondly someone's painted it gold. Not the entire box, although Stratford does have a gilt memorial to the 2012 Games outside the main Post Office on the Broadway. In this case only the royal crest is gold, helping this exceptionally rare specimen to stand out, although unfortunately some of the paint on the R has chipped off. When I turned up to take a photo some local shopkeeper had dumped a bag of rubbish directly in front of the base, which somewhat diminished the upmarket effect, but at least they hadn't filled it so much that the key logo was obscured.
The Green, Wanstead E11[map][2 photos] Can it be a coincidence that all three Edward VIII pillar boxes thus far have been located on streets starting with the word "The"? Well yes it can, but here we are on The Green at the heart of villagey Wanstead. The grassy expanse in question is George Green, which may look serene but is in fact a rural illusion concealing the A12 trunk road underneath. A cut and cover tunnel was driven through in the 1990s, one particular sweet chestnut tree the focus of major civil protest, and the green relaid as a rootless lid over the top. The pillar box stands by the main crossroads, opposite the George pub, and almost adjacent to a telephone box if you're ever looking for a double red icon photo location. More to the point it's almost immediately outside the front of Wanstead station, making this one of the very easiest Edward VIII pillar boxes to visit. If you've never seen one in the flesh before, take the Central line to Zone 4, sorted.
North Street, Barking IG11[map][2 photos] I suspect most residents of Barking have never noticed they have a rare pillar box in their town centre. I use the term 'centre' somewhat loosely, although it's not far out, indeed located only a few yards off the ring road. North Street used to be a major thoroughfare, shadowing the River Roding past historic Barking Abbey, but now peters out in a mundane housing estate blocked off by the railway. Local MP Margaret Hodge's constituency HQ is very close by, as is The Jolly Fisherman, a pleasantly ordinary tavern where white van men sup ale, play darts and watch Sky Sports. I'd guess the pub's one of only three buildings hereabouts which would have existed in 1936 when the pillar box was installed, the remainder having long been bombed or demolished out of existence and replaced by council flats. It's not the best maintained box either, beset by peeling paint and with the hint of rust at the heart of Edward's R, beside a patch of trellised lawn and a lonely bus stop.
Ripple Road, Barking IG11[map][2 photos] Yes, Barking has two Edward VIII pillar boxes, although this one's over a mile distant from the previous, on the main road heading out towards Dagenham. Most of Ripple Road is lined by commercial premises, but here near Upney the surroundings are more residential with some of the borough's trademark interwar housing abutting the street. The large ex council house on the corner of Blake Avenue has a weathered wooden fence and a caravan in the garden, but also a pristine hedge, which the owner was busy pruning when I turned up. This made it extremely difficult to walk up to the pillar box beneath his hedgetrimmers without looking like a complete stalker, but thankfully a neighbour turned up for a chat at the garden gate and I was able to sneak my shot. In the most innocuous of locations, where you'd never think to look, an abdicated monarch's brief legacy lives on.
I don't intend to seek out the other 20-ish Edward VIII pillar boxes I think our capital contains. But if you live near one of the markers on my map I'd be obliged if you could tell me whether the box really exists, and whether I've got the location right. It'd be great to have a definitive, verified list... a tribute our current monarch, by means of her longevity, will never enjoy.
Update: Thanks for your confirmations! On the map, red pins now show confirmed boxes, and maroon pins are yet to be checked.
When I started blogging, 13 years ago today, my blog looked like this.
Actually it didn't, it was green, but my template hasn't changed a great deal other than a switch to silver. It's still a low-fi Blogger template circa 2002, with a bank of freeflow text to the left and a 200 pixel sidebar to the right. I've never tried to force what I've written into a particular width, preferring for my words to fill whatever space you've got instead. Think of it as an early accidental example of responsive design.
By six years ago, things had changed a bit... not just the blog itself, but also the manner in which you read it. Back in 2002 the most common screen resolution had been 800×600, but by 2009 screen widths had leapt up and were well into four figures. I've scaled this second image down, but see how much more you could read in one go, with wider lines across the page and deeper paragraphs down the screen. Some readers didn't like this approach, as lines of text on some computers got so wide they were hard to scan, but I've always preferred reading more rather than less.
Nowadays it's all change as screens proliferate in a wide variety of sizes. Those attached to desktop computers tend to be large, even massive, which means my wordier posts must now flood your screen. What's shown above is how my blog appears on my laptop today, which is considerably broader than it is tall, making the paragraphs wider still. That's one reason I recently decided to display photos larger than they used to be before - see how much bigger 2015's Herne Bay statue is compared to 2009's red London bus. But not all of you are viewing my blog this way.
On a smartphone my blog looks very different. Its screen is narrow rather than wide, which is the complete opposite to the way larger computers have been evolving. My smartphone copes with my blog by shrinking down the page, meaning I have to zoom in to have any hope of being able to read anything (or I can simply turn the screen around the other way). But my current template's not ideal, indeed Google decrees it positively mobile-unfriendly, adaptable for one form of modern screen but not the other.
Even though I don't provide a mobile template, my smartphone allows me to select one anyway. As you can see the stripped-down site looks very raw, and such is the emphasis on large readable text that sometimes only three words fit on one line. I think it looks bloody stupid, but needs must, and if this format helps you to keep in touch with what I write then great. But the end result is that my blog has become little more than a string of text with pictures, and I have very little say over how you choose to see it.
My blog at least has some flexibility over how it's viewed, but many modern websites no longer offer you a choice, they make it for you. For example the BBC website was recently updated to a responsive design, in which the template checks to see what kind of screen you're viewing on and then serves up a layout to suit. I often see this coding revealed when I switch to a new news article, as a slimmed-down mobile-friendly design briefly appears before the layout reorganises itself to show me more. But alas not much more.
This is how a typical BBC News story appears on my laptop. I can always see the headline and about three-quarters of a photo, but never anything of the actual story without scrolling down. In this particular case I have to scroll down four times before I can read the entire article, because the text and photos are so relatively large, and because the wasted space alongside is so relatively wide. Auntie's coding boffins think they're delivering me an optimal experience, whereas in fact I could have read far more in one go if things were still presented as they were several years ago.
And it's not just the BBC, almost everybody's doing it these days. White space, large text, big images and chunky buttons - all of these are the modern way to present a website. That's ideal for smartphones and tablets, where clarity is required, fingers are inexact and scrolling down is expected. But those of us with big screens are being increasingly sidelined, as designers prioritise "smartphone portrait" over "laptop landscape", which isn't truly responsive design at all. If I'm still blogging in 13 years time, or even just five, I wonder whether you'll still be able to read what I've written.
When all of TfL's ticket offices have gone, Visitor Centres will remain. There are (or will soon be) eight of them, mostly at airports and major London rail termini, each aimed at making sure visitors to the capital have the right tickets to see them on their way. Ostensibly that's Oyster cards, but these establishments go way beyond the usual tube station brief and also flog tickets to other services and attractions.
• Planning your visit to London and any onward journeys
• Choosing and buying the right travel ticket
• Buying tickets for top London attractions, theatre shows and the London Transport Museum
• Information and booking Heathrow and Gatwick Express and Southern train services between central London and airports
• Booking and advice on rail and coach tours in Britain and Paris
• Advice on accessibility
They're not really aimed at you and me, indeed TfL would rather we went to a ticket machine or newsagent, or simply moved over to contactless cards. But by the end of the year they will be the only counters to offer a TfL ticketing service from a TfL member of staff, so maybe you'll be visiting one sooner or later.
Visitor Centres are an important part of London's visitor experience, providing an official welcome and dedicated service to those unfamiliar with the capital. The Visitor Centre's distinctive design will offer a modern retail feel in a well-lit, welcoming environment.
I thought I'd roadtest three Visitor Centres to see what they're like and to find out what sort of travel advice they give. I visited on Saturday morning, a busy time in the capital for tourists, and used the same spiel each time. First I said I was in London over the weekend and asked if they had any "maps and stuff" to help me out. Then I said I needed to get from Bloomsbury to Heathrow on Monday, and asked for the best way to get there. I had three very different experiences.
Liverpool Street
This is one of the old Travel Information Centres, but has been given a modern spruce up with 2012-magenta branding. It's located on a raised area above the main ticket hall, easily accessible from the mainline station. The existing ticket office hasn't yet closed, so there were queues for that, and queues for the machines, and queues for the Visitor Centre, but none of the queues were anything too terrible while I was there. A small display rack outside the Visitor Centre included a perspex central London tube map and an abundant supply of a very small number of leaflets, plus lots of free branded Oyster wallets reminding you to carry a bottle of Evian water when travelling. The biggest upgrade is an advertising screen to the left of the windows on which promos for expensive attractions such as Madame Tussauds, the Shard, London Zoo and the Shrek 4D Adventure play out, and you can pick up the relevant leaflets underneath. I looked in vain at all three TfL Visitor Centres for any mention of any attraction with free admission, and could only conclude that they must be on commission.
Do you have any maps and stuff to help me get around?
Four pieces of paperwork were whipped out from a drawer or rack beneath the counter. First I was given a copy of the tube map, as you'd expect. To that was added the Xperience London Tourist Map - not a TfL production but a commercial enterprise whose cartography prominently highlights the location of the advertisers. A true Londoner would throw it away, whereas tourists are likely to see the selection of bus trips, restaurants, walks and museums as somehow approved. Next I received a copy of the London Planner, Visit London's generally excellent monthly guide to what's on in the capital, except I was given the August edition in which the Mayor recommended a visit to the Notting Hill Carnival and the events pages detailed things I'd already missed. And finally the bloke behind the counter reached for a purple voucher which entitled me to £10 off entry at Ripley's Believe It or Not, then got out a biro and wrote his personal identification number in the corner. Ripley's appears to be the promotion of choice at TfL's Visitor Centres at the moment, and at £26.95 a ticket I guess would-be patrons need all the incentive they can get.
How do I get to Heathrow from Bloomsbury?
That's near Holborn isn't it? You'll want the Piccadilly line, then. Thanks.
King's Cross
This is a new Visitor Centre, open for a few months now, located at the top of the steps by the southern entrance to St Pancras. As such it's easily found by Eurostar travellers, but rather a trek for anyone coming into King's Cross. All the ticket offices here closed a while back, and I had wondered what would happen to the mammoth queues that used to snake out into the hall. The answer appears to be that they've gone away, not because demand has died down but because there are now 21 ticket machines by the H&C entrance and substantially more elsewhere. On Saturday this meant that the queue for the Visitor Centre was fairly short, probably three or four minutes, as I waited for one of the half dozen serving positions to become vacant. A member of staff with a tablet hung around by the entrance armed with a tablet and a couple of maps, fielding simple queries and telling anybody in need of an Oyster that yes they really did have to join the queue. Meanwhile a selection of TfL goodies were for sale to one side, including mouse mats, mugs, magnets, models and other things not beginning with M, not that anyone was biting.
Do you have any maps and stuff to help me get around?
A lesser haul of freebies emerged this time. I didn't receive a tube map. I did get another Xperience London Tourist Map, which includes a tube map but smaller than usual, and even though it's the latest edition the map is out-of-date (circa December 2014). And I was also given a copy of TfL's Central London bus map, the proper one this time, and resolutely unsponsored. It's a fine piece of work, with tube lines and over 100 places of interest marked, all the way from Portobello Road Market to Haggerston City Farm. Indeed it's precisely what I'd want if I were a visitor to the city, although I suspect it's over-complicated for some (a simplified bus map with two dozen services appears in most tourist publications).
How do I get to Heathrow from Bloomsbury?
That's near Russell Square isn't it? You'll want the Piccadilly line, then, thanks. As I turned to go, the bloke behind the counter called after me to check if I had enough money on my Oyster card. I said I did, and he suggested I checked just in case, which made me wonder if he had top-up targets to meet. But he was faultlessly polite throughout, and wished me a nice day, and off I went past the giant Dangleway advert to the exit.
Euston
And this was hell. The ticket offices at Euston have only just closed, and the downstairs ticket hall was a seething mass of passive irritation. I estimated 100 people in the queue, cajoled out of the way of passing passengers by members of staff, impatiently waiting to use not enough ticket machines. A small sign suggested would-be purchasers divert to the newsagents in the subway instead, while a massive sign urged use of contactless cards at the barrier, but still they queued. Maybe it'll be better here when 'modernisation' works are complete, just as King's Cross is relatively calm now it has umpteen more machines. In the meantime, yet another sign upstairs on the concourse proposes that "queues and crowds" can be avoided by going to the Visitor Centre on the ground floor instead.
The queue at the Visitor Centre was 30 people long, which was at least five times worse than anywhere else I'd been. The space is very new and not exactly large, in this case with just four counters (one of which wasn't operational). And so we waited outside the entrance, and round the corner, and past the end of the rope, whilst all the tourists ahead of us were served. Behind me stood three ladies from the North, not exactly delighted that their day out in London was kicking off with a lengthy wait. They wanted three Travelcards, and were grumbling about how the price had shot up, and quickly decided they should have applied for a ticket in the post before leaving home. Shrek and Shard videos played out on the big screen inside where only those at the front of the queue could see, while the TfL merchandising rack was sealed off by the line of people, inaccessible and ignored. It took almost 15 minutes to be served, in which time I reckon I could have walked to St Pancras and been served there instead.
Do you have any maps and stuff to help me get around?
And after all that, I was given only a tube map and a bus map, and nothing touristy at all. I had no complaints, these were the best things to help me get around, but this TfL Customer Experience colleague had very much concentrated on "maps", while the bloke at Liverpool Street had very much concentrated on "stuff". If nothing else, their broad range of offerings convinced me that Visitor Centres don't appear to have a set agenda to flog tickets. Indeed what almost everybody else in the queue wanted, and paid for, and got, were topped-up Oyster cards. I wonder how many of them knew, or had ever been told, that these bits of plastic can now be dispensed by ticket machines?
How do I get to Heathrow from Bloomsbury?
I got a rather longer response this time. The lady explained that the Piccadilly line was direct but slow, and the Heathrow Express was partly-fast and expensive, and didn't push me towards the latter, indeed made it pretty obvious that it wasn't the way to go. So I was again reassured that Visitor Centres merely provide the opportunity for visitors to spend lots of money, rather than encouraging them to do so.
In conclusion, London's Visitor Centres aren't a replacement for ticket offices, they're aimed squarely at infrequent and first-time visitors to the capital. They dish out transport information and tourist stuff, the latter generally something they can flog you an expensive ticket for, if you're interested. But Oysters are the best selling product, because these cards initiate you into the system, and then you need never interact with a TfL employee again. Visitor Centre staff are helpful and polite, but also inconsistent in their approach rather than process driven, which I found reassuringly human. And if you do ever need to use one because there's nowhere else to go, I'd steer clear of Euston.
Herne Bay A week ago the Herne Bay Festival was in full swing, but now the seaside town is sliding into autumn. In cafes and chippies on the seafront hired staff wait patiently for custom that's failing to materialise, although Wetherspoons is humming, because target audience. A couple braving shorts sit on the steps of the clocktower eating fish and chips, while local teenagers make the most of out-of-season inactivity to skate on the prom. On what's left ofthe pier a glum temp wades around the empty boating pool, the helter skelter stands empty, and even the Psychic Clairvoyant has time to leave his hut for a vape. Meanwhile at the Rotary Club's Telly-Go-Round, small children hope to score the jackpot ball so that Thomas the Tank Engine will emerge with two Magic Roundabout characters on board, whoever they used to be.
Herne Bay For reasons unclear, the 1st Margate Boys' and Girls' Brigade Band has rolled up to regale the townspeople of Herne Bay. Unfortunately they've chosen to do this in a car park on the King's Road outside a children's indoor playground, and the ratio of participants to spectators is disappointingly slack. Smartly turned out, the youngsters face the bouncy castle by the entrance and bang out MOR gospel tunes, hands skipping deftly across the glockenspiels while batons twirl and bugles play. Almost a dozen people are watching, most likely close relatives, while a table of soft drinks and cakes goes unconsumed. They drove miles to be here and practised the drumstick moves specially last night, because that's collective dedication, but controlled disappointment radiates forth.
Herne Bay On Central Parade, Cain's Amusements still delivers a traditional gaming machine experience, and a cheap one too. The change machines swap your silvers for 2ps, perfect for the coin cascade where a Minions keyring or Rodney Trotter's driving licence might be yours. Even the slots are only 10p a play, but there is a catch, which is that any payouts are made in tickets. Three cherries wins 100 tickets, which fire from the machine in a seemingly never-ending sequence as if to suggest some kind of jackpot. Not so, as a trip to the prize booth reveals. 100 tickets gets you a tin of Happy Shopper new potatoes, with Spaghetti Hoops requiring 150 and Heinz Beanz 175. When a set of The Voice judges (circa Jessie J) costs 300 tickets, and a Kellogg's variety pack needs 500, anything even half decent is going to demand an entire afternoon of lucky gambling.
Swalecliffe The Coast Rescue landrover drives up the beach defence to where a small crowd has gathered. Nobody is in danger, there being precious few watersporters offshore this afternoon, and instead attention is focused on an inert bundle of fur. A solitary seal is sprawled out on the pebbles a few feet from the incoming waves, and being observed with silent concern. The unspoken consensus is that it must be either sick or dead, but it could just be tired, and still everyone watches. One of the local ice cream vendors cycles up in case anyone fancies a lolly, waits a minute, gives up and moves on. Eventually a twist of the head reveals that the seal is at least still alive, and will eventually be reclaimed by the rising tide, and an uncertain fate.
Whitstable It must have seemed like a good idea to host the wedding reception in a chocolate box cottage overlooking the sea at the end of the summer. Instead the north wind is whipping in, and a vague strip of blue sky remains stubbornly on the horizon, and only the bravest of guests remain under the awning on the terrace. Likewise the 50th birthday party on the beach looks somewhat ill-advised, the guests in blankets huddled between a breakwater and a gazebo tied with helium balloons, while someone dishes out hotdogs, cake and beer. At the harbour village the pearl lady has packed up and gone home early, while a white-coated worker at West Whelks dashes to the waterside to hurl a bowl of ice into the dock. Not to worry, the fish and chips at VC Jones are always excellent.
Faversham The annual Hop Festival is underway, this year its 25th anniversary. Thousands of revellers have filled the streets and beer gardens of Faversham to drink the pubs dry of Shepherd Neame, which is brewed locally, and to listen to folk-ish bands on temporary stages. Technically the event is to celebrate the heritage of hop-making, and in this case also ciders, stouts and pale ales, but no major Kent event is complete without morris dancers and a Jack in the Green. The keenest participants wear a crown of hops, their green headdress occasionally mistaken for brussels sprouts by those less well informed. Stick it in your diary for next year, if mass social CAMRA worship is your thing.
Bromley → (1967) → Bromley-by-Bow
Aldersgate & Barbican → (1968) → Barbican
Highams Park and Hale End → (1968) → Highams Park
Wood Street (Walthamstow) → (1968) → Wood Street
Hoe Street (Walthamstow) → (1968) → Walthamstow Central
Walthamstow → (1968) → Walthamstow Queens Road
Tottenham → (1968) → Tottenham Hale
West Ham (Manor Road) → (1969) → West Ham
Balham & Upper Tooting → (1969) → Balham
South Greenford Halt → (1969) → South Greenford
Castle Bar Park Halt → (1969) → Castle Bar Park
Drayton Green Halt → (1969) → Drayton Green
Gidea Park & Squirrels Heath → (1969) → Gidea Park
Harringay West → (1971) → Harringay
Wood Green (Alexandra Park) → (1971) → Wood Green → (1982) → Alexandra Palace
New Southgate and Friern Barnet → (1971) → New Southgate
Palmers Green and Southgate → (1971) → Palmers Green
Hanwell and Elthorne → (1974) → Hanwell
West Drayton and Yiewsley → (1974) → West Drayton
Charing Cross → (1974) → Charing Cross Embankment → (1976) → Embankment
West End Lane → (1975) → West Hampstead
Brent → (1976) → Brent Cross
Waterloo → (1977) → Waterloo East
Wembley Hill → (1978) → Wembley Complex → (1987) → Wembley Stadium
Strand/Trafalgar Square → (1979) → Charing Cross
Brentford Central → (1980) → Brentford
Queen's Road (Battersea) → (1980) → Queenstown Road (Battersea)
Black Horse Road → (1981) → Blackhorse Road
Stepney East → (1987) → Limehouse
West Hampstead Midland → (1988) → West Hampstead Thameslink
Clapham → (1989) → Clapham High Street
Surrey Docks → (1989) → Surrey Quays
Harringay Stadium → (1990) → Harringay East → (1991) → Harringay Green Lanes
Lower Edmonton → (1992) → Edmonton Green
St Pancras → (2007) → St Pancras International
Shepherds Bush → (2008) → Shepherds Bush Market
Smitham → (2011) → Coulsdon Town
The ticket office at Bromley-by-Bow station closed this week.
Monday was a normal day, inasmuch as any bank holiday is normal. But on Tuesday the ticket office didn't open, and never will again, as part of the rolling closure of every single TfL ticket office in London. Did anybody notice?
Bromley-by-Bow has long been at the vanguard of reduced ticket office opening hours. Back in September 2010, when the first round of massive cutbacks was announced, Bromley-by-Bow's ticket office had the greatest reduction of any station on the entire Underground network. On weekdays the opening hours were cut from thirteen to one and a half, on Saturdays from eight to one, and on Sundays from eleven to one. From 84 hours a week the total was cut to less than ten, as TfL made it clear they didn't think the ticket office had much of a future.
As it happens, Bromley-by-Bow's ticket office lasted five more years. During that time if you needed to buy a ticket and turned up in the morning peak you probably got personal assistance, while at the weekend you had to be lucky to hit the seemingly random single hour. At all other times of day you had to use the machines, of which there are two, and people did. The vast majority of the station's passengers are regular travellers, not lost tourists, so using the machines wasn't generally a problem. If a human touch was required there might have been someone in the ticket hall, or you could have visited a nearby station with better hours, or you could simply have coped with the self-service option. In this, Bromley-by-Bow was much like many other peripheral London stations, its ticket office being quietly run down through lack of use.
So this week's closure won't have been too much of a practical hardship. Most passengers won't even have noticed, given that the shutters have usually been down as they pass through, and still are. TfL even sent me an email to tell me how not very traumatic my experience would be.
Dear DG,
From 1 September, we will be carrying out improvement work at Bromley-by-Bow Tube station; this is part of our plans to modernise the Tube. As a result, we are making changes to the ticket hall and the ticket windows will be permanently closed.
I'm not expecting very big changes. If other stations are anything to go by, they'll slap an 'i' sign on the wall where the window used to be and add a tube map.
We are moving our staff into the ticket hall where they can assist you more effectively; the station will continue to be staffed between the first and last train times.
The provision of visible staff has been a very big part of TfL's war of words over ticket office closures. But have they delivered?
The station now has smarter ticket machines, offering guidance in 17 languages, making paying for travel easier; staff will be on hand to show you how much more these machines can do.
There's mention of the availability of staff again. Don't worry if the idea of machines worries you, goes the message, help will be at hand.
To pay for travel, you can now:
• Use the smarter ticket machines
• Use your contactless payment card. It’s the same fare as Oyster and no need to top up
• Buy tickets or top up your Oyster card online or at nearby Oyster Ticket Stops
Because it's all do-it-yourself now, isn't it? Most people already pay electronically, and contactless cards make life even easier. But if you do still need to buy a ticket with the human touch then there's an Oyster Ticket Stop within five minutes walk of the station, and a couple more within ten.
Work to the ticket hall and improvement to facilities is expected to continue for up to one month. The station will remain open during this period.
That last sentence always makes me laugh, every time TfL send me a 'modernisation update' email. Of course the station will remain open, because almost nothing of significance is changing.
And if you do visit the website, you find yet another promise regarding available staff. Specifically that "in future, all stations will be staffed from the first to last Tube. We are closing our ticket offices and moving our staff into ticket halls where they are more visible and can assist you more effectively." Well it isn't happening.
I've been through Bromley-by-Bow station four times in the last couple of days, and this is what I've seen.
5pm: A member of staff by the ticket gate, offering assistance to a passenger who wanted to talk about refunds. Great stuff. 7pm: Two members of staff chatting at the top of the stairs. 10pm: No visible member of staff, and the ticket gates open. 11pm: No visible member of staff, and the ticket gates open.
If Bromley-by-Bow station is supposed to be staffed until the last train, then either that's a lie, or the member of staff is hiding somewhere.
And this is nothing new. I regularly travel from Bromley-by-Bow in the evening when visiting BestMate, and I can assure you that the pattern hasn't changed for years. In the early evening the station is staffed, usually by someone sitting in the kiosk behind the gateline, but later on they vanish and the ticket gates are left wide open. Indeed if you fancy a free tube journey between Bromley-by-Bow and Plaistow after ten o'clock in the evening, I can pretty much guarantee that there'll be no staff at either end and both sets of gates will be wide open, every day, every week, without fail.
In terms of staff availability, the closure of Bromley-by-Bow's ticket office has changed nothing. The big plan to move staff into ticket halls is a hollow promise, here at least, because there's still no visible uniformed presence in the evening, just as there hasn't been for years. Indeed if you were ever to be mugged at this station late at night I've seen no evidence that any member of Underground staff would be around to notice.
As such, to be fair, Bromley-by-Bow is no worse than Bow Church DLR down the road. This isn't meant to be staffed, and isn't, nor have a ticket office, and doesn't, and passengers use the station perfectly fine. It's only TfL's insistence that their Underground modernisation programme means making staff "more visible" "from the first to last Tube" that grates, because it evidently isn't happening.
Closing this month: Bayswater, Buckhurst Hill, Bromley-by-Bow, Chalfont & Latimer, Chesham, Colindale, Colliers Woord, Croxley, Dagenham East, Dagenham Heathway, Edgware Road (both), Elephant & Castle (Bakerloo), Euston, Finsbury Park, Fulham Broadway, Gants Hill, Greenford, Hammersmith (H&C), Heathrow Terminal 5, High Barnet, Highgate, Hounslow East, Hyde Park Corner, Knightsbridge (west), Paddington (Bakerloo), Ruislip Manor, Victoria, Whitechapel
Sorry, I was trying not to write about Bow again so soon, but TfL clearly have it in for us. Our streets are filled with year-long roadworks, our roundabout kills people, and our buses don't run as smoothly as they should. Now TfL bosses have discovered a fix to make the 25 bus run faster, and they're putting out their plan to consultation. It's great news... unless you happen to live here. [consultation][map]
The plan is to divert the 25 bus over the Bow Flyover rather than sending it round the Bow Roundabout. This would mean missing out two stops eastbound (the two crosses on the map below) and missing out one stop westbound (immediately before the roundabout). Other buses would continue to run at ground level and serve the omitted stops, but they're less frequent and they don't go as far. But the 25 would sail past, creating a 1km gap in service, as London's busiest bus skips Stratford High Street West forever.
To be fair, this is what already happens. Back in March TfL suddenly decided to send route 25 over the flyover in both directions to make up for all the travel chaos that Cycle Superhighway upgrade work was causing elsewhere. A few wasted minutes in Whitechapel could be made up if the bus missed out some stops in Bow, and buses would run better to timetable, and the service would be more reliable. Managers communicated the change very badly, and have been shilly-shallying for months regarding when the diversion might end. In March they said it'd end in June. In June they said it'd end in August. It's now September and we discover they have no intention of ending it at all, and the diversion of the 25 is to be made permanent. Yeah thanks. [previous report]
The sole reason given in the consultation for the 25's diversion is the number of roadworks along the A11.
No matter how much your bus is slowed down elsewhere, goes the argument, we can catch up a few minutes by skipping the Bow Roundabout. But the Cycle Superhighway upgrade ends next spring, and the Aldgate Gyratory upgrade ends next autumn, so these aren't permanent changes at all. They might be reasons for diverting the 25 over the flyover for the next twelve months, but they're irrelevant to its route and timing beyond next year. All of which suggests that the true reason for the 25's permanent diversion is the other project in the list, the Bow Vision road scheme, which is a most interesting admission.
The Vision for Bow proposals are major aspirational plans to remodel the entire Bow Roundabout junction, as yet unplanned, unfunded and uncertain. Ultimately they might end with the removal of the flyover, a far distant dream which'd bring the 25 back down to earth with a bump. But as a stopgap measure there are more immediate plans to add seven pedestrian crossings to the roundabout, meeting a long-awaited need, with all roadworks completed by this time next year. Crucially TfL have admitted that the change will increase waiting times for traffic at the roundabout, including buses, and that's why the 25 is being sent permanently over the top.
Forget the roadworks smokescreen, the true reason for the 25's diversion is economics. If buses end up stuck in lengthier jams at the Bow Roundabout then this makes the service less reliable and less efficient, ultimately requiring more vehicles to maintain the same levels of service. Sending the 25 over the flyover means that however bad the traffic gets down there, drivers are not held up and the service can be run with a smaller fleet.
The 25's permanent diversion is excellent for passengers passing through, especially at peak times, because they won't end up wasting several minutes in queues. Given that the first eastbound stop is being closed permanently at Christmas (because it's incompatible with a Cycle Superhighway), technically the 25's only skipping the second stop anyway, so why waste time serving it? But the big losers are those who live between the roundabout and the Greenway, because they either face a long walk getting home or will have to wait for a less frequent, less useful bus. Admittedly that's precisely what they've done for the last six months, but now it's forever, because never mind.
There'll be far more winners than losers, sure, but there is a reason why the losers matter. The deliberate creation of a 1km gap between bus stops on the busiest bus route in London suggests that residents in that gap aren't important. And yet Stratford High Street is one of the busiest building sites in East London, with stratospheric towers erupting forth and vast acreages of post-industrial land about to become flats. In particular there's the Strand East development on the quadrant adjacent to the roundabout, bringing 1200 new homes to E15 by 2020. The 25 stops right outside, or rather it did, but won't again, because this is one of the bus stops being sacrificed. Strand East's future residents will be able to catch a direct bus to Stoke Newington, Hackney or Lewisham, but no longer to Whitechapel and the City, not without a walk. This is not how public transport provision is supposed to work.
If you might be affected by the 25's permanent diversion, make sure you submit a response to TfL's consultation by Friday 16th October. Tell them why you think skipping stops is a bad idea from a local's point of view, and how these plans disregard future growth in the immediate vicinity. TfL will then compile all the responses into a report, explaining why they're ignoring all the negative ones, and go ahead anyway, because this is how consultations work.
The eventual outcome will be great news if you ever ride the 25 straight through the area, because your journey will be permanently speeded up, plus there's a really nice view of the Olympic Stadium from the flyover. But some of us will regret the day the 25 became a partial express service, catering for everyone along its route apart from those in our local 1km gap. Bow's dysfunctional roundabout strikes again, and the 25 bus is its latest casualty, starting six months ago.
The creation of a Cycle Superhighway is a mighty complicated thing. The creators of the original CS2 overlooked this fact and painted a blue stripe down Bow Road, hoping this would do. Thankfully four years on their successors have thought far more carefully about what makes two-wheeled travel safe, and in particular how the street furniture needs to be reorganised to comply.
Bow Road ought to be an easy street to adapt. It's very wide, currently with two lanes of traffic in either direction all the way down. The pavements are unusually broad, often enough for an entire extra lane of traffic if required (and then some). There are few major road junctions between Mile End and the Bow Roundabout, hence not much traffic turning off or on. But the precise layout of the road isn't always simple to adapt, and the scheme's architects have had their work cut out, for several reasons.
Because trees. Trees it turns out are a problem because you can't just go chopping them down to make way for bikes. A few have proven dispensable, however, like the trio of young trees that used to stand outside Thames Magistrates Court near Bow Road station. Engineers decided there was no possible way to insert a bus stop bypass around them, so contractors nipped along in February and chopped them down while nobody was looking, months in advance of any actual construction work taking place.
But these deaths are very much the exceptions. TfL have been extremely careful to ensure that their upgrade plans involve the removal of as few trees as possible, and that's admirable because Bow Road has dozens. Indeed in many places the position of the segregated Cycle Superhighway path appears to have been defined solely by the existing line of trees along the kerb. Rather than cut down a tree, the cycle lane instead eats into what used to be the carriageway, making the road narrower than it was before. In some cases there'd be plenty of room behind the treeline for a cycle lane, but instead a massive width of pavement survives intact, because trees.
And because lampposts. Lampposts it turns out are a problem because you can't just go dismantling them to make way for bikes. Well actually you can, but it's expensive and very time-consuming, so increases the cost and complexity of the upgrade project considerably. The cables to which lampposts are connected generally run under the pavement just inside the kerbline, because that's where lampposts are erected. Change the kerbline and suddenly those cables aren't quite in the right place, and it's such a lot of extra faff. So wherever possible, as with trees, TfL have tried hard to locate the segregated cycle lane without having to move any streetlights.
The lampposts along Bow Road seem to get changed a lot. They've all been replaced at least twice in the last ten years, the most recent new set arising in April 2013. They proved a doddle to change because all you do is embed a new lamppost beside the old, above the cables, and connect the wiring. Shifting lampposts away from the kerb is not a doddle, but is sometimes unavoidable. For example by St Mary's church the bus stop bypass that's currently under construction embraces an existing lamppost, which must now be removed, a project whose timespan is measured in weeks rather than a handful of days. Trees may be sacrosanct but the costs of streetlight rearrangement are sometimes met, because lampposts.
And because pedestrians. Bow Road is a street that lots of pedestrians want to cross, which is why there are lots of pedestrian crossings along the street. But they aren't always located immediately nearby, hence large numbers of jaywalkers choose to cross at intermediate points along the street. In this they're helped by an intermittent central reservation, which allows people to nip across halfway when a suitable gap in the traffic appears... this gap usually created by a pedestrian crossing a few yards up the road. But a central reservation takes up valuable space that CS2 engineers now desperately need, not least because trees and lampposts have restricted outward expansion of the carriageway.
So the central reservations are being dug up to ensure there's still room for double lanes of traffic alongside new segregated cycleways. That's good news for everyone on wheels, but bad news for those on foot whose halfway muster points are being removed. In future what all well-behaved pedestrians should do is walk up the street to the nearest official crossing point, because that'll always be safe, but a significant proportion of Bow Roaders won't be bothered. They'll try to cross anyway, half the road at a time, except in future there'll no longer be a safe perch in the middle of the road on which to wait. Cycle Superhighway architecture is always optimised for perfect behaviour rather than reality, even if that ends up placing more people in danger, because pedestrians.
And because buses. Buses are a nightmare for cyclists to pass because they hug the kerb and frequently pull in and stop. TfL's 'bus stop bypass' design is an excellent solution for bikes, but less so for pedestrians who face another line of traffic between pavement and bus. The bypass island also takes up a large amount of space, certainly a lot more than a typical stop and shelter. The island also has to be gouged out of existing pavement, which doesn't work when that's narrow, or even of average width. It also has to extend the length of two or three buses, in case two or three buses turn up, so swallows up pavement that'll only be sporadically used.
For example at bus stop G (by St Mary's church) only half the pavement is staying as pavement. The remainder of the pavement (where passengers used to wait for a bus) is becoming a cycle lane. The first lane of traffic (where buses stopped) is becoming an island (where passengers will wait for a bus). The second lane of traffic is becoming the first lane of traffic (where buses will stop). And the third lane of traffic is becoming the second lane of traffic, narrowing the width of the carriageway by a third. The net result is that a stopped bus will now leave only one spare lane not two, slowing traffic approaching the roundabout and flyover, because buses.
And because cyclists. Several road junctions along CS2 are being remodelled to provide 100% safe passage for bicycles by keeping them well apart from turning traffic. This is an admirable intention, indeed might even be seen as the main reason for the entire upgrade project. The diggers are out at this week at the foot of Fairfield Road, for example, helping to create a junction that'll allow cyclists to turn safely in any direction rather than the restricted choice officially available at the current time. Traffic chaos this week will eventually be translated into a junction considerably more functional, but also more complex, than that which previously existed.
The creation of non-intersecting paths for cyclists is now deemed essential, but generally requires increased use of traffic lights, and in particular additional phases to feed bikes through. The price of safety is therefore to be paid in additional journey time, because over-engineered junctions always seem to expect participants to wait longer than before. They're also always set up for rush hour traffic, a worst case scenario, whereas if you turn up off-peak they often appear excessive. Hence the new lights on Cycle Superhighway 2 are likely to prove extremely tempting for cyclists to jump, because at times it'll look insane not to, because cyclists.
The creation of a Cycle Superhighway is a mighty complicated thing. TfL's planners have worked smartly within the constraints provided, but have also had to adopt a safety-first approach that sometimes trumps practicality. Many will rightly celebrate next spring when the CS2 upgrade is complete, but the end result can never be optimal for all road users, and there will be long-term losers as well as winners.
Yes, it's September already. Then next month the clocks go back, then it's Fireworks Night and before you know where you are Christmas will be rolling round again. Never fear, London always puts on a last flurry of events and activities and happenings before the nights draw in, and we're all invited. Here's my weekend by weekend guide to free September delights.
All month
» Totally Thames (Sep 1-30): There was a time, not so long ago, when the Mayor's Thames Festival filled the South Bank and lit up the sky for one weekend in September. No more. Now we get a whole month of events, many of them ticketed, kicking off this morning with The Big Thames Tidy on a slipway by the O2. If you fancy a Lost Rivers walk or a talk by an expert, prepare to stump up, but there are also plenty of splendid freebies if you explore the programme carefully.
Weekend 1: September 5/6
» Camberwell Bus Garage Open Day (Sat, 11-5): If you've ever fancied riding through a bus wash, get down. See also Willesden on Saturday 19th.
» The Riverside Festival (Sat, Sun, noon-7.00): This assemblage of stalls and family-friendly activities by City Hall is all that survives of the original Thames Festival. Don't expect fireworks.
» Angel Canal Festival (Sun, 11-5): Waterside gaiety beside City Road Lock. Expect the Mayor of Islington to arrive by narrowboat.
» Palmers Green Festival (Sun, 12-7): All the fun of music on the green, Salstricity and Britain's tallest mobile climbing wall (in Broomfield Park).
» Brentford Festival (Sun, from 12): Funfair, stalls and a dog show, plus visiting Routemaster, in Blondin Park W5.
Weekend 2: September 12/13
» Heritage Open Days (Thu-Sun): Hundreds of buildings that aren't usually open, are open. Most of them are outside London, but there are plenty open in Kingston (which is spending the weekend pretending it's in Surrey). (See also Berks, Bucks, Essex, Herts, Kent)
» St Katharine Docks Classic Boat Festival (Sat, Sun, 11.00-5.00): Annual gathering of small boats near Tower Bridge. Includes a visit by the The Barnet Hill Lifeboat Crew Shanty Singers.
» The Great River Race (Sat, 10.45-15.45): 300 craft engage in a spectacular paddle up the Thames from Docklands to Richmond.
» Hidden River Festival (Sat, 12-6.30): Now-annual music festival and family funday on the banks of the New River at Woodberry Down.
» Tour of Britain (Sun, 11.00-5.30): The final stage of this cross-country bike race is a lycra-tastic sprinty circuit heading in three directions out of Trafalgar Square. Ironically, Cycle Superhighway works mean that the route no longer follows the Embankment.
» Kings Place Festival (Fri-Sun): Head to King's Cross for 100+ performances of spoken word, comedy, dance, jazz and classical music. Here's a list of the free events.
Weekend 3: September 19/20
» Open House London (Sat, Sun): The grand-daddy of architectural festivals, with hundreds of weird and wonderful buildings throwing open their doors across the capital. Some of the really special events are fully booked, but you're not too late to sign up for this three-property raffle. Also, today's the day to grab a ticket to modernist Highpoint (now sold out), while the five Crossrail building sites go live at noon on Friday. There'll be tons to see over the weekend, in fact far too much to choose from. Be there, or regret it for the next 52 weeks.
» Great Gorilla Run (Sat, from 10.30): Dress up as a gorilla and run 7km to raise money for charity (or just come along and watch sweaty knackered apes).
» Bermondsey Street Festival (Sat, 11-7): A designery "village fête", plus dog show, plus food and stalls (with or without Zandra Rhodes).
» London Design Festival (continues until next weekend): Hundreds of design-er events will be taking place across the capital, based in seven on-trend clusters. Having struggled through the programme online, I think the V&A looks your best bet.
Weekend 4: September 26/27
» Thames Barrier Closure (Sun, 6.30-4.30): Annual all-day maintenance closure (peaking around high tide at 12:30pm). Last year's was blue-sky brilliant. Come and see water piled up on one side only... while it's only a practice.
» Autumn Ambles (Sat, Sun): Normally by now, Walk London have announced their late September programme of 40-ish free guided walks. This year, nothing yet. Maybe the funding's finally run out.
» Deptford X (from Friday 25): Wait a couple of weeks, and their website should then tell us what contemporary visual art to expect down SE8 way.
» There must be something else on this weekend, surely.
As Queen Elizabeth overtakes her great-great grandmother to become the UK's longest reigning monarch, I thought I'd head to the other end of the scale and investigate her uncle instead. Edward VIII was king for only 326 days, the shortest reign of any monarch since Lady Jane Grey, not even long enough to make it onto our coinage. But he did get to appear on our pillar boxes, 161 of them all told, scattered the length and breadth of the country. And a fair proportion of that total are in London, which means you might well be able to track one down.
ROUND TOWER
